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        Windows reports AMD on Intel hardware

Section(s): Miscellaneous
Published on Jul 03, 2007.
Last Modified on Jul 03, 2007.
Last Modified by MitchTulloch.
Rated 1 out of 5 based on 1 votes.

How Windows reports 64-bit hardware.

So you buy a nice, new 64-bit Intel EM64T box and you install Windows Server 2003 64-bit Enterprise Edition on it. Then you happen to be browsing the registry and find PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE under HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment and notice that it has the value AMD64 instead of EM64T. What’s going on?

Well, it turns out (for somewhat mysterious reasons) that *all* 64-bit hardware on which you install Windows Server 2003 displays AMD64 as the processor architecture, regardless of whether it’s x86-64, x64, AMD64, EM64T or whatever. So don’t get confused and think that Intel has suddenly been acquired by AMD!

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Mitch Tulloch was lead author for the Windows Vista Resource Kit from Microsoft Press, which is THE book for IT pros who want to deploy, maintain and support Windows Vista in mid- and large-sized network environments. For more information see www.mtit.com.

About MitchTulloch

Mitch Tulloch was lead author for the Windows Vista Resource Kit from Microsoft Press, which is the book for IT pros who want to deploy, maintain and support Windows Vista in mid- and large-sized network environments. Mitch was also the author of Introducing Windows Server 2008 and technical project lead for the Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 Resource Kit, both books also from Microsoft Press. For more information on these and other books by Mitch, see www.mtit.com .