%programfiles% in windows inconsistent

Seb Tur

Hi
I have created a .bat file for troubleshooting and found an interesting behavior, maybe somebody can explain why it works this way:

first line runs
echo "%programfiles%">path.txt

when I run the bat from a QProcess and check path.txt showing
"C:\Program Files (x86)"

when I run the bat by windows cmd i get path.txt showing
"C:\Program Files"

why is that?

Chris Kawa

why is that?

You haven't said what type of app you're running, but apparently it's a 32bit application, so Windows puts you in the 32bit environment and %programfiles% points to the 32bit program files directory, which is C:\Program Files (x86).

cmd is a 64bit app so it runs in 64bit environment and %programfiles% points to 64bit program files directory, which is C:\Program Files.

Note that if you'd run cmd from the C:\Windows\SysWOW64\ directory instead of the default one from C:\Windows\System32\ you'd get the 32bit version and %programfiles% would also point to C:\Program Files (x86).