Making 64-bit Vista SP1 Say It’s Vista SP1
Making a 64-bit copy of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 confirm that it is actually Vista SP1 might require a minimum amount of effort on behalf of the end user, such as right-clicking My Computer and selecting Properties, but things are a tad different when an application is programmed to identify the operating system versions or the service pack releases. According to Scott McArthur, Support Escalation engineer with the Setup & Cluster team, Microsoft Corporation Enterprise Support, application compatibility problems can emerge when a program will look for the service pack version in the wrong location in the registry. The example given involved an application designed especially for Vista SP1 failing to install on an x64 copy of Vista SP1.
“The application was checking for the OS version in a registry value, specifically: HKLM – SOFTWARE – Wow6432Node – Microsoft - Windows NT – CurrentVersion - CSDVersion. On the x64 version of Windows Vista Service Pack 1, however this value does not exist. The correct value does show up under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE – SOFTWARE – Microsoft - Windows NT – CurrentVersion - CSDVersion however. This highlights an inherent problem with relying on the registry method to capture this information. Read More»
