Today we all have a 64-bit compatible computer, in addition to an operating system prepared to take advantage of this architecture. 32 bits are a thing of the past. However, as usually happens, dependencies have been created during its life that force developers, such as Microsoft, to continue supporting this architecture, even if it is a drag. And although you can’t officially remove support for it, there is a little trick with which we are going to be able to remove 32-bit support entirely from Windows 10 to work with only 64-bit.
WOW64, the responsible for running 32-bit programs
WOW64 is a component that is installed by default in all 64-bit versions of Windows. This component acts as an emulation layer through which 32-bit instructions are emulated on top of the 64-bit operating system.
For compatibility, this component must always be installed. However, we have to pay a price for having this compatibility, and that is that emulating the 32-bit architecture implies a loss of performance in the system and, in addition, opens the door to possible computer attacks.
This is not the only compatibility component that Windows has maintained for a long time. Older versions of the operating system included NTVDM, an emulation layer for running 16-bit programs (designed for DOS) on 32-bit systems.
NTVMD is still available in the 32-bit version of Windows 10, although 64-bit operating systems have already deprecated this feature.
Reasons to remove WOW64
At first, many may think that WOW64 offers a compatibility layer that we do not have to remove. And indeed it is so. The advantages provided by this component, especially when running old software, are very valuable.
But using this component also implies assuming a series of drawbacks that, although they are present among us and have always been overlooked, could actually be mitigated.
- WOW64 takes up a lot of space on your hard drive, in addition to consuming resources by loading the emulation layer into memory.
- The performance of emulated 32-bit programs is often less than that of native 64-bit programs. These programs are also often unstable.
- Most of the programs that we usually use are often prepared to work in 64 bits, so it is unnecessary to have 32 bits on our PC.
- Very old 32-bit programs often have security breaches (in themselves, or in their libraries or APIs) that can pose a security problem for the PC.
- Most of the computer viruses are compiled for 32 bits.
- Windows does not control the integrity of the wow64log library, which is injected into all 32-bit processes. If a malicious library is installed on our PC, we could be in serious danger.
- Antivirus programs have a difficult time inspecting the security of 32-bit applications when running within the 64-bit emulation layer.
Microsoft is working on different emulation layers (such as WSL, the Windows subsystem for Linux, Windows Sandbox, Hyper-V, etc.) that could perfectly replace the WOW64 emulation layer.
We recall that Apple, for example, no longer supports 32-bit programs from macOS Catalina. Also many Linux distros , like Ubuntu, are already working to end 32-bit compatibility systems towards a native 64-bit future.
Problems removing WOW64 from Windows 10
Of course, we must bear in mind that removing 32-bit compatibility unofficially in such a complex operating system can bring us problems.
In Windows 7, for example, we will not be able to enter the desktop customization options, the appwiz.cpl component (add or remove programs) will not work, nor will the default media player of the operating system.
With the development of Windows 10 , Microsoft has worked hard to reduce its dependencies with 32 bits. Most of the components of this operating system have already been updated to 64 bits. And older applications are gradually being ported to the universal UWP platform and OneCore.
Of course, some aspects that we must take into account are:
- Some gaming programs (like Steam and Origin, among others) have yet to make the leap to 64-bit. There are even many games that are designed to run in 32-bit, so if we disable this compatibility layer it will be impossible to use them.
- Some versions of Office 365 run on 32-bit. We must make sure to download a 64-bit compatible version.
- Some programs, like Chrome, although they are 64-bit are installed in the 32-bit program directory. An absurd failure but that Google has not bothered to correct.
- Some 64-bit programs use 32-bit installers, so it would be impossible to install them.
- Some internal updates of the operating system could fail due to not being able to load processes that, oddly enough, are still 32 bits.
Even Windows 10 still has some 32-bit programs, like the OneDrive client .
That said, we are going to explain how to disable Windows 10 32-bit compatibility very easily. We will also explain how to re-enable it in case of problems. But all under your responsibility.
Disable 32-bit support in Windows 10
Windows does not have a global switch that allows us to disable this compatibility layer. Not even through a PowerShell command or with changes to the registry we will be able to do this.
However, there is a repository on GitHub called “stfuWOW64” that allows us to block the 32-bit compatibility layer in Windows 10 in the easiest way possible and without breaking anything in the operating system: simply by replacing a library.
We must access this link and download the file ” wow64log.dll ” that appears in the repository to our computer. If we do not trust ourselves, we can access the “src” folder in the repository, download the code file in C, review it and compile it ourselves. Directly downloading the DLL will simply save us time.
Once this library is downloaded, we should simply copy it to the “System32” directory of the Windows folder on the hard drive. And ready.
We restart the computer and this new configuration will start to work. We can test it by running any 32-bit compiled program, such as Windows 10 Notepad itself that we will find in the SysWOW64 folder of the Windows directory (where the original 32-bit Microsoft programs are stored).
The program will not open directly. We will not see any error messages or anything like that.
Activate it again
The “wow64log.dll” file has been designed to allow us to lock the 32-bit compatibility layer without modifying any system file or any original Windows component. In this way, the probability of something going wrong is very small, and it is even very easy to reverse the changes.
If we want to reactivate the 32-bit layer of Windows 10, all we have to do is delete the library “wow64log.dll” that we copied to the System32 folder in the previous step.
After restarting the computer, the WOW64 32-bit Compatibility Layer will work as it always has.
