can't find system32\drivers\etc folder

Question

I'm probably missing something simple but if I search windows\system32\drivers with a blank name field it only shows a few files out of the hundreds in there and only 3 folders out of the about 30 that are there. I've checked my settings to make sure I wasn't filtering hidden files or something. The attribs option is off. And I've looked at the attribs of the files and folders that don't show and can't see any difference. Why doesn't it see them?

Answer 1

The problem is almost certainly that you have installed the 32-bit version of our program on a 64-bit system. When a 32-bit program runs on a 64-bit version of Windows all requests to the System32 folder are redirected to a special WOW64 folder. To fix the problem simply use the 64-bit version of the program.

---

More information

Microsoft describe the File System Redirector in much more detail here:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-gb/library/windows/desktop/aa384187(v=vs.85).aspx

Comments

Yes, that was it. It never occurred to me there would be any reason not to use 32-bit on any system regardless. Maybe speed but not functionality. I'd suggest when the 32-bit install is run on a 64-bit system a note: "This will work and find everything except where Windows redirects 32-bit software to see a different folder, like Program Files vs Program Files (x86) and System32 vs WOW64, etc."