64 Bit: The Final Frontier – Slides From my Presentation at PubForum

This is the fourth part of a mini-series on Windows x64, focusing on behind the scene changes in the operating system. In the last article I wrote about the changes to the x86 processor architecture that make x64 possible. But there is of course more to a new platform than just updated hardware.

When migrating to 64-bit Windows, traditional “unmanaged” applications can pose challenges. That is because unmanaged binaries contain hardware-dependent CPU instructions - and the view on the hardware differs between 32- and 64-bit mode. But .NET? It should be unaffected of a system’s bitness since “managed” binaries contain instructions in a so-called intermediate language that is executed in a virtual machine at run-time and only then translated to machine language. But is it really? This article is about .NET programs that are dependent on OS bitness.