MakeAppx Manifest xml settings for 32bit and 64bit app (ProcessorArchitecture)

Question

In my manifest xml file I have this setting, does it mean that only 64bit Windows10 installations do accept my package? My app is native 32bit, which setting is recommended to this field to make it work with both 32 and 64 bit os?

ProcessorArchitecture="x64"

Answer 1

Microsoft's documentation says to use processorArchitecture="ia64" for Windows 64-bit builds; however, they do not follow their own advice. Microsoft uses "amd64" for 64-bit builds of WordPad.exe and iexplore.exe (Internet Explorer 64-bit) according to the embedded app manifest of these EXEs on my Windows 10 computer.

Answer 2

This answer based on VS C++, but the context is basically the same for manifests.
Surprised to see that W10 X86 only installations actually exist, but they do, (or did), because, as the free W10 upgrade did not provide an option to change architectures, only a clean install would. However, from an old Tom's Hardware post:

All processors since the Opteron in 2003 and the intel Pentium 4 Prescott ( the latter editions ) has 64bit instruction set and will all run 64bit windows.

Thus as long a MSFT continues to support 32 bit architecture, X86 is the safer option, although X64 would probably still work.

processorArchitecture='*'

covers all bases as well.

Answer 3

I think if you set ProcessorArchitecture="x64" in your manifest xml file, the package just only was installed on the x64 Windows 10. But you can set ProcessorArchitecture="x86" in the manifest, because this x86 package can all work fine on x86 and x64 Windows 10.