You can determine if your version of Microsoft Windows is a 32-bit or 64-bit version of the operating system from a command line interface (CLI), i.e., a command prompt, using the Windows Management Instrumentation Command-line (WMIC) command
wmic os get OSArchitecture:
C:\>wmic os get OSArchitecture OSArchitecture 64-bit C:\>
You can also pipe the output of the syteminfo command into
either findstr or find to make the determination
whether you have a 32-bit or 64-bit version of the OS:
C:\>systeminfo | findstr /C:"System Type" System Type: x64-based PC C:\>systeminfo | find "System Type" System Type: x64-based PC
Note: the above commands were run on a Windows 10 system, but will work on earlier versions as well.
Also, if you have just a C:\Program Files directory, but
no C:\Program Files (x86) directory, then you likely have a
32-bit version whereas if you have both directories, then you likely have
a 64-bit version of Windows.
You can run either 32-bit or 64-bit applications on a 64-bit version of Windows, but you can only run 32-bit versions of applications on a 32-bit version of Windows. You can determine if an application is 32-bit or 64-bit using the steps noted at 32 or 64-bit Application.
