Internet Explorer and 64-bit Windows

Just a quick note for this evening.

On 64-bit versions of Windows you actually end up with two versions of Internet Explorer as part of the “out of box” installation. You might be forgiven for thinking that you would be using the 64-bit version of Internet Explorer by default but that often won’t be the case.

In a nutshell:

  • “Internet Explorer” in the Start menu is 32-bit,
  • “Internet Explorer (64-bit) in the Start menu is 64-bit.

By default, any shortcuts in the Quick Launch toolbar in Windows XP or Vista or on the taskbar in Windows 7 will be for the 32-bit version of Internet Explorer only. If you want the 64-bit version you’ll need to add that manually and optionally delete the adjacent shortcut 32-bit version.

The only annoying thing is if you have shortcuts for both 32-bit and 64-bit side by side then it is hard to tell the difference simply by glancing at them!

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