I’m sure it makes perfect sense to Windows folks

From this Microsoft Knowledge Base article, we have the following gem:

• The 32-bit version of the Odbcad32.exe file is located in the %systemdrive%\Windows\SysWoW64 folder.
• The 64-bit version of the Odbcad32.exe file is located in the %systemdrive%\Windows\System32 folder.

It seems the location of operating system programs was not changed when the OS became 64-bit native. So  OS binaries stil reside in System32, even though they are 64-bit binaries! SysWoW64 is short for Win32-on-Win64, and is the location of 32-bit binaries on a 64-bit version of Windows.

Why isn’t it like this?

• 32-bit binaries go in System32
• 64-bit binaries go in System64

I suppose that would be too logical.