Windows – where.exe Can’t Find OpenSSL Libs with %ProgramFiles% in PATH

32-bit64-bitenvironment-variablespathwindows

I installed both 32bit and 64bit version of OpenSSL libs on Vista x64. The 32bit version was installed in c:\Program Files (x86)\OpenSSL and the 64bit version was installed in c:\Program Files\OpenSSL. Then I added the entry %ProgramFiles%\OpenSSL to the PATH environment variable. %ProgramFiles%\OpenSSL is expanded to c:\Program Files (x86)\OpenSSL for 32bit programs and it's expanded to c:\Program Files\OpenSSL for 64bit programs. The idea is to have 32bit programs use 32bit version of OpenSSL libs and 64bit programs use 64bit version. I wanted to check if this works by running 32bit cmd.exe and issuing where ssleay32.dll and then by running 64bit cmd.exe and issuing the same. However in both cases I get the error INFO: Could not find files for the given pattern(s).
What's wrong?

This is a follow up to
Different PATH environment variable for 32bit and 64bit Windows – is it possible?

Best Answer

Put the 32bit .DLLs into the \Windows\SysWOW64 directory and the 64bit DLLs into the \Windows\system32 directory.

EDIT:

Maybe this helps:

This is just an intelligent guess, but following some investigation I believe I've found the problem:

If the definition of an environment variable var1 contains another environment variable var2 and the name of var1 is alphabetically less than the name of var2 (i.e. strcmp(var1, var2) < 0), then var2 won't get expanded. This seems to be because when Windows first sets up the environment variables, they are created in alphabetical order, so var2 does not exist until after var1 has already been created (and so the expansion can't be done).

I believe this is a limitation in Windows. Really some sort of dependency check between the variables should be carried out so that they are created in the correct order. Fortunately, there is a workaround.

1) Enable 'delayed variable expansion' in the registry (see http://batcheero.blogspot.com/2007/06/how-to-enabledelayedexpansion.html)

2) Change the '%' signs around var2 to '!', e.g. "%var2%" becomes "!var2!"

I've done some limited testing on Windows 7 and this appears to fix the problem.

It's from here: http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/vistainstall/thread/48b23109-9fbc-47c5-a5d1-465773f94704

Related Solutions

Windows – How to write the path of a 32 bit executable in the Windows’ Program Files folder regardless of the Windows version

You can always add %ProgramFiles(x86)% to the 32bit Windows platforms. You can use a simple command line to add it:

Set ProgramFiles(x86) = "C:\Program Files"

Then you have consistency across platforms.

Edit:

Since you told me what it is for, I would do something like this for your instructions:

1 - Change to the directory for the program. 

2 - open a command prompt 

3a - type "cd %programfiles(x86)%" 

3b - If  you receive the error "The system cannot find the path specified", 
     go to step 3c.  Otherwise go to 4. 

3c - type "cd %programfiles%" 

4 - Other stuff

Windows – Different PATH environment variable for 32bit and 64bit Windows – is it possible

Make %ProgramFiles% to %ProgramFiles(x86)% env variable switching to work for you:

Place folders with x32 and x64 versions of OpenSSL library into appropriate %programfiles% and %ProgramFiles(x86)% directories and in the PATH environment variable, use a reference to these folders via the %programfiles% variable.

This way, when you are running in x32-bit environment, your PATH entry %programfiles%/OpenSSL/ will automatically get resolved to %ProgramFiles(x86)%/OpenSSL/ on a disk.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Windows – How to write the path of a 32 bit executable in the Windows’ Program Files folder regardless of the Windows version

Windows – Different PATH environment variable for 32bit and 64bit Windows – is it possible

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