corflags

I am trying to run my .NET 3.5 WinForms application on a Win7 x64. The application uses NHibernate and the System.Data.OracleClient to access an Oracle database. The Oracle client is 32bit. When starting up the app I get the following error message Attempt to load Oracle client libraries threw BadImageFormatException. This problem will occur when running in 64 bit mode with the 32 bit Oracle client components installed. In response to that, I targetted my build to the x86 platform: To my surprise, the very same error message appeared when trying to execute that new build on the Win7 platform.

I guess my question is about the CLR Loader. I want to understand the mechanics behind CorFlags.exe /32BIT+ functionality. We know that when one starts an assembly compiled with the Any CPU flag set on 64-bit Windows, it starts as a 64-bit process. If one run CorFlags /32BIT+ on that assembly, it will start as a 32-bit process. I think this is a fascinating feature. I have so many questions about it: How is it implemented? Does the OS Loader get involved? Is possible to build a custom application (I guess an unmanaged one) that loads 32-bit or 64-bit CLR at a wish? Is there an article, book,

How do I interpret the CorFlags flags and how should I use it to determine if a .NET assembly was built for x86 or x64? Could it be the following? corflags MyAssembly.dll Cornel Marian Open the Visual Studio Command Prompt (In Windows: menu Start/Programs/Microsoft Visual Studio/Visual Studio Tools/Visual Studio 2010 Command Prompt) CD to the directory containing the DLL in question Run corflags like this: corflags MyAssembly.dll The output looks like this: Microsoft (R) .NET Framework CorFlags Conversion Tool. Version 4.0.30319.1 Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.