Any way to tell if a .dll file is 32 or 64-bit?

Cubase
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Is there anyway to determine if a plug-in’s .dll file is 32 or 64-bit outside of having Cubase try and load it and then blacklisting the 32-bit files? Tried the file’s Properties without luck.

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When I googled this nearly all the results were some variation of ‘Use our program SketchyApp to show if it is 32 or 64’ - didn’t feel comfortable doing that. Then I found this post about using a text editor, searching for “PE” and then looking a handful of characters later. If it is:
PE… L - then it is 32-bit
PE… d† - then it is 64-bit

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I’m also leery of random system utilities found on the web, but:

Sigcheck by Sysinternals (a Microsoft subsidiary) is something I wouldn’t hesitate to use (it can also check a few other things):

The thing to look for in that utility’s output is called “MachineType”. It returns 32-bit or 64-bit depending on what kind of dll it is.

You can even run it on a whole folder, and it will examine every .dll file in the folder.

Example output for a 32-bit dll:

c:\program files (x86)\common files\vst2\ValhallaSupermassive.dll:
        Verified:       Unsigned
        Link date:      21:30 2020-05-08
        Publisher:      n/a
        Company:        Valhalla DSP, LLC
        Description:    ValhallaSupermassive
        Product:        ValhallaSupermassive
        Prod version:   1.0.0
        File version:   1.0.0
        MachineType:    32-bit

Example Output for a 64-bit dll:

c:\program files\common files\vst2\Vinylizer.dll:
        Verified:       Unsigned
        Link date:      14:18 2018-09-08
        Publisher:      n/a
        Company:        Maizesoft
        Description:    Maize Sampler Player
        Product:        Maize Sampler Player
        Prod version:   2.5.4.0
        File version:   2.5.4.0
        MachineType:    64-bit

p.s. For finding very Microsoft Windows specific answers, I often use Bing as the search engine, since being a Microsoft product, it often gets better answers than Google for very Microsoft platform specific questions.

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Oddly I didn’t have any MS results in the search except for how to tell if the OS was 32 or 64. I was kind of expecting something like that from them.

That’s a great idea, makes perfect sense.

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Yep Google didn’t return that for me either, but Bing did.

I just added a last p.s. to my comment: Bing often gets better results than Google for Windows (or other MS technology) specific questions.

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Do you happen to recall the last version of Cubase that can run a 32-bit plug? Not looking to regularly use 32-bit or I’d consider JBridge. Just need to occasionally open an older Project. Old PC crashed & burned, but had back to C7.5 installed which is what I would have used. But the oldest version in the Download Assistant is C9.5 which I’m not sure of.

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According to this post, the last one was 8.5:

The download link in that post seems defunct, but this may still work:
https://o.steinberg.net/en/support/downloads/cubase_85.html

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Downloading 8.5 right now! Also found a copy of 7.5 on an old decommissioned hard-drive, which installed fine and surprisingly fast. But 8.5 has Render In Place. Actually the old drive has SX thru 7.5 - so I can install most Cubase eras with some gaps.

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Glad you found everything!

The only thing that I’m aware of with multiple versions of Cubase is a strange Windows file association problem that some people have bumped into after Cubase 11.10 - including me. That in turn led me to finally uninstall all my old Cubase versions before 10.0. Before that I had everything back to Cubase 5 still installed.

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Yeah, I had that problem too - think I needed to get rid of 10.0 & 10.5 but not older. Unlike back then I’m installing the older ones after installing 11, not years earlier like on the old PC.

I had been sitting on a bunch older Project that needed to have their VSTi’s rendered. Did I do that when I had a system all set up to do exactly that? No of course not - the procrastination is strong in this one. But then the PC died & I learned a lesson - so trying to get to a state where that rendering can happen.

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