Autoruns 64 Vs Autoruns 64a ((top))

Originally written by Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell, Autoruns was a 32-bit application designed for Windows NT/2000/XP. As Windows transitioned to 64-bit computing (x64), Sysinternals faced a challenge: .

Microsoft has implemented a clever in recent versions (post v14.0). The 32-bit executable detects the OS architecture and can spawn the appropriate 64-bit child process. However, this stub only works for x86 → x64, not for x64 → ARM64. autoruns 64 vs autoruns 64a

| System | Architecture | Test | Result | | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | | Dell XPS 13 (Intel i7) | x64 | autoruns64a.exe | Fails to launch (invalid architecture) | | Dell XPS 13 (Intel i7) | x64 | autoruns64.exe | Works perfectly. Detected 342 startup entries in 8 seconds. | | Surface Pro X (SQ2) | ARM64 | autoruns64.exe | Works via emulation. 323 entries in 22 seconds. (High CPU usage) | | Surface Pro X (SQ2) | ARM64 | autoruns64a.exe | Works natively. 323 entries in 4 seconds. (Low CPU usage) | | MacBook Pro M3 (Parallels Win11) | ARM64 VM | autoruns64a.exe | Works natively. Detected ARM64 hypervisor drivers correctly. | Originally written by Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell,