I've wondered this for a while. I personally think that System32 would make sense to be the 32 bit Windows OS. But when you have a 64 bit Windows OS, the file system is still called System32. Can anyone explain to me why this is and why Microsoft does it this way?
21 Answer
Backwards compatibility.
When Microsoft released the first 64 bit OS, the only 64 bit programs came with the OS. Since MS Office hadn't been updated, the OS needed to support the 32 bit programs. Since the installation of MS Office expected system files in \$Windows$\system32, the directory needed to remain.
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