Dear Haskellers,

The setup:
Having a binary compiled on either x86 or x64 system (same installation, utilizing stack) in order to preserve compatibility against x64 systems. Actually, not to have 2 separate executable for each, that would be the overall goal. However it surprises me when running the x86 .exe utilizing Win32-2.5.4.1 package with ghc-8.0.2, reading out a registry key fails on x64 system with the following:

me.exe: RegOpenKey: invalid argument (The system cannot find the file specified.)

That would be fine, however the key does exists. When same code, same system, but the .exe built to be x64 it runs like a charm.

A couple of question, which some of them eventually will not make sense, but still:
- Can it be ghc code optimization issue?
- but this is a runtime check in IO, if so, how?
- Yes, I could use a built-in windows system command and parse the input of that; unless absolutely necessary I would not introduce another dependency (system package). Would love to solve it with the currently utilized weapons.
- the issue just puzzles me... I would know the answer if possible.
- Is it more library (Win32), ghc, binary I generate, issue?

What library can I use to detect a system's architecture which works in this scenario?

Another thing which convoluted in the issue...
The function, getSystemInfo :: IO SYSTEM_INFO, can read out the underlying architecture. When compiled on x86 and run on x64 it would tell me: "I am running on x86". That's failure.

Most importantly: what is the obvious I am missing?

Thank you for your insights!
Best, Akos



Ps.: Would you/we need sample code to puzzle about I can quickly weld one. - not sure if necessary.