2BrightSparks Help and Support

Files copied from System32 directory are not as expected when running on 64-bit versions of Windows

32-bit versions of SyncBack are fully compatible with 64-bit versions of Windows. However, 64-bit versions of Windows try to help 32-bit programs by silently redirecting all access to the %windir%\System32 folder to a different folder (%windir%\SysWOW64).

What does this mean? It means that if you are using a 64-bit version of Windows, and a profile is copying files from the %windir%\System32 folder then it will actually be copying the files from the %windir%\SysWOW64 folder.

There are two ways to resolve this:

• If you are using SyncBackPro/SE then configure your profile to instead copy all its files from the shadow volume: modify your profile, switch to Expert mode, go to the Copy/Delete -> Advanced settings page, and enable the option "Copy all files from the shadow volume".
  
  
• If you are using SyncBackFree, or don't wish to copy from the shadow volume, then you should configure your profile not to copy from the System32 folder, e.g. via filters or via the file & folder de/selection tree. Then create a new (separate) profile that copies only from the Sysnative folder as your Source (e.g. %windir%\Sysnative). This is your actual System32 folder, but because we are using a special alias, Windows does not redirect it to the SysWOW64 folder.
  
  Important: If you're using this option with SyncBackSE or SyncBackPro then you must also specifically disable copying from the shadow volume (go to the Copy/Delete -> Advanced settings page, and enable the option "Do not use the Volume Shadow Copy service (VSS) to copy open files"). This is because Windows does not support redirection in a shadow volume, so the Sysnative directory (alias) does not exist (work) in a shadow volume.

This issudoes not apply to 64-bit versions of SyncBackSE/Pro.