But in the downloads folder, two files stood side by side:
Autoruns 64 ( autoruns.exe ). It is the future-proof version, better optimized, and less likely to encounter redirection surprises.
Windows maintains separate registry views for 32-bit and 64-bit applications:
To solve this, Mark Russinovich (the creator of Sysinternals) compiled a of Autoruns. It’s called autoruns64a.exe .
Any entry present in the 32a output but missing from the 64 output is suspicious — especially in the Run , RunOnce , or ShellExecuteHooks keys.
Similar to the registry, WOW64 redirects file system access:
Instead of choosing one over the other, create a workflow: