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Getting BadImageFormatException in 64-bit Windows?
17 January 2008 in .NET in general & Code-ing | Comments enabled

Have you been running/developing .NET programs in 64-bit Windows and met the BadImageFormatException? Well, Microsoft might say: “The exception that is thrown when the file image of a DLL or an executable program is invalid.” Which says absolutely nothing…

However, if it happens when using Platform Invove (P/Invoke or DllImport) or a third .NET party library (DLL) then you might have to set the project’s properties (or compilation flags) from “any” platform target to “x86″. Also, remember to set change to x86 in both the debug and release build configurations while you are at it, otherwise it might seem to only work when you are debugging and not in release compilation.

(This happened to me when I used a .NET code library for a LabJack device in a program and ran the program under 64-bit Vista. Couldn’t find what the nature of the problem “really” was… )