GetNativeSystemInfo

GetNativeSystemInfo is a Windows API function that retrieves information about the native hardware and system characteristics of the current machine. It fills a SYSTEM_INFO structure with details such as processor architecture, address space ranges, page size, and the number of processors. The function is declared in WinBase.h and implemented in Kernel32.dll. It has no return value and accepts a single parameter: a pointer to a SYSTEM_INFO structure that receives the information.

The SYSTEM_INFO structure provides fields including wProcessorArchitecture, dwPageSize, dwMinimumApplicationAddress, dwMaximumApplicationAddress, dwActiveProcessorMask, dwNumberOfProcessors, dwProcessorType, dwAllocationGranularity, and, for some architectures, wProcessorLevel and wProcessorRevision. The wProcessorArchitecture field indicates the native CPU type, using constants such as PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE_AMD64 (x64), PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE_INTEL (x86), PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE_ARM64, PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE_ARM, and PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE_IA64, among others.

A key distinction from GetSystemInfo is that GetNativeSystemInfo reports the true native architecture of the hardware, independent of the process’s isolation level. For example, a 32-bit process running on a 64-bit Windows system via WOW64 may still receive a native architecture of AMD64 from GetNativeSystemInfo, whereas GetSystemInfo could reflect the emulated or WOW64-visible view.

Usage considerations include detecting native CPU capabilities to select optimized code paths, libraries, or data alignment strategies. This function is commonly used in cross-architecture applications and in installers that need to adapt behavior to the host hardware. See also GetSystemInfo, SYSTEM_INFO, and processor architecture constants.