title: I've built a Windows service as "Any CPU". Why does it run in 32-bit mode on my 64 bit machine?
body: <p>I've built a Windows service as "Any CPU". However, when I run it on my 64 bit machine it runs in 32 bit. How can I fix it? I'm using .NET and C#, and my operating system is Windows 2008 R2.</p>
  
  <p>If I build it in x64 it correctly loads in 64 bit mode. However, "Any Cpu" -- which is what I want -- loads in 32 bit, even though the machine it's running on perfectly supports 64 bit.</p>
  
  <p><strong>EDIT to add more information based on feedback</strong></p>
  
  <p>We do have third party tools as well as reference a c++ managed assembly. These may or may not be built for any CPU. In fact i know that the c++ managed assembly is only built for x86. However, the odd things is that if I specifically specify x64 the process will start up and work in x64. If the framework were to attempt to load the c++ managed assembly it would fail. I don't mind this, because in the code, we do not load the 32bit managed ++ assembly if we're running in 64 bit mode. Could it be that the build figures that since there is a 32 bit assembly in here it should mark the launching process (in this case a windows service assembly) as x86?</p>