purpose registry key wow6432node does anyone know

Hello all,
Does anyone know the purpose of the following key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node ?
I am trying to create my company's registry info under:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\myCompanyName
and it is going into:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\myCompanyName
What is going on here??????
-- Thanks so much, george _________________________ George S. Lockwood Lead Client Developer peoplePC, an EarthLink company

The Wow6432 registry entry indicates that you're running a 64-bit version of Windows. The OS uses this key to present a separate view of HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE for 32-bit applications that run on a 64-bit version of Windows. When a 32-bit application queries a value under the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\<company>\<product> subkey, the application reads from the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\<company>\<product> subkey.
A "registry reflector" copies certain values between the 32-bit and 64-bit registry views (e.g., mainly for COM registration) and resolves any conflicts using a last-writer-wins approach.
-- Zack Whittaker » ZackNET Enterprises: www.zacknet.co.uk » MSBlog on ResDev: www.msblog.org » Vista Knowledge Base: www.vistabase.co.uk » This mailing is provided "as is" with no warranties, and confers no rights. All opinions expressed are those of myself unless stated so, and not of my employer, best friend, Ghandi, my mother or my cat. Glad we cleared that up!
--: Original message follows :-- "GSLockwood (IUnknown)" wrote in message

Hello all,
Does anyone know the purpose of the following key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node ?
I am trying to create my company's registry info under:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\myCompanyName
and it is going into:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\myCompanyName
What is going on here??????
-- Thanks so much,
george
_________________________ George S. Lockwood Lead Client Developer peoplePC, an EarthLink company