Detecting 16-bit application launch?

[wolstech]

Everyone knows that 16-bit programs won't run in 64-bit OSes...

Is there a way to detect when someone tries to launch one of these on 64-bit OSes? I'm trying to make a small program that can run constantly, detect when a 16-bit program is being run, get the full path and filename of the program that can't launch, and save it to an INI for another program to read.

I've tried detecting the "incompatible program" message that Windows spits out using things like WinWait, but the title bar is the full path and filename (not very useful for detecting when the message appears since it changes per-file), and the text in the message box seems invisible to autoit (the window info tool only sees the OK button). For reference, it's this dialog.

Does anyone know of a way to handle this?

[JLogan3o13]

I don't have any apps right in front of me to test with, but doesn't it also throw something in the event viewer? You could potentially watch that for entries.

[wolstech]

I don't have any apps right in front of me to test with, but doesn't it also throw something in the event viewer? You could potentially watch that for entries.

 

It does throw an entry in the event logs. Never knew that until now. Application Log gets an entry from Wow64 Emulation Layer, event ID 1109. I'll take a look at that and see if I can get something to work.

[JLogan3o13]

There is a good example in the help file under _EventLog_Read that may point you in the right direction.