64-bit Windows OS returning invalid Registered Owner/Company Name

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2603229 Released on October 25, 2011.

Let it not be said that Microsoft can’t screw up royally. In my opinion, this was a major bug.

In short, this bug causes any 32-bit applications running on a 64-bit OS that queries the OS for the current Registered Owner and Registered Company Name to be returned invalid data. A 64-bit application would get the correct values.

I am unsure whether this affects just queries made to the registry itself (which I personally verified as incorrect) or whether the API calls to return the same information return those same invalid values.

In either case, if your a developer using this information to form a licensing hash for tying a software license to a machine expect people to start showing up unregistered, which is exactly what happened to us.