This is not really a .Net issue, this is how Windows works. A 32-bit application can not reach the 64-bit environment (not even within the file system). If you try to access Windows\System32 you will actually look into the folder Windows\SysWow64 and even if you hard coded the path to the Program Files folder you would still end up in the Program Files (x86) folder. This is how the Windows On Windows sub system works. So you can't reach the folder simply because from the perspective of the running process it just doesn't exist.