Technical reason why 32bit Cygwin cannot be installed on 64bit Windows?

[Dimitry Andric]

On 17 May 2024, at 09:48, Cedric Blancher via Cygwin <cygwin@cygwin.com> wrote:
> 
> Is there a technical reason why 32bit Cygwin cannot be installed on
> 64bit Windows? We like to create a CI build pipeline, and want to
> create binaries for 32bit and 64bit Cygwin on the same machine, but
> setup.exe for 32bir Cygwin refuses to install

How exactly does it "refuse to install" ? If it says "mbox : Cygwin is not supported on 32-bit Windows", you may not have followed the instructions at https://cygwin.com/pipermail/cygwin/2022-November/252542.html, which say:

> To install the last cygwin version for x86, run setup using the options '--allow-unsupported-windows option --site circa_URL', where circa_URL can be one of:
> * The URL for any sourceware mirror[1], followed by cygwin-archive/20221123
> * http://ctm.crouchingtigerhiddenfruitbat.org/pub/cygwin/circa/2022/11/23/063457

I tried exactly that just now (with the second URL), and it installed OK, with the default package set. This is on a Windows 10 22H2 x64 host. The resulting Cygwin installation appears to work fine, with light testing.

-Dimitry