Effects of continuous oil phase on silver halide nanoparticles were investigated where nanoparticles were prepared using two different types of water-in-oil(W/O) microemulsions containing silver and halide, respectively. Phase behavior experiments for ternary systems containing AOT surfactant, hydrocarbon oil and aqueous solution of an inorganic salt showed that the region of one phase W/O microemulsion was found to be broadened with an increase in the alkyl chain length of a hydrocarbon mainly due to an increase in hydrophilic nature of a surfactant. With the information of phase behavior experiments, silver halide nanoparticles were prepared using different AOT-based microemulsion systems and photomicrographs obtained by transmission electron microscopy indicated that about 10 nm size particles of relatively spherical shape were obtained. It has been found that an increase in alkyl chain length of a hydrocarbon results in a decrease in particle size because of higher intermicellar exchange rate among microemulsion drops. The average particle size was also found to increase with the inorganic salt composition of initial aqueous solution.