For

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

OS/2 OS/2 is a Proprietary software, proprietary computer operating system for x86 and PowerPC based personal computers. It was created and initially developed jointly by IBM and Microsoft, under the leadership of IBM software designer Ed Iacobucci, ...

, and

DOS DOS (, ) is a family of disk-based operating systems for IBM PC compatible computers. The DOS family primarily consists of IBM PC DOS and a rebranded version, Microsoft's MS-DOS, both of which were introduced in 1981. Later compatible syste ...

, .exe is the

filename extension A filename extension, file name extension or file extension is a suffix to the name of a computer file (for example, .txt, .mp3, .exe) that indicates a characteristic of the file contents or its intended use. A filename extension is typically d ...

that denotes a file as being

executable In computer science, executable code, an executable file, or an executable program, sometimes simply referred to as an executable or binary, causes a computer "to perform indicated tasks according to encoded instruction (computer science), in ...

computer program A computer program is a sequence or set of instructions in a programming language for a computer to Execution (computing), execute. It is one component of software, which also includes software documentation, documentation and other intangibl ...

containing an

entry point In computer programming, an entry point is the place in a program where the execution of a program begins, and where the program has access to command line arguments. To start a program's execution, the loader or operating system passes co ...

. In addition to being executable (adjective) such a file is often called an executable (noun) which is sometimes abbreviated as EXE.

File formats

The

file format A file format is a Computer standard, standard way that information is encoded for storage in a computer file. It specifies how bits are used to encode information in a digital storage medium. File formats may be either proprietary format, pr ...

of an EXE file varies by operating system version. An operating system cannot use an EXE file unless it is formatted for it. Note that some formats support multiple operating systems.

DOS

;16-bit

DOS MZ executable The DOS MZ executable format is the executable file format used for .EXE files in DOS. The file can be identified by the ASCII string "MZ" (hexadecimal: 4D 5A) at the beginning of the file (the " magic number"). "MZ" are the initials of Mark ...

(MZ): The original DOS executable file format. These formats can be identified by the letters "MZ" at the beginning of the file in ASCII. Later formats may contain an MZ DOS stub header. ;16-bit

New Executable The New Executable (NE or NewEXE) is a 16-bit executable file format, a successor to the DOS MZ executable format. It was used in Windows 1.0–3.x, Windows 9x, multitasking MS-DOS 4.0, OS/2 1.x, and the OS/2 subset of Windows NT up to versio ...

(NE): Introduced with the multitasking MS-DOS 4.0 and also used by 16-bit

and Windows, NE can be identified by the "NE" in ASCII.

OS/2

;32-bit Linear Executable (LX): Introduced with OS/2 2.0, these can be identified by the "LX" in ASCII. These can only be run by OS/2 2.0 and higher. ;Mixed 16/32-bit Linear Executable (LE): Introduced with OS/2 2.0, these can be identified by the "LE" in ASCII. VxD drivers on Windows 3.x and

Windows 9x Windows 9x is a generic term referring to a line of discontinued Microsoft Windows operating systems released from 1995 to 2000 and supported until 2006, which were based on the kernel introduced in Windows 95 and modified in succeeding version ...

also use LE format.

Windows

;32-bit

Portable Executable The Portable Executable (PE) format is a file format for executables, object file, object code, Dynamic-link library, dynamic-link-libraries (DLLs), and binary files used on 32-bit and 64-bit Microsoft Windows, Windows operating systems, as well ...

(PE): Introduced with

Windows NT Windows NT is a Proprietary software, proprietary Graphical user interface, graphical operating system produced by Microsoft as part of its Windows product line, the first version of which, Windows NT 3.1, was released on July 27, 1993. Original ...

, they are fat binaries consisting of a DOS-specific and a Windows-specific part. The DOS-specific part (dubbed DOS stub) is a legitimate 16-bit DOS program. Microsoft C++ linker, by default, uses a minimal DOS stub that prints the following message: "This program cannot be run in DOS mode." Windows ignores the DOS stub and executes the Windows-specific portion that starts with the "PE\0\0" ASCII sequence (letters "PE" and two null bytes). With some linkers, it is possible to specify a custom DOS stub. Indeed, there are a few dual programs, such as regedit in

Windows 95 Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft and the first of its Windows 9x family of operating systems, released to manufacturing on July 14, 1995, and generally to retail on August 24, 1995. Windows 95 merged ...

and old versions of

WinZIP WinZip is a trialware file archiver and data compression, compressor for Microsoft Windows, macOS, iOS and Android (operating system), Android. It is developed by WinZip Computing (formerly Nico Mak Computing), which is owned by Alludo. The p ...

self extractors. ;64-bit Portable Executable (PE32+): Introduced by 64-bit versions of Windows, this is a PE file with wider fields. In most cases, code can be written to simply work as either a 32 or 64-bit PE file. This file also includes a DOS stub.

Other

There are other EXE formats, including but not limited to ''W3'' (a collection of LE files, only used in WIN386.EXE), ''W4'' (a compressed collection of LE files, only used in VMM32.VXD), ''DL'', ''MP'', ''P2'', ''P3'' (last three used by

Phar Lap Phar Lap (4 October 1926 – 5 April 1932) was a New Zealand-born champion Australian Thoroughbred horse racing, racehorse. Achieving great success during his distinguished career, his initial underdog status gave people hope during the ear ...

extenders).

References

External links

Dependency Walker

MZ EXE header format

PE Explorer
{{Executables DOS files DOS technology Executable file formats Filename extensions Windows administration