Talk:.exe

article is sure outdated :)

You've forgot of MS.Net/DotGNU/Mono :)

Also You've forgot of OpenVMS :)

.NET executables uses PE format.

—Claunia 08:52, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Can't you use hex editors to change .exe files? Which .exe files are good/bad?

Pronunciation

I always thought it was pronounced ex-ee (as in 'exe'cutable). Often heard it pronounced ee -- ex -ee and other ways. Worth pointing out the acronym comes from 'executable' and is pronounced the same way as the beginning of that word? camelworks^(Mclowes) 18:38, 4 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

People pronounce it however they want. "Exe" isn't just shorthand for "executable", it is actually the three letters that people see when they are looking at their files. Thus "E-X-E", the literal reading, is just as valid and probably more common than "ex-e", which is just an incomplete word and requires that the person reading have knowledge of the fact that it is shorthand for another word. For the same reason, .BIN is usually pronounced "bin" rather than "byne" as in "binary". Ham Pastrami 03:53, 4 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Exe Extractor?

I need to extract a file out of a .exe file, it won't install and could this be possible? Pvt. Green 01:23, 17 August 2007 (UTC) dude its a virus its on your computer now it wont let you install cause its already down loaded the virus onto your computer. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.53.131.146 (talk) 02:50, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Difference between .com and .exe

The only difference .com files and .exe files is that when you the current folder contains two files w/ the names filename.com and filename.exe and you enter filename in the command prompt, always the filename.com is executed. You can try it yourself: rename any .exe file into .com. It will still be executeable. This is even true for win32 applications. --Qaywsxedc 20:17, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

File formats and extensions shouldn't be confused. Nothing prevents you from renaming a Microsoft Word document to ".txt", for example; however, the file still isn't a plain-text file. There are multiple executable file formats for DOS and Windows; the simplest is the COM file format, and there are also several ".exe file" formats - the EXE page points to the pages for some of them. Renaming a ".exe" file to ".com" doesn't turn the file into a COM file; the file is still in whatever ".exe" format it was in.

Windows tends to use extensions as an indication of the file type; this means that it attempts to run files with the suffixes ".com" and ".exe". The various ".exe" formats all have magic numbers that indicate what type of ".exe" file it is, while a COM file has no magic number. The code in Windows that runs executable files determines what type of file it is by looking for a magic number; if you try to run a ".exe" file renamed to ".com", Windows will still recognize it as a ".exe" file rather than a COM file. Guy Harris 21:17, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Haven't you observed this?

but there are a few dual-mode programs (MZ-NE or MZ-PE) (such as regedit) have a usable DOS section[citation needed].

Regedit.exe in win95 did in fact have a usable dos section and was used in system repair to fix a broken registry sometimes.