The New Executable (abbreviated NE or NewEXE) is a

16-bit 16-bit microcomputers are microcomputers that use 16-bit microprocessors. A 16-bit register can store 216 different values. The range of integer values that can be stored in 16 bits depends on the integer representation used. With the two mos ...

.exe .exe is a common filename extension denoting an executable file (the main execution point of a computer program) for Microsoft Windows, OS/2, and DOS. File formats There are numerous file formats which may be used by a file with a extensi ...

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 ...

, a successor to the

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 Mar ...

format. It was used in

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ...

1.0–3.x,

Windows 9x Windows 9x is a generic term referring to a series of Microsoft Windows computer operating systems produced from 1995 to 2000, which were based on the Windows 95 kernel and its underlying foundation of MS-DOS, both of which were updated in sub ...

, multitasking MS-DOS 4.0,

OS/2 OS/2 (Operating System/2) is a series of computer operating systems, initially created by Microsoft and IBM under the leadership of IBM software designer Ed Iacobucci. As a result of a feud between the two companies over how to position OS/2 ...

1.x, and the OS/2 subset of

Windows NT Windows NT is a proprietary graphical operating system produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released on July 27, 1993. It is a processor-independent, multiprocessing and multi-user operating system. The first version of Wi ...

up to version 5.0 (Windows 2000). A NE is also called a segmented executable.

History

The first product to be released using the New Executable format was Windows 1.0 in 1985, followed by the 1986 multitasking MS-DOS 4.0, which was a separate branch of MS-DOS development, released between mainstream MS-DOS versions 3.2 and 3.3, and sometimes referred to as "European MS-DOS 4.0". OS/2 1.0 was not released until 1987, but the "target operating system" field in the file header reserves value 01 for OS/2, and 02 for Windows, suggesting that the format was designed with OS/2 already in mind, the Joint Development Agreement between IBM and Microsoft for OS/2 having been signed in August 1985, a few months before Windows 1.0 was released in November 1985. The

Portable Executable The Portable Executable (PE) format is a file format for executables, object code, DLLs and others used in 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows operating systems. The PE format is a data structure that encapsulates the information necessary f ...

(PE) format replaced NE format in 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows, while Linear Executables (LX) replaced NE for 32-bit programs in OS/2.

Compatibility

While designed for 16-bit OSes, NE executables can be run on 32-bit

. Beginning with Windows Vista, icon resources inside New Executables are not extracted and shown even by the 32-bit shell. 64-bit versions of Windows completely lack native support for running NE executables, because 64-bit Windows cannot run 16-bit programs on the processor without the help of an emulator. Due to the rare and fairly complex nature of these files, only a few .EXE packers support it: WinLite, PackWin,

PKLite 2.01 Executable compression is any means of compressing an executable file and combining the compressed data with decompression code into a single executable. When this compressed executable is executed, the decompression code recreates the original ...

, and SLR Optloader or NeLite for OS/2. The NE format is also still used as (non-executable) container for .fon Microsoft Windows bitmapped fonts.

DOS stub

New (NE), linear (LX), and portable (PE) executables retain the DOS MZ format file header for

backward compatibility Backward compatibility (sometimes known as backwards compatibility) is a property of an operating system, product, or technology that allows for interoperability with an older legacy system, or with input designed for such a system, especially ...

with DOS. When run under DOS, a so-called ''DOS stub'' is executed which usually prints a "This program cannot be run in DOS mode " message and exits. This constitutes a minimal form of a so-called fat binary. Windows 1.0 executables, however, have their file header formatted in such a way that DOS refuses to run them with the "Program too big to fit in memory" error message; see Windows 1.0 Features.

References

{{OS/2 Executable file formats Windows administration DOS technology OS/2 technology

History

Compatibility

DOS stub

See also

References