Portable Executable

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* [http://www.csn.ul.ie/~caolan/publink/winresdump/winresdump/doc/pefile.html Article on the PE format as used by Windows NT 3], by Johannes Plachy
 
* [http://www.csn.ul.ie/~caolan/publink/winresdump/winresdump/doc/pefile.html Article on the PE format as used by Windows NT 3], by Johannes Plachy
 
* [http://www.forensicswiki.org/wiki/Portable_Executable_Format Forensics Wiki: Portable Executable Format]
 
* [http://www.forensicswiki.org/wiki/Portable_Executable_Format Forensics Wiki: Portable Executable Format]
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* [http://pe.corkami.com/ PE] (corkami.com)
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** [http://pe102.corkami.com/ PE102 - a Windows executable format overview]
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** [https://code.google.com/p/corkami/wiki/PE101 PE101 - a Windows executable walkthrough]
  
 
[[Category:Microsoft]]
 
[[Category:Microsoft]]

Revision as of 02:28, 14 May 2014

File Format
Name Portable Executable
Ontology
Extension(s) .exe, others

PE (Portable Executable, also called PE/COFF) is a member of the EXE family of executable file formats. It is used mainly used by 32- and 64-bit Microsoft Windows operating systems. It is an extension/hybrid of MS-DOS EXE, and a successor to NE. Parts of it are derived from COFF.

Despite the name, not all PE files are executable. Some contain only icons, fonts, etc.

Formats

  • PE32 format is used by 32-bit Windows.
  • PE32+ format is used by 64-bit Windows.

Identification

A PE file begins with the ASCII signature "MZ". At offset 60 is a 4-byte integer pointing to an "extended" header that begins with 'P' 'E' 0x00 0x00. For more information, see MS-DOS EXE.

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