Portable Executable
From Just Solve the File Format Problem
Revision as of 03:13, 2 October 2014 by Dan Tobias (Talk | contribs)
PE (Portable Executable, also called PE/COFF) is a member of the EXE family of executable file formats. It is 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.
Contents |
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.
See also
Links
- Wikipedia article
- PE, from the OSDev Wiki
- Microsoft PE and COFF Specification
- Article on the PE format as used by Windows NT 3, by Johannes Plachy
- Forensics Wiki: Portable Executable Format
- PE (corkami.com)
- EXE Explorer utility
