Back Executable Portable Catalan Portable Executable Czech Portable Executable German Portable Executable Spanish قالب پرونده اجراپذیر انتقالپذیر Persian Portable Executable Finnish Portable Executable French Portable Executable HE Portable Executable Italian Portable Executable Japanese
| Filename extension | |
|---|---|
| Internet media type |
application/vnd.microsoft.portable-executable[1] |
| Developed by | Currently: Microsoft |
| Type of format | Binary, executable, object, shared libraries |
| Extended from | DOS MZ executable COFF |
The Portable Executable (PE) format is a file format for executables, object code, dynamic-link-libraries (DLLs), and binary files used on 32-bit and 64-bit Windows operating systems, as well as in UEFI environments.[2] It is the standard format for executables on Windows NT-based systems, including files such as .exe, .dll, .sys (for system drivers), and .mui. At its core, the PE format is a structured data container that gives the Windows operating system loader everything it needs to properly manage the executable code it contains. This includes references for dynamically linked libraries, tables for importing and exporting APIs, resource management data and thread-local storage (TLS) information.
According to the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) specification, the PE format is also the accepted standard for executables in EFI environments.[3] On Windows NT systems, it currently supports a range of instruction sets, including IA-32, x86-64 (AMD64/Intel 64), IA-64, ARM and ARM64. Before the advent of Windows 2000, Windows NT (and by extension the PE format) also supported MIPS, Alpha, and PowerPC architectures. Moreover, thanks to its use in Windows CE, PE has maintained compatibility with several MIPS, ARM (including Thumb), and SuperH variants.[4]
Functionally, the PE format is similar to other platform-specific executable formats, such as the ELF format used in Linux and most Unix-like systems, and the Mach-O format found in macOS and iOS.
- ^ Andersson, Henrik (2015-04-23). "application/vnd.microsoft.portable-executable". IANA. Retrieved 2017-03-26.
- ^ "Portable executable (PE) - Definition - Trend Micro IN". www.trendmicro.com. Retrieved 2022-11-10.
- ^ "UEFI Specification, version 2.8B" (PDF)., a note on p.15, states that "this image type is chosen to enable UEFI images to contain Thumb and Thumb2 instructions while defining the EFI interfaces themselves to be in ARM mode."
- ^ "PE Format (Windows)". Retrieved 2017-10-21.