New Executable
| Filename extension | .exe, .dll |
|---|---|
| Type of format | Executable, dynamic-link library |
| Extended from | DOS MZ executable |
The New Executable (abbreviated NE or NewEXE) is a 16-bit .exe file format, a successor to the DOS MZ executable format. It was used in Windows 1.0-3.x, multitasking MS-DOS 4.0,OS/2 1.x, and the OS/2 subset of Windows NT up to version 5.0 (Windows 2000). A NE is also called a segmented executable.
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 (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.
While designed for 16-bit OSes, NE executables can be run on 32-bit Windows. 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 can't 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, 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.
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