New Executable

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.

Beginning with Windows Vista, icon resources inside New Executables are not extracted and shown even by the 32-bit shell.

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.

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.