standalone executables
Standalone programs or standalone executables run on computers without a program
development environment aka PDE. Commercial software is generally distributed as
standalone executables because:
Users do not have to buy a program development environment.
Programs take less disk space to store and less memory to run.
Users can run programs without seeing the source program.
system requirements
Standalone executables run on Windows 3.1, Windows 3.11, Windows95, and WindowsNT.
At this time, however, standalone programs can be created only on systems running
Windows95 or WindowsNT that includes:
link.exe or equivalent 32-bit linker
lib.exe or equivalent 32-bit library manager
rc.exe or equivalent 32-bit resource manager
nmake.exe or equivalent file maintenance utility
filename extents
Different kinds of disk files are distinguished by different extents. The following is a
partial summary:
.mak - makefile to create standalone executable (program) or library (DLL ).
.x - source programs .
.s - assembly language program created by the PDE.
.o - object file created by assembler provided with the PDE.
.asm - assembly language program created by tools from other sources.
.obj - object file program created by tools from other sources.
.xxx - file required by program development environment.
.exe - standalone executable program.
.dll - library - also called dynamic link library (DLL ).