SEXeHeader V1.0 MS Windows (Bindoze) New Executable (NE) header reader ©Copyright 1995 Soyeb Aswat FreeWare 19/9/95 Introduction SEXeHeader is the first stage in a project I am working on which will culminate in a program that will allow you to run a MS Windows application on your Amiga as if it were made for AmigaOS originally. This is with all the Amiga's wonderful multitask- ing abilities and without the Windows resource hogging! The next stage of this project is an 80386 dissasembler which will dissasemble Windows NE executable files and dynamic link libraries (DLL). This will be followed by the actual emulator to run Windows programs. Usage SEXeHeader Presently the program does its own command line parsing so don't give it names with spaces in and also will not support redirection. I hope to sort this out soon (tonight). What does it do! SEXeHeader takes a Windows executable or library file as input and displays it's header details in an understandable manner. In other words it looks at the details the linker has put in the file to tell the loader how to load and run it. Some very interest- ing things can be found in this data. Why do it? Why have a program to look at Windows files on an Amiga I hear you ask. Well as can be seen from the introduction I am working on a Windows emulator, *not* a PC emulator but a Windows emulator. To do this I have to decipher Microsoft ducumen- tation which is very ambiguous, confusing and has great omissions. The best way to find this out in my opinion was to write my own program to do some- thing and compare the output to a similar program already available. SEXeHeader's output was compared to Turbo Dump from Borland, Mapwin from PharLap Technologies and EXEdump from the writers of Undocumented Windows. The dis- sasemblers output will be compared to similar dissasemblers I have in my posession on the PC and the final emulator will be compared to Windows itself. From making SEXeHeader I was able to clear up much of the confusion and ommi- sions I found in the Microsoft ducumentation for the Windows NE file format. Future I will continue to develop this program as much as I need so don't expect new versions. I have included the source for all to ogle at and improve on. Bugs None that I have found but I am sure there are some. Send me a detailed description of the bug describing your system, programs running etc, and preferably a copy of the file that caused the problem to show up. NOTE If you make any improvements or bug fixes please send them to me FIRST do not release any "improved" versions. This is not to oppress your creativity but to allow the currently available version of SEXeHeader to be the best available. This also stops some versions having features that others don't etc. All improvements made by you will be fully credited. Windows emulator If you are interested in any of my future projects please send me some mail to let me know. Depending on the amount of interest shown I will put effort into producing the software. Author Soyeb Aswat 37 Newick Road, Clapton, London, E5 0RP, UK. e-mail: df114@city.ac.uk If you use this program or even just download it out of curiosity (catchy name isn't it!) send me an e-mail or a postcard or something so I know if anybody's out there! If you have any questions comments bug reports or just want somebody to talk to write to me. References Microsoft Windows 3.1 Programmer's reference Volume 4 Microsoft Press ISBN: 1-55615-494-1 Contains the NE file format among many others. Typical Microsoft documentation, confusing and containing many omissions, only there to keep the lawyers happy and stop themfrom being investigated for monopolising. Despite all this absolutely essen- tial. Microsoft Windows 3.1 Guide to programming Microsoft Press ISBN: As above. Best thing is to get the complete set of programmers reference guides which are available with the Microsoft Windows 3.1 Software Development Kit (SDK) Probably be hard to get hold of now but if you have a copy PLEASE TELL ME!!!!!! Undocumented Windows : a programmer's guide to reserved Microsoft Windows API functions by Andrew Schulman, David Maxey, Matt Pietrek Addison-Wesley ISBN: 0-201-60834-0 Invaluable source of information for insulting Windows, also contains many usful de- scriptions of both documented and undocumented functions etc.