Understanding EXE Internals

Posted by Steve on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by Steve
Published on 2010-04-19T14:51:12Z Indexed on 2010/05/13 17:54 UTC
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exe

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executable

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unix

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Windows

I was attempting to install an exe that requires a serial number before the install, which the vendor has not provided to us yet.

This got my wheels turning about whether there is any information that can be gained from viewing an exe using a hex editor/VI/etc?

Using VI to view an exe, I can see some sections of plain text, but it is difficult to determine what it refers to without any context around it.

Is it possible to determine any information by reading an exe?

Thanks

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