what are the differences between an executable generated by windows and linux [duplicate]

Question

Possible Duplicate:
Why an executable program for a specific CPU does not work on Linux and Windows?

Why can't programs written in linux be executd in windows ? Suppose I compile a simple C program containing function calls that are common to both windows and linux, Does the compiler generate different binary under windows and linux ?

Answer 1

They use different container formats.

Most Linux executables are ELF files; all Windows executables and DLLs are PE files.

Answer 2

Here are some of the reasons I can think of off the top of my head:

1. Different container formats (which so far seems to be the leading differentiator in this answer -- however its not the only reason).
2. different dynamic linker semantics.
3. different ABI.
4. different exception handling mechanisms -- windows has SEH -- upon which C++ exception handling is built
5. different system call semantics and different system calls -- hence different low-level libraries.