The MS-DOS stub is a valid application that runs under MS-DOS. It is placed at the
front of the EXE image. The linker places a default stub here, which prints out the
message “This program cannot be run in DOS mode” when the image is run in
MS-DOS. The user can specify a different stub by using the /STUB linker option.
At location 0x3c, the stub has the file offset to the PE signature. This information
enables Windows to properly execute the image file, even though it has an
MS-DOS stub. This file offset is placed at location 0x3c during linking.
MS-DOS Stub (Image Only)
The MS-DOS stub is a valid application that runs under MS-DOS. It is placed at the front of the EXE image. The linker places a default stub here, which prints out the message “This program cannot be run in DOS mode” when the image is run in MS-DOS. The user can specify a different stub by using the /STUB linker option. At location 0x3c, the stub has the file offset to the PE signature. This information enables Windows to properly execute the image file, even though it has an MS-DOS stub. This file offset is placed at location 0x3c during linking.