running .exe programs in OSX: how am i doing this?!?!?!

[biohazard6969]

ok, just downloaded the stuff for "folding@home" and its runnign, and i opened activity monitor and the thing taking up all my cpu is somethign called "FahCore_78.exe" i assume it has something to do with the folding, but still wat the hell, how am i running something that is .exe? isn't that windows only?

 

[kg9ov]

Yes, that is a process for Folding@Home. The executable name does not matter on a Unix-like system. The only thing that really matters is that a) it is some type of program b) the current user has execute permissions to that program.

-Tony

 

[ravenvii]

UNIX has .exe files too. It's not exclusive to Windows.

 

[broken_keyboard]

.exe is a Windows file format. It is the file format for programs. They must have ported the Mac version from Windows and neglected to rename it.

There is a little program called "file" you can use to find out what type a file really is, regardless of it's name. In the terminal type, e.g.

file FahCore_78.exe