I know exe are executable that gets generated after compilation. But can someone tell me the difference between EXE and a DLL?

Hi

Dll is faster WRT exe, because dll runs within the same process space of its client
where as exe runs on its own process space.

Difference :-
1. Dll is faster than exe
2. dll is in-process whereas exe is out-process

Regards
Santhi

Santhi this is a good explanation which helps me to learn about EXE and a DLL. Hope someone gives some more differences in this discussion.

dll is an assembly. You can not run directly this one must and should you have implement in another program. Where EXE is an executable. you can execute directly with out open any program.

Another Way :

DLL stands for dynamic-link library and is Microsoft’s implementation of a shared library. This means that many different programs can use this library to do their tasks making it easier on the programmers so that they do not have to keep reinventing the wheel each time they write software. In simple terms a .DLL file will contain logic that other programs will use.

EXE stands for executable and denotes that a program is executable. This just means that if you double click on the file a program will run, normally with some kind of interface for a user to interact with. The file formats for EXE and DLL actually the same.

For more in depth information we suggest you check out the wikipedia.org entries for DLL and EXE.