Why does a binary of one OS (Windows) does not run in other ( Linux) for same underlying architecture? [closed]

Question

It may be a trivial question but I have hard time to explain to my little brother that a Windows binary will not run in another different OS like Linux even when both the OS are running in the same machine. If the binaries (opcodes) have to be same to execute in the same underlying architecture ( say Intel 32-bit), what are the differences between the binaries of Windows and Linux ( or even Ubuntu and RadHat Linux)? Are there any runtime modification of the binaries at instruction level before execution by the processor? How do I explain in lay man /simple terms that he can understand.

Answer 1

The different operating systems have different ABIs which require different loaders to use. If the loader for the other OS is available (via, say, Wine) then it is possible to load the executable, at which point the API becomes important.