I can successfully compile and run this code. My question is why when I change the program to be executed to a .exe or to say, notepad.exe it does nothing. It seems to work when I use a .com program that is in the same directory as exec.com. Here is the code for exec.asm:

ORG 100h
START:
JMP LOC_1
RB 90H
LOC_1:
lea sp,[STK]
MOV AH,4AH
MOV BX,(STK - START + 10FH )/16
INT 21H
JC BEND
lea dx,[PNAME]
lea BX,[PARS]
MOV AX,4B00H
INT 21H
AEND:
MOV AH,4CH
INT 21H
BEND:
MOV AX,0B800H
MOV ES,AX
; MOV ES,AH
JMP AEND

PNAME DB "CPUID.COM",0
PARS Dw ENVIR
Dw CMDLINE,0
Dw FCB1,0
Dw FCB2,0

CMDLINE DB 0,0DH
FCB1 DB 0
RB 11
RB 25
FCB2 = 0
RB 11
RB 25
ENVIR DB 'PATH=',0
DB 'COMSPEC=C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32\CMD.EXE',0
DB 0
STK = $

It seems that when I try to translate from TASM to FASM I learn a lot about FASM so I have tried to translate this program. Any help here would be very helpful in my learning more. Thank-you.

try "format MZ" at the start of the code for exe programms

Nope, that does not work. Thanks for the input, however.

First, reserve some space for stack: place at least "rb 128" before "STK=$".
Second, specify full path to the exe, not "notepad.exe" only, but "c:\winnt\notepad.exe".

Thank-you. That did it. I knew about putting the full path but I did not realize that I needed the RB before the STK = $. Again, thank-you for your help.