A Corpus-Scale Static Analysis of Windows 10/11 System Binaries: Characterization and Cross-Build Differences

Windows system binaries form a large and evolving population whose structural, security, and code-signing characteristics are difficult to observe at corpus scale. This paper presents a corpus-scale statistical characterization of 15,695 Windows system binaries spanning Windows 10 and Windows 11. The analysis examines structural composition, import and export characteristics, security-relevant configuration, and code-signing properties, enabling these characteristics to be compared across releases. The resulting measurements establish an empirical baseline for the observable structural and security properties of the Windows system-binary ecosystem and reveal how these properties vary between operating-system versions.