OFF TOPIC suspicious files from a Windows user

This is completely off topic, but You guys know so much.
I gave some filies to a friend on a usb thumb drive. Before she returned the drive she put some pdf files that she downloaded from pdfdrive.com onto the drive.
When I mount the usb drive on my Linux system, i see a group of folders with normal names like “English Level 1”. Then I see a series of .exe files with the same set of names. These files are all 143 bytes long and they are all identical. Looked at with a hex editor, they start with “MZ (a bunch of spaces) ! L !this program cannot be run in DOS mode.” I think she is using Windows 10)
Does she have a virus?
Does the new Windows use an application to open each folder?
Does anyone have an idea what this is? I have never seen it before.

Thank you for your time

Don Jungk

Yes, that is the case.

I’d tend to agree

Thanks guys, that was my first thought. I don’t have a virus checker onmy Linux system, but it just occurred to me to check the internet. Turns out there are sites that will check files. One of them said that “based on its behaviour” it is a virus. I should have thought of that before I bothered everybody.

Thanks again,

Don

On a Windows machine with ‘show extensions’ turned off, these files will have ‘the same name’ as the wanted PDF and are there like cuckoos waiting for someone to double click the wrong row in Explorer.

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We’re all here to help each other, you’re not bothering anyone!

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Something like this?
https://wiki.osdev.org/MZ

Thank you. I don’t know what the program would do, but it seems strange that my friends computer would copy a “somefile”.exe onto the usb drive with every “somefile”.pdf. I suggested that she have someone check it for virus, which she is going to do.

Thank you for the information,

Don