The "normal" way would be creating a package which includes the original application installer and the cracked .exe file, this is done to prevent minor version changes between the installer you did download and the 1 which is on the website if they discover someone did release a crack for their app.

Most of the time the files are packed 1st with winrar and afterwards zipped, i dunnow the reason for this anymore i have to look that 1 up but i find it very annoying myself this double packing.

If the "release" is only for crack websites they only put the cracked .exe file on their website in a .zip format.

I hope this helps.