Is there a functional difference between installing a version of EnergyPlus from an .exe file, vs. simply downloading and saving the entire EnergyPlus program folder locally on your machine? The latter being the entire folder containing EPLaunch, IDFEditor, along with all the example files, etc. (for example, a zip archive of this folder sent by a colleague).

It seems that in either case, the end result is a folder called "EnergyPlus9-5-0" (or other version), with the necessary files and executables to interact with the program.

Assuming of course that the contents of the EnergyPlus file weren't modified in any way before being shared.