checksum
a point-and-click sha1 and md5 hashing application for windows..
After years searching for the perfect Windows file verification utility, I decided to write it!
Welcome to checksum, a blisteringly fast, no-nonsense file hashing application for Windows. checksum is a program that generates and verifies SHA1 and MD5 hashes; aka. "MD5 Sums", or "digital fingerprints"; of a file, a folder, or recursively, even through an entire hard drive, does it very quickly, intelligently, and without fuss. I think it's the best checksum utility on planet Earth, of course.![checksum on my Windows desktop, hashing like crazy.. [desktop wallpaper by Sharonga]](img/checksum_tool-tip-style_progress.jpg "for smaller files you won't be able to read this quickly enough. Weeeeeeh!")
Normally I would put a cute image of the program here, but generally speaking, you don't see checksum running, it just gets on with the job. However, checksum does - optionally - pop up a cute progress ToolTip windoid, so I'll show you that instead..
Why?
In the decade before checksum, I must have installed and uninstalled dozens, perhaps hundreds of Windows MD5 hashing utilities, and overwhelmingly they leave me muttering "brain-dead POS!" under my breath, or words to that effect, or not under my breath. I always knew that data verification should be simple, even easy, but it invariably ended up a chore.Either the brain-dead programs don't know how to recurse, or don't even pretend to, or they give the MD5 hash files daft, generic names, or they can't handle long file names, or foreign file names, or multiple files, or they run in MS DOS, or choke on UTF-8, or are painfully slow, or insist on presenting me with a complex interface, or don't have any decent hashing algorithms, or don't know how to synchronize new files with old, or any combination of these things; I usually end up shouting "FUXAKE! JUST DO IT WILL YA!!!".
No more! Now I have checksum, and it suffers from none of these problems; as well as adding a few tricks of its own..
What is it for, exactly?
Peace of mind! SHA1 and MD5 hashes are used to verify that a file or group of files has not changed. Simple as that. This is useful, even crucial, in all kinds of situations where data integrity is important. For instance, these days, it's not uncommon to find MD5 hashes (and less rarely now, SHA1 hashes) published alongside downloads, even Windows downloads. This hash, when used, ensures that the file you downloaded is exactly the same file the author uploaded, and hasn't been tampered with in any way, trojan added, etc.; even the slightest change in the data produces a wildly different hash.
It's also very useful if you want to compare files and folders/directories; using checksums is far more accurate than simply comparing file sizes, dates or any other property. For quick file compare tasks, there's also checksum's little brother; simple checksum, simply drag & drop Two files for an instant hash-accurate comparison.
If you burn a lot of data to CD or DVD, you can use a hash checker to accurately verify the integrity of your data right after a burn, and at any time in the future. If you distribute data in any way, maybe torrenteering your favourite things, run a file server of some kind, or just email a few files to your friends; checksums enables the person at the other end to be absolutley sure that the file arrived perfectly, 100% intact.
As well as providing secure verification against tampering, virus infection, file (and backup file) corruption, transfer errors and more, digital fingerprints can serve as an "early warning" of possible media failures, be they optical or magnetic. It was a checksum failure that recently alerted me to a failing batch of DVD-R disks; I saved my fading data in time, and got a refund on the disks. I'll leave you to consider the million other uses. There's only one reason, though; peace of mind.
Absolutely no-nonsense file verification..
checksum can create (two clicks, or a drag-and-drop) or verify (one click) both SHA1 and MD5 hashes of a file, a folder, even a whole disk full of files and folders in one simple, no-nonsense, high-performance operation. Basically, you point it at a file or folder and go! The parameters are controlled by command-line switches, but most folk won't have to worry about that; it all happens invisibly, and is built-in to your Windows® Explorer context (aka "concept", aka "right-click") commands (see above).
Note: while checksum operates with command-line switches, it is NOT a Windows® console application; there's no messy DOS box, or anything like that. But if you want to run it from a console, that's covered, too.
There are a wealth of command-line options, but most people find that checksum just works exactly as they would expect, without any messing about; right-click and go! But, if you are the sort who likes to customize and hack at things, you will find plenty to keep you occupied!
On-the-fly configuration..
If you want to change any of checksum's options on-the-fly, simply hold down the SHIFT key when you select its Explorer context menu item, and checksum will pop up a dialog for you to tweak the process. If you want to have anything permanently set, checksum comes with standard plain text Windows ini file for you to tweak to your heart's content. Anyone smart enough to use MD5sums, can edit plain text.
The options dialog is most useful when you want to only hash certain files in a folder, like mp3's, or movies. With your file mask groups, you can configure file-type specific hashing with just a couple of clicks.
Common music, video, and archive formats come setup and ready to go, and you can easily edit or add to these at any time.
You pop up the options by holding down the SHIFT key when you select the explorer menu item, so it's easy to get to the advanced options whenever you need them. Same goes for verification, though generally you won't need it - checksum is smart enough to just get on with the job, verifying whatever checksum files it finds in the path, be they MD5 or SHA1, or both, and you'll probably never need to use anything but the default verify command, nomatter how advanced you are! And because checksum recognizes other formats of MD5 and SHA1 files, it can be used not only to verify and create new checksums, but also verify existing checksum files, even ancient ones, automatically.
I expect there is some weird MD5 file format out there that I don't have an example of, Wang, maybe? but in practice, checksum supports ALL known MD5 verification file formats, that is, known by me. If you find an MD5 file format that checksum doesn't support, send it to me!
There isn't really a standard SHA1 format yet, but checksum's is pretty good (it's the same as the output from a *NIX sha1sum command in binary mode). Shall we?
100% Portable..
checksum usually operates as a regular installed desktop application with Explorer context menus, custom.hash, .md5 and .sha1 desktop icons, Windows start menu entries, and so on; but checksum can also operate in a completely portable state, and happily works from a pen-drive, DVD, or wherever you happen to be; no less than total portability. Even with its little brother, simple checksum tagging along, the whole lot fits easily on a floppy disk (remember those?) or pen-drive, enabling you to create SHA1 and MD5 hashes, wherever you are. To activate portable mode, simply drop a
checksum.ini file next to checksum.exe, you're done.It's no problem to run checksum both ways simultaneously, or to run checksum in portable mode on a desktop where checksum is already installed. Simply put, if there's a
checksum.ini next to it, checksum will use it, and if there isn't an ini there, checksum uses the one in your user data folder (aka. "Application Data", aka. "AppData").If you like applications to run in a portable state, even on your own desktop, no problem; you can skip the installer altogether and simply extract
files.zip to wherever you like. It's in the installer's files/ directory. There's also a checksum.ini inside the archive, so you can unzip-and-go.Note: Regardless of whether you install or run checksum portably, its functionality is identical.
Introducing.. The Unified Hash Extension™
And Multi-Hashing™..
checksum uses the MD5 and SHA1 hashing algorithms, and creates .md5 and .sha1 files to contain these hashes. But checksum prefers to instead create a single .hash extension for all your hash files, whatever algorithm you use. Welcome to the unified .hash extension..
I feel there are quite enough file extensions to deal with, and with some effort on the part of software developers, this may catch on. I hope it does, anyway, and that you agree. A single, unified hash extension looks like the way forward, to me. All comments welcome, below.
As well as being able to verify both MD5 and SHA1 hashes, even mixed up in the same file, checksum can also create such a file, if you so desire. At any rate, if you start using SHA1 hashes some day, you can keep your old MD5s handy, inside your
.hash files..The single, unified hash extension gives us not only the freedom to effortlessly upgrade algorithms at any time, without having to handle yet-another-file-type, but also the ability to easily store output from multiple hashing algorithms inside a single
.hash file. Welcome to multi-hashing, which will doubtless have security benefits, to boot.Fast, bloody fast..
If you do a lot of SHA1 or MD5 hashing, you'll know that it's an intensive process, and relatively slow. Well, checksum is fast, very fast.
Even on my old desktop (a lowly 1.3GHz, where checksum was initially developed) it would rip through a 100MB file in under one second. Hashing your average album is instantaneous. With right-click convenience, intelligent recursion and synchronization, full automization, and crazy-fast hashing speeds, digital fingerprinting is no longer a chore; it's a joy!
Okay, I'm getting carried away, but seriously, this is how hashing was always meant to be.
Features..
If you like lists, and who doesn't, here's a list of checksum's "features", as compared to your average md5 utility..True point-and-click hash creation and verification.
No-brainer hash creation and verification. In a word; simple.
Choice of MD5 or SHA1 hashing algorithms.
Create a regular MD5sum (128-bit), or further increase security by using the SHA1 algorithm (160-bit). checksum recognizes and works with both formats, even mixed up in the same file.
hash single files, or folders/directories full of files.. no problem.
checksum can create hash files for individual files or folders full of files, and importantly, automatically recognizes both kinds during verification, verifying every kind of checksum file it can find. Also, when creating individual hash files, checksum is smart enough to skip any that already exist.
Effortless recursion. (point at a folder/directory or volume and GO!)
Not only fully automatic creation and verification of files, and folders full of files, but hash all the files and folders inside, and all the folders inside them, and so on, and so on, through an entire volume, if you desire.. one click! ... Drive hashing is now officially EASY!
Multiple user-defined file mask groups.
For instance, hash only MP3 files, or only movies, whatever you like, available from a handy drop-down menu. All your favourite file types can be stored in custom groups for easy-peezy file-type-specific hashing. e.g..
The most common groups are already provided, and it's trivial to create your own. You can also enter custom masks directly into the one-shot options, e.g.
music=*.mp3,*.wav,*.ogg,*.flac,*.ape,*.shn,*.mpc,*.mp2The most common groups are already provided, and it's trivial to create your own. You can also enter custom masks directly into the one-shot options, e.g.
reports-*.pdf, to hash all the reports in a folder, create ad-hoc groups, or whatever.Automatic music playlist creation!
Another killer feature; checksum can create music playlist files along with your checksums! When creating a folder hash, if checksum encounters any of the music files you have specified in your preferences; mp3's, ogg files, wma, whatever; it can create a playlist for the collection (i.e.. the album). Rather nifty, and a perfect addition to the custom command in the tips and tricks section.
As well as regular Windows standard
As well as regular Windows standard
.m3u playlist files (Winamp, etc.), checksum also supports .pls playlists (shoutcast/icecast). Your call.Effortlessly handles all known** legacy md5 files.
If you discover an MD5sum that checksum doesn't support, send me that file!
Create lowercase or UPPERCASE checksums at will.
Like many things, this can also be set permanently, if you so wish.
Automatic synchronization of old and new files
Automatically add new hashes to existing checksum files.
That's right! Automatically add new hashes to existing checksum files!
That's right! Automatically add new hashes to existing checksum files!
Integrated Windows® Explorer context (right-click) operation.
The installer will setup Windows® Explorer context commands for all files and folders, so you can right-click anything and create or verify checksums at will. Very handy. "setup", the rather clever installer, is also available in its own right, as a free, and 100% ini-driven installer engine for your own goodies. Stuffed with features, easy to use, and definitely deserving a page to itself. Soon.
As explained above, you can also bypass the installer altogether, and simply unzip-and-go, for 100% portable checksumming. Or you can have both.
As explained above, you can also bypass the installer altogether, and simply unzip-and-go, for 100% portable checksumming. Or you can have both.
No-fuss intelligent checksum verification.
Cut and paste your own checksum files if you like, rename them, mix and match legacy md5 formats in a single file, even throw in a few sha1 hashes just for fun; worry not; checksum will work it out!
Can be configured to permanently ignore any file types.
Obviously we don't want checksums files of checksum files, for starters, but if you have other file types you'd like on a permanent ignore,
desktop.ini files, thumbs.db, whatever; it's easy to setup. The most common annoying file types already are.Real-time tool-tip style dynamic progress update.
Drag it around the screen - it snaps to the edges, and stays there (checksum also remembers its dialog screen positions, for intuitive, fast operation).
Tool-tip progress can be disabled altogether, if you wish.
Right-click the Tooltip for extra options.
During verification, any failures can be seen real-time in a system tray tool-tip, hover your mouse over the tray icon for details. checksum also flashes the progress tooltip red momentarily, and (optionally) beeps your PC speaker, to let you know of any hash failures. If there were errors, the final tooltip is red (by default). Anything to make life a bit easier.
Tool-tip progress can be disabled altogether, if you wish.
Right-click the Tooltip for extra options.
During verification, any failures can be seen real-time in a system tray tool-tip, hover your mouse over the tray icon for details. checksum also flashes the progress tooltip red momentarily, and (optionally) beeps your PC speaker, to let you know of any hash failures. If there were errors, the final tooltip is red (by default). Anything to make life a bit easier.
Verify a mix of multiple (and nested) md5 and sha1 checksum files with a single command.
Does what it says on the can!
Extensionless checksum files.
Traditionally, individual checksum files are named
On the verify side of things, checksum has always verified every possible checksum it can find, so these multi-hash file look just like regular folder hash files, and verify perfectly, so long as the data hasn't changed, of course!
filename.ext.md5. Personally, I find this inelegant, and prefer them to be named filename.md5. I like it so much, I made it the default, but you can change that, if you like. When running extensionless; if checksum encounters multiple files with same name, it simply adds them to the same checksum file, so checksums for foo.txt, foo.htm, and foo.jpg would all go inside foo.md5, or better yet, foo.hash. Highly groovy. On the verify side of things, checksum has always verified every possible checksum it can find, so these multi-hash file look just like regular folder hash files, and verify perfectly, so long as the data hasn't changed, of course!
Smart checksum file naming, with dynamic @tokens.
checksum file names reflect the actual files or folders checked! Automatically.
If you want more, you can specify either static or dynamic checksum file names, with a wide range of automagically transforming tokens. See below for details.
If you want more, you can specify either static or dynamic checksum file names, with a wide range of automagically transforming tokens. See below for details.
Effortless hashing of read-only volumes.
checksum can create sha1 and md5 hashes for the read-only volume, but store the checksum files elsewhere; either with relative paths inside; so you can later copy the checksum file into other copies of the volume, or absolute paths; so you can keep tabs on the originals from anywhere.
checksum currently has three different read-only fallback strategies to choose from; use whichever most suits your needs.
checksum currently has three different read-only fallback strategies to choose from; use whichever most suits your needs.
Extensive logging capabilities, with intelligent log handling and dynamic log naming.
checksum always gives you the option to log failures. But you can log everything if you prefer. hashing times can be included in the logs, and proper css classes ensure you can tell what's-what at a glance.
Relative or absolute log file path locations can be configured in your preferences, as can the checksum log name itself; with dynamic date and time, as well as dynamic location and status tokens, so you can customize the output naming format to your exact requirements.
In other words, as well leaving it to checksum to work out automatically, or typing a regular name into your prefs, such as "checksum.log", you can use cool
The
Relative or absolute log file path locations can be configured in your preferences, as can the checksum log name itself; with dynamic date and time, as well as dynamic location and status tokens, so you can customize the output naming format to your exact requirements.
In other words, as well leaving it to checksum to work out automatically, or typing a regular name into your prefs, such as "checksum.log", you can use cool
@tokens to insert the current..You can mix these up with regular strings, like so..@sec... seconds value. from 00 to 59
@min... minutes value. from 00 to 59
@hour... hours value, in 24-hour format. from 00 to 23
@mday... numeric day of month. from 01 to 31
@mon... numeric month. from 01 to 12
@year... four-digit year
@wday... numeric day of week. from 1 to 7 which corresponds to Sunday through Saturday.
@yday... numeric day of year. from 1 to 366 (or 365 if not a leap year)
There is also a special token:@itemwhich is transformed into the name of the file or folder being checked, and@status, which automatically transforms into the current success/failure status.
log_name=[@year-@mon-@mday @ @hour.@min.@sec] checksums for @item [@status!].logThe
@status strings can also be individually configured in your prefs, if you wish. Roll the whole thing up, and with the settings above, the final log name might look like..[2007-11-11 @ 16.43.50] checksums for golden boy [100% AOK!].logHTML logging with log append and auto log-rotation
As well as good old plain text, checksum can output logs in lovely XHTML, with CSS used for all style and positional elements. With the ability to append new logs to old, and auto-transforming tokens, you setup automatic daily/monthly/whatever log rotation by doing no more than choosing the correct name. You can even have your logs organized by section and date, all automatically; via the free-energy from your
@tokens.Click here to see a sample of checksum's log output, amongst other things.
Total cross-platform and legacy md5 file format support
MD5 and SHA1 hash files from UNIX, Linux, Mac and Solaris, as well as a myriad of legacy Windows and DOS MD5 formats, in fact, every hash file I've ever come across, is supported. Throw any old MD5sum at checksum, and you'll get results. And if you don't (*gasp*), Send Me That FILE!
Work with hidden checksums.
If you don't like to see those checksum files, no problem; checksum can create and verify hidden checksum files as easily as visible ones. Like most options, as well as on-the-fly configuration via the options dialog (hold down SHIFT when you launch checksum), you can set this permanently by altering checksum.ini.
To create hidden checksums (same as attrib +h), use "h" on the command-line, or choose that option from the options dialog.
Don't worry about creating music playlists with the invisible option enabled, the playlists will be perfectly visible, only the checksums get hidden! (well, someone asked! ;o)
To create hidden checksums (same as attrib +h), use "h" on the command-line, or choose that option from the options dialog.
Don't worry about creating music playlists with the invisible option enabled, the playlists will be perfectly visible, only the checksums get hidden! (well, someone asked! ;o)
"Quiet" operation.
Handy if you are making scheduled items, etc, and want to disable all the dialogs. Simply add a 'q'.
You can also set checksum to only pop up dialogs for "long operations". Just how long constitutes a long operation, is of course, up to you. The default is 0, so you get "SUCCESS!", even if it only took a millisecond. Check your ini for more wee tricks like this.
You can also set checksum to only pop up dialogs for "long operations". Just how long constitutes a long operation, is of course, up to you. The default is 0, so you get "SUCCESS!", even if it only took a millisecond. Check your ini for more wee tricks like this.
Audio alerts.
Unrelated to the "quiet" option (above), checksum can thoughtfully invoke your peecee speaker to notify you of any verification failures as they happen, as well as shorter double-pips on completion. You can even specify the exact KHz value for the beeps, whatever suits you best.
You can also assign WAV files for the success and failure sounds, if you prefer.
You can also assign WAV files for the success and failure sounds, if you prefer.
Drag-and-drop files, folders and drives onto checksum.
If you prefer to drag and drop things, you can keep checksum (or a shortcut to it) handy on your desktop/toolbars/sendto menu, and drag files or folders onto it for instant checksum creation. This works for verification, too; if you drag a hash file onto checksum, its hashes are instantly verified.
Note: like regular menu activation, you can use the SHIFT key to pop-up the options dialog at launch-time. You can also drag and drop files and folders onto the one-shot options dialogs, to have their paths automatically inserted for you.
Note: like regular menu activation, you can use the SHIFT key to pop-up the options dialog at launch-time. You can also drag and drop files and folders onto the one-shot options dialogs, to have their paths automatically inserted for you.
User preferences are stored in a plain text Windows® ini file.
You can look at it, edit it, back it up, script with it, and handle it. Lots of things can be tweaked and set from here, though 99.36% of people will probably find the defaults are just fine, and the one-shot option dialogs handle everything else they could ever need. But if you are a more advanced user, with special requirements, chances are checksum has a setting just for you. Click here to find out more about
checksum.iniComprehensive set of command-line switches.
Normally with checksum, you simply click-and-go; but checksum also accepts a large number of command-line switches. If you are creating a custom front-end, modifying your explorer context menu commands, or creating a custom scheduled task, take a look at checksum's many switches. For lots more details, see here.
If you simply have some special task to perform, it can probably be achieved via the one-shot options dialog.
If you simply have some special task to perform, it can probably be achieved via the one-shot options dialog.
That's a lot of features! And it's not even them all!
Legacy and cross-platform MD5/SHA1 file formats that checksum can handle..
If you look inside any MD5/SHA1 checksum file - it's plain text - you find all sorts of things.Here's what a regular (MD5) checksum file looks like..
01805fe7528f0d98c595ba97b798717a *01 - Stygian Vista (radio controlled).mp3Each line begins with the MD5/SHA1 digest (hash), followed by a space, then an asterisk, then the filename. It's a clear format, flexible, relatively fool-proof ("*" is not allowed on any file system), and well supported.
Other formats I've come across..
single file single MD5/SHA1 hash types - these necessarily have the same name as the file, with ".md5" or ".sha1" extension added, and are often hand-made by system admins, or else piped from a shell md5/sha command) ..01805fe7528f0d98c595ba97b798717a4988ae20125db807143f84dbe09df9782c3c033aspace delimited hashes (before we figured out the clever asterisk)..
01805fe7528f0d98c595ba97b798717a 01 - Stygian Vista (radio controlled).mp34988ae20125db807143f84dbe09df9782c3c033a 01 - Stygian Vista (radio controlled).mp3double-space delimited hashes (just silly, really)..
Believe it or not, this is the de-facto standard for md5 files, mainly because it's the output from the UNIX md5sum/sha1sum command in 'text' mode, which amazingly; is the default setting. By the way; md5sum's "-b" or "--binary" switch overrides this insanity.
01805fe7528f0d98c595ba97b798717a 01 - Stygian Vista (radio controlled).mp34988ae20125db807143f84dbe09df9782c3c033a 01 - Stygian Vista (radio controlled).mp3back-to-front hashes in parenthesis - this is quite a common format around the UNIX/Solaris archives of the world (it's the output from
openssl dgst command) ..MD5(01 - Stygian Vista (radio controlled).mp3)= 01805fe7528f0d98c595ba97b798717a
or..MD5 (01 - Stygian Vista (radio controlled).mp3) = 01805fe7528f0d98c595ba97b798717a
even..SHA1(01 - Stygian Vista (radio controlled).mp3)= 4988ae20125db807143f84dbe09df9782c3c033achecksum supports verification of all these formats with ease, so feel free to point it at any old folder structure, Linux CD, whatever, or any .md5 or .sha1 files you have lying around, and get results.
And in case the above track names got you googled here, yes, checksum also works great in Microsoft® Vista, and Windows 7 of course. ;o)
simple checksum
Installed along with checksum is checksum's little brother app, "simple checksum", a supremely simple, handy, free, and highly cute drag-and-drop desktop checksumming tool; for all those "wee" hashing tasks..Drop a file onto simple checksum, get an instant MD5 or SHA-1 hash readout.
Drop two files, and get an instant MD5 or SHA-1 file compare.
Drop a file onto simple checksum with a hash in your clipboard, get an instant clipboard hash compare.
And that works from your "SendTo" menu, too (select two files - SendTo simple checksum.. instant file compare), as well as drag and drop onto simple checksum itself, or a shortcut to simple checksum. Packed with intuitive HotKeys and time-saving automatic settings, simple checksum is Very Handy Indeed!
Check it out for free..
checksum download
Feel free to download and use checksum..
LIVE MD5+SHA1 Multi-Hashes..
# made with checksum.. point-and-click hashing for windows. # from corz.org.. http://corz.org/windows/software/checksum/ # 7024ccb56480d868b82127e53bdb7a6e *checksum.zip 52c83b9c396d30f474b6eff6cc625b2311158be1 *checksum.zip
NOTE: If your Anti-Virus software detects anything in this software, I recommend you switch to an Anti-Virus that isn't brain-dead. If you DO discover an actual virus, malware, trojan, or anything of that nature inside this software, please mail me, and I will send you a cheque for a Million Pounds, as a reward. In other words, this software is clean.
Thanks
I love it just simple and easy
thanks - just what i needed!
An education to be sure! I wanted to start teaching myself PHP and MySQL. The download sites recommend that you verify the signature before installation. Having never done this before I was at a loss. A web search came up with your tool. Very nice! Thank you and bless you for making this available.
Hi Cor -
I have been using your checksum utility and, while I like it, I still do not find it completely logical. An option exists for creating a one-file "root" checksum file in the root folder. However, this is not recursive ... if one goes down to a subfolder, the hash file for that subfolder only contains the hashes for the files in that subfolder (and not hashes for any files further down in the folder hierarchy). Currently, it is impossible to obtain that each folder in the hierarchy have a root checksum of its own except creating it manually for each folder. This is, of course, impossible for large hierarchies.
I suggest that a fully logical checksum should do the following:
if A = {B,C,D,{m,n,p,q,r}} where A, B, C, D = folders and m, n, p, q, r = files
then A.hash = Union(B.hash,C.hash,D.hash,m.hash,n.hash,p.hash,q.hash,r.hash)
RECURSIVELY.
So basically a folder's hash file collects all the hashes in the hash files for each of its subfolders and files, recursively.
This should be the base creation operation, or the default. Starting from this, one can add various negative switches to modify behaviour. For instance:
-i = would not produce hash files for individual files but still record the file hashes in the parent folder's hash file;
-f = would not record subfolder hashes in a parent folder's hash file;
-if = the current default behaviour for checksum.
The advantage of my proposal is that it would achieve completeness and full logicality while sacrificing none of the current options.
Best,
-- Ruber
I also have problems with folders and files containing Asian characters. I have tens of gigs of files that can't be hashed because of this limitation. Are there any plans to fix this?
I have no problems hashing non-roman characters, maybe it's your system.
hope it works.... save me lot of time redownloading files
Simple and powerful tool. Does what i want.
@Grizer
other-alphabetinator has the same issue. I'm running the latest version of Checksum on two different computers with Windows 7 x64 SP1. That's a pretty standard config these days so I doubt it's my system.
Hi,
first I'ld like to mention that I like checksum very much and that I detected some few incorrectly copied files verifying the destination (on more than one hardware).
Nevertheless I'ld like to request a feature (maybe I overlooked that it already exists, but I didn't find something appropriate):
I have several file structures looking like
folder1/binaries/setup.exe
folder2/binaries/setup.exe
.
.
.
folder999/binaries/setup.exe
this will result in 999 binaries.hash files,
all with the same name.
I am looking for some fail-safe feature, so that one can easily identify where each of the hash files belongs to.
(e.g. Anybody out there who accidently moved something with the mouse? ...)
Maybe there is a way to make hash file name creation not only consider the parent folder but one level more?
Or to include the path as a comment within the hash file?
But I'ld prefer not to use absolute paths.
Best, Erp
I, for one, truly hope that Cor doesn't follow RB's suggestion about storing the entire folder structure into a single hash file because there's too often when I move around folders. With the folders having their own hash file Checksum works fine in the destination. With RB's way I'd be having to re-checksum and/or manually editing hash files to take into account the moved files and folders. Checksum's handling of one file per folder is EXACTLY the way I want it to work.
However, I do have some enhancement requests, just in case you're feeling industrious...
1) How about storing the file size and data/time stamp in the hash file along with the file name? Then, when doing a verify, alert us to the files that were changed along with the current size/date/time stamps as well as the values stored in the hash files. That would help us speed up troubleshooting why the files are different, as well as help us look for backed up files with the proper size and date.
2) Almost always when Checksum finds a changed or missing file it's because it was intentionally changed or deleted. I appreciate that it found them but it would be nice if there was a nice way to automate updating the hashes in the .hash files after we've had a chance to verify that the new values are correct. How about this: When Checksum goes through and verifies files and finds a hash value that is different from what was stored in the hash file, rather than discarding that new hash information go ahead and save it in some way, like in the reporting HTML file, or maybe in a log file. Then have a special mode of Checksum that would read that information and allow us to replace the old/unwanted hashes with the newer ones that were found, as well as deleting the hashes of files that were intentionally deleted. I'd want to pick and choose the ones to update or delete, with an option to "select all".
3) I'd also like to win the lottery and have ice cream at every meal. And never get old or fat. And live forever. Please work on those requests as well.
Thanks!
Bunsen
Thanks
@DrBunsen
With regret, you did not understand what I was proposing nor what Checksum currently does. Checksum currently has the option of storing every single file hash in a unique "root" hash file. You may or may not be using this option, but it's there. As you correctly point out, this limits your flexibility if you start moving folders around. Checksum of course also has the option of creating a hash file per folder but this is limited to the files in the folder (it is non-recursive). What I was proposing was that Checksum enhances the hash-file-per-folder idea by making every folder's hash file collect all the hashes downstream (e.g. all the hashes of the files in its subfolders also, not only the hashes of its own files). It is a generalisation of the "root" hash file idea to every single folder. This way, your flexibility is enhanced, every folder being ready to become the root folder for a hierarchy of its own if you choose to extract it from the archived hierarchy and make it independent. Moreover, while giving you more options, all the existing options would be preserved as well, just perhaps activated by different switches.
Love your product. Been using it a while now. Just sent you some money (sorry it's so trivial).
I have the same issue as Dr Bunsen. I am using Checksum to verify all my older photos. They go back 20 years and there are 53,000 of them in folders by year taken.
Although I do off-site verified backup of these old pictures on a yearly basis, I don't know if a few bits got damaged in one or more pictures so your utility is very helpful to me. If a file or files get damaged or lost your utility will let me know and I can then decide to first get a new hard drive (as I assume lost bits are a sign the drive is going), copy the files to the new drive, verify and restore all damaged/lost files from my backups so that future backups won't be backing up damaged photos.
The problem is that I occasionally edit or rename photos taken even many years ago. I also use your utility on this year's photos which are even more dynamic. I often go in and fix the dark photos, delete duplicates, etc. When I run your utility I get warnings about sporadic photos that I've edited, deleted or renamed. I have to check each one in the log, then rehash the whole folder. Often it's obvious that the file changed due to the date alone but we can't trust that. I guess ideally the utility should stop, pop up the file in a way that I can open it, and then an option to request that the file have its hash updated.
Dr Bunsen's suggestions are reasonable also.
I'm sure you could find another solution that would help this issue.
This looks like an interesting tool. A few suggestions:
First, get rid of the mp3 playlist generation feautre, and make it in to a standalone utility. It's obviously completely unrelated feature-creep that has not place in a checksumming utility.
Second, please allow the standalone checksumming utility to simply and directly send the checksum to the clipboard.. bonus points for not producing any other type of output, not even a window.. though perhaps a very brief "onscreen display" indicator that the checksum had been calculated would be nice to have as an option.
Finally, it would be good if there was an option to send the checksum(s) to VirusTotal and have the results displayed on a web page in the user's default browser.
I would like a way to select 2 or more files in Explorer (using Win 7 64 bit), right-click, and get one of two dialogs:
"compared files and yes, they are all the same"
or
"compared files, and they are different. here are the checksums...."
I agree with previous poster about removing the MP3 player functionality. I like the idea about sending directly to clipboard.
I'm looking for a portable MD5 checker and yours is absolutely great. However it skipped all file names in Unicode. Wish to see a fix to that. Appreciate your work!
This is by far the best candidate to replace the many random checksum generators out there. The unified hash idea is a great one, and checksum's context menu and options dialog makes creating hash files much easier.
However, there are still quite a few issues that will impede checksum from taking over:
1) It is not open source.
1a) While I understand that Corz deserves some contribution for his work, I think that the futures of author-driven development tend to go defunct. Open source ensures the project can continue if the developer loses interest (as is the case with so many such programs).
1b) Additionally, open source is the only way to create an open standard for the unified hash file. Currently, there is no indication of the type of hash provided, and it must be chosen based on length. There must be a standard to indicate each type of hash (such as the "urn:sha1:" sequence). Of course, backward compatibility can be maintained by also simultaneously generating regulard md5/sha1/sfv files. The ".hash" file needs an expandable standard.
1c) Cross-platform capability. Open source could help to create cross-platform versions of the software, which will promote the standards it creates.
2) Not enough hashing algorithms. The unified hash file is a great idea, but without more hashing algorithms, it doesn't serve nearly as much of a purpose. FSumFrontEnd provides plenty of algorithms, but has no context menus and is not being actively developed. Checksum could use Fsum to obtain further algorithms.
3) Context menu customization. Cascading context menus are a must. In addition, this would allow the user to select the hash algorithm (or group thereof) from the menu itself (a la hkSFV). My personal dream is to be able to setup a custom group of hashes so that I can right click, select checksum for a cascade, and select "Create SFV/MD5/SHA1/HASH" to create everything necessary as defined by the group (i.e. create all of them simultaneously).
We also still need that divider fix.
There are many other suggestions (some in these comments, some I have reserved in my brain), but these are the ones I feel will most affect Checksum's adoption as the premier hashing client. Please consider all of this and feel free to e-mail me.
I really do appreciate your work on Checksum and hope it can be developed into the best hashing client. Thank you.
This is nice software, but it hasn't been updated since 2009. It needs to be open sourced so development can continue, especially on more than just windows.
Just want to try it out