Compare Files with Windiff

1 sur 5 28/11/2010 13:07 Compare Files with Windiff Site Home Windows 2003 Home Utilities Home Guy's Top 10 Tools Additional Account Info ADModify ADSI Edit Basics ADSI Edit 5 examples Authoritative Restore CACLS Folder Perms CopyRite DCDiag Engineer's Toolset Free Network Analyzer Free Syslog Analyzer LDP NTDSUtil NETDiag Orion NPM v10 Replmon Taskmanager Shutdown Shutdown Event Tracker Windiff Training Courses Utilities -Command Line Guy recommends: Free config generator This CG will put you in charge of controlling changes to network routers and other SNMP devices. Download your free Config Generator File Comparison Tool Download Now! Windows, Linux, OSX Diff files in OSX, Linux, Windows www.aquafold.com samwin attendant console New professional SIP console innovativ and vendor independent. www.telecomsoftware.com Directory Compare

2 sur 5 28/11/2010 13:07 Windiff - To Compare Files Don't you just love utilities with expressive names such as Windiff? The words Windows and Difference lead us to the concept of to comparing files and highlighting and disparity. As with other tools, the benefit of Windiff comes from imagining scenarios when it would solve your problems. To get your copy of Microsoft's Windiff, either extract it from the Windows Server 2003 Support folder, or else download a free copy at the bottom of this page. Topics for Windiff Guy's killer use of Windiff - To find settings in the registry Getting Started with Windiff The First Windiff Trick Down to Business - File Comparison Windiff's Zebra Stripes Compare Folders with Windiff PowerShell Compare-Object Free download of Windiff Server Backup Software Manage your server backups without complex setups. Download free trial www.gfi.com/ server-backup Network Backup Software Future proof your company data with GFI Backup 2010. Get Free Trial! www.gfi.com/ Network_Backup Guy recommends: Free Permissions Analyzer Solarwinds' free AD tool troubleshoots a users effective permissions. Download Permissions Analyser - Free Active Directory Tool Offre Paris -70% Bénéficiez d'offres Incroyables Du Jamais Vu à Paris www.groupon.fr/paris File Comparison Tool Download Now! Windows, Linux, OSX Diff files in OSX, Linux, Windows www.aquafold.com Directory Compare Compare and synchronize files and directories in Windows www.galcott.com Guy's Review of Computer Utilities 1) FreePing 2) Permission Analyzer 3) Xobni 4) PuTTY (UNIX) 5) WMI Monitor

3 sur 5 28/11/2010 13:07 6) BgInfo 7) Net-SNMP 8) Engineer's Toolset 9) DNS Stuff 10) WinDiff Ads by Google Folders Lock Folders Windiff Compare File Compare Text Guy's killer use of Windiff - To find settings in the registry Judging from my postbag, not many people realize the benefits of comparing files with Windiff. However, like the all the best ideas, once you understand the concept it becomes blindingly obvious. Let us take the situation where we want to find a particular setting in the registry, for example, a setting on the Winlogon message box that we wish to control. Here is the outline of our plan: 1. 2. 3. 4. Before you make any changes, export the registry with Regedit. Make the change, for example, remove the tick from a checkbox. Export the registry after the change. Compare the two.reg files with Windiff. Getting Started with Windiff I find that while Windiff is easy to get working, nevertheless, it leaves me with that lingering feeling that I never quite reach the bottom of its possibilities. For example, I rarely use Windiff for copying files. Windiff has two main modes: Compare files Compare directories Let us start with Windiff's number one job, comparing files. When you first launch Windiff, be aware of a pair of almost identical menus. Go slowly. Be ready for Windiff to ask for the name of the two files in quick succession. I emphasise this sequence because when I was a greenhorn, I thought either I was going mad, or Windiff had a bug. My salvation was reading the screen, Select First File, then Select Second File - phew it's that easy to get started. The First Windiff Trick Once you have loaded the two files, I expect you want Windiff to identify the differences. The trick is to click on 1.\filename and then click on Expand. As ever, Microsoft provide two ways of doing everything, and you could click on the Expand Menu and then select, 'Both files'. Down to Business - File Comparison At the business end, Windiff homes in on every tiny difference between the two files. Moreover, for easy reading, it highlights each difference with a different color. The color coding extends into the margin so you can see which file corresponds to the red highlight and which to the yellow highlight. If a line is the same in both files it only has one entry, which you see in normal black text. Where there are differences, not only do you have the exceptions highlighted, but it gives you the line number. The screen shot is taken from a regedit export. As I mentioned earlier, one of my classic uses of Windiff is finding where in the registry Microsoft store particular settings. Guy Recommends: SolarWinds Engineer's Toolset v10 The Engineer's Toolset v10 provides a comprehensive console of utilities for troubleshooting computer problems. Guy says it helps me monitor what's occurring on the network, and the tools teach me more about how the system itself operates. There are so many good gadgets, it's like having free rein of a sweetshop. Thankfully the utilities are displayed logically: monitoring, discovery, diagnostic, and Cisco tools. Download your copy of the Engineer's Toolset v 10 Zebra Stripes After doing its best to match the files line-by-line, Windiff looks at the remaining parts. Where there are sections which are

4 sur 5 28/11/2010 13:07 different, but which correspond, in the sense that the part before and the part after match, Windiff has a choice between displaying the lines as blocks or as interleaved. Windiff uses a heuristic intelligence to decide whether the lines from the two files are similar. If it judges that they are similar it displays them interleaved, otherwise it displays them as blocks. Compare Folders with Windiff A secondary job for Windiff is to compare whole folders or directories. Just click on the File menu and select 'Select Directories'. This time you see both directories one under the other so there is no chance of confusion. Press F8 to see the next change / difference. Train Signal has now released their Windows Server 2008 Training Course. As an MCT trainer, I am a huge advocate of Train Signal s products. What particularly impresses is me is the demonstrations. If you are looking for a complete DETAILED coverage of Windows Server 2008, then I highly recommend that you give this course a try. I have reviewed their 6 hours plus of videos myself, and I guarantee that you will not be disappointed! Watch a Windows Server 2008 Training Video Demo. Windiff Options Although there is nothing really exciting in the Options menu, they are worth checking. For example, if you remove the tick next to 'Show Identical Lines, it will help you track a single change in large files. In addition to the options, check out the Expand menu and decide if you need to add or remove any of those options. Windiff's Mark Menu It is easy to overlook the Mark menu. The job of this menu is to hide or exclude files in your search. Windiff Command Line Options My old friend 'Barking' Eddie insisted that I added this command line section. As I may have mentioned in previous Eddie is an ex-unix man and is a founder of 'Dos Diehards'. Windiff Command Line Options: -D Compare one directory only. -F[flags] savefile Save composite file to 'savefile'. The 'flags' may consist of one or more of I (identical), L (left), R (right), F (moved left), G (moved right), S (Similar left), A (similiar right), X (exit after saving list). (e.g. -FLF saves list of Left or moved-left lines). -I file Reads list of files to compare, from the specified input file. Each line can contain one or two filenames, space delimited (with quoting, if filenames contain spaces). Use "-" as the filename to read from stdin. If a line contains only one filename, the file is compared to itself. -N name NET SEND notification to 'name' at end of comparison. -O Outline view (no automatic expansion). -P Perverse comparison: breaks lines on punctuation. -S[flags] savefile Save list of files to 'savefile'. The 'flags' may consist of one or more of S (same), L (left), R (right), D (different), X (exit after saving list). (e.g. -SLD saves list of Left or Different files). -T Compare whole subtree. Guy Recommends: Orion IP SLA Manager Orion IP SLA Manager Highlights: Monitor Cisco VoIP performance statistics. Analyze the traffic for MOS, VoIP jitter, network latency, and packet loss. Leverage WAN performance using IP SLA technology that's already built into your Cisco routers. View WAN performance at-a-glance with the Top 10

5 sur 5 28/11/2010 13:07 IP SLA dashboard. Guy's favorite is to display site-to-site network performance on a clickable, drill-down map. Download your free copy of the Orion IP SLA Manager Summary of Microsoft's Windiff Windiff is a handy utility for comparing files and highlighting differences. My 'killer' use for Windiff is discovering where menu settings correspond to registry values. Another job for Windiff is checking directories and reporting and differences in the file lists. Download Windiff Click here to download Windiff See Also Authoritative Restore Windiff ESEutil NTDSUtil Performance Monitor Tool Ads by Google A4 Folders Color Find Similar Folders Microsoft Windows XP Custom File Folders Cheap Pocket Folders * Guy Recommends: SolarWinds LANSurveyor Web This Site LANSurveyor will produce a neat diagram of your network topology. But that's just the start; LANSurveyor can create an inventory of the hardware and software of your machines and network devices. Other neat features include dynamic update for when you add new devices to your network. Download a Free Trial of LANSurveyor Home Copyright 1999-2010 Computer Performance LTD All rights reserved Please report a broken link, or an error. guys@computerperformance.co.uk