Free cryptographic file hash generator for Windows
System Requirements |
Features
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Note: WinHasher may work on non-Windows platforms with a .NET 2.0 compatible framework like Mono. However, this is untested beyond running it through MoMA (which it passed). Use on a non-Windows platform is considered unsupported; there are far better hashing options available outside of Windows anyway, such as OpenSSL or Jacksum.
The implementations of the Whirlpool and Tiger hash algorithms have been lovingly stolen from the Legion of the Bouncy Castle Crypto API. The BC implementations are based on .NET 1.1, but I have since ported these to be subclasses of Microsoft's System.Security.Cryptography.HashAlgorithm class, so they should be usable by virtually any .NET 2.0 application.
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You can download the current version of WinHasher from the following links. A GnuPG digital signature and various hashes of the file (generated by WinHasher, no less) are also provided for verification.
| Installer: | WinHasher_1.2_Setup.exe (366k) |
| GnuPG Signature: | WinHasher_1.2_Setup.exe.asc |
| Signing Key: | Jeff's Public Key |
| MD5 Hash: | ee293990e74e777b1ebee8ce113cb2cc |
| SHA-1 Hash: | 753133c686a5b27350112763517da8667a51fe23 |
| SHA-256 Hash: | 83c1da5c185dbdbeedac3ce1539c02cfa9395363c5b62a25fd124611caeda35c |
| RIPEMD-160 Hash: | 0c880c5059b4e2ed377539d39d9ac337e21fe196 |
| Tiger Hash: | 38f5a79aeac0623629b539199f718c8af8aa852a1a13ce7d |
WinHasher is released under version 2.0 of the GNU General Public License. Thus, you can also download the C# source code:
| Source ZIP archive: | WinHasher_1.2_Source.zip (108k) |
| GnuPG Signature: | WinHasher_1.2_Source.zip.asc |
| Signing Key: | Jeff's Public Key |
| MD5 Hash: | 8a5af2e63fafab534a9f72602fc07c56 |
| SHA-1 Hash: | a9b977b92bcf043aff5bccae0b1948bd184f4179 |
| SHA-256 Hash: | 797dbe8162138c1b2d06b53d04ad64946d9c441278625c62c05e1da4885a1a5f |
| RIPEMD-160 Hash: | f781475d4f7692f3496f83832fc4926ed5dc277a |
| Tiger Hash: | 8b77c62b24c24e5b5806d8437a7b530c6f2923dacf161175 |
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Simply download and run the setup installer (after verfiying the digital signature and/or hashes, of course). It's as simple as that. The installer allows you to choose a number of options, such as which modules to install (the Windows application, the console programs, help files, etc.) and what shortcuts to create. Uninstalling is just as easy; either run the uninstall program from the Start menu or remove the program through the Add/Remove Programs interface.
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Why WinHasher?
Cryptographic hashing is readily available on many computer operating systems. It often comes built-in to the OS or as a (relatively) standard optional package. Mac OS, Linux, Free/OpenBSD, and many other OSes include OpenSSL as either a pre-installed or easily installable optional component. OpenSSL includes several command-line components for generating cryptographic hashes and there are number of graphical user interface (GUI) applications that allow point-and-click access to its capabilities.
Not so with Microsoft Windows. Windows does not include any built-in utilities for cryptographic hashes, and installing and using OpenSSL on Windows is not a trivial matter. The typical Windows user of today is much less familiar with the Windows Console (i.e. command line) let alone compiling software from source. And while cryptographic hashes are pretty much standard in programming libraries such as the Microsoft .NET Framework, the user is required to write and compile their own applications to use them.
This "hashing divide" has annoyed me for some time. While I consider myself to be an operating system agnostic and find myself equally home on both Windows and Linux, there are many times I've downloaded Windows-only software but didn't have the capability to verify the file's hash. Either I've been unable to install and run OpenSSL on a given machine, or I haven't had the time or access to a Linux box to copy the file over, generate the hash, and verify it before install. So I wanted to create a quick, simple, easy-to-use Windows app so I could get the hash of a file without waiting or moving it around. I also thought it would be a nice idea to be able to quickly compare the hashes of multiple files without having to generate each one and manually check every hexadecimal digit, so I added that functionality too. After writing the program, I thought it might be useful to others, so I decided to share.
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System.ComponentModel.BackgroundWorker object, so the hashing takes place in a different thread than the GUI. Now the GUI (regardless of whether the main window is opened or the process is launched by a "Send To" shortcut) will display an "in progress" dialog box to let you know that it's actually working. Before, hashes of really big files (say, several gigabyte DVD ISOs) seemed to disappear into nowhere, with no indication that the program was doing anything. The progress dialog includes a cancel button to allow the user to abort the operation while it is in progress. Unfortunately, there's no way to indicate how far along we are in an individual hash, an artifact of the System.Security.Cryptography.HashAlgorithm implementation. Comparisons will display a progress bar, but that only tells how many files of the batch have been hashed so far.[ Top ]
The entire WinHasher 1.2 documentation is here online for your browsing enjoyment. Check out either the Windows GUI help or the console program help.
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This page last updated March 14, 2008.
© Copyright 2008, Jeffrey T. Darlington. All rights reserved.
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