Tool for comparing 2 binary files in Windows [closed]

Question

I need a tool to compare 2 binaries. The files are quite large. Some freeware or trial tools I found on the Internet are not convenient to use for large files. Can you recommend me some tools?

Inchoate

Answer 1

A few possibilities:

• VBinDiff (binary diff, designed for large files)
• WinDiff
• bsdiff
• HexCmp

See also: https://web.archive.org/web/20151122151611/https://stackoverflow.com/questions/688504/binary-diff-tool-for-very-large-files

Husted

I read in the notes of vBinDiff that "unlike diff, it works well with large files (up to 4 GB)." So its suitability for working with large files depends on your definition of "large". Also, I found it would mysteriously not start up under windows 7 x64. – Colecolectomy

Bare in mind that VBinDiff is a CLI program, so if you just try to run it on Windows, it will either appear not to start, or will very briefly show a command prompt window, which quickly disappears. Open up a command prompt and run the program from there to see what arguments it accepts, and then use it from the command prompt accordingly. – Redness

vBinDiff works fine for me in Windows 7 x64. – Lambeth

When I tried using vBinDiff to compare two 1.4 GB files, it croaked. Neither can WinDiff handle such files. – Globular

@Colecolectomy I too found this quite humorous, although I found that it does work with files larger than 4 GB -- you just can't see diffs past 4 GB. That was enough for my purposes, although it would be great to have true LFS. – Nanettenani

Anyone know were we can get WinDiff from? The link is just to the wikipedia page. There's a link to XPsp2 support tools there (which includes it), but that will only install on XP. – Particle

VBinDiff is AWESOME! Thought it is CLI, it is easy to use! Except maybe I had to search what RET key is xD It turns that it is the Enter key. – Marigolde

vBinDiff doesn't seem to deal with inserted bytes at all, so it's really not much better than HxD except that it shows you all the changes in red. – Textualist

VBinDiff allows you to freeze one of the two scroll areas and when you make them sync again by scrolling the other one byte at a time it shows the same parts in white and diffs in red. So it is more of a manual tool, but with visual aid – Pistil

Answer 2

If you want to find out only whether or not the files are identical, you can use the Windows fc command in binary mode:

fc.exe /b file1 file2

For details, see the reference for fc

Cummins

for the same purpose - only whether files are identical or not - a portable app Duplicate File Finder works good enough. Particularly for big files like .iso files. – Koblas

this should be the accepted answer, since this is windows native and not an addition 3rd party app – Alcoholometer

this just shows a list of bytecodes - there is also a "comp" tool in the command-line, but that one seems to require files to be of same size – Pistil

This is exactly what I was lookig for, thanks a lot! This shows a table of the addresses which the changes and shows what changed. – Ierna

Answer 3

Total Commander also has a binary compare option: go to: File \\Compare by content

ps. I guess some people may alredy be using this tool and may not be aware of the built-in feature.

Rusty

This doesn't understand inserted content like a text diff tool, though, only changes to bytes. – Textualist

@Textualist and another thing to mention is that Total Commander costs $42 USD. – Cranny

Answer 4

My favorite "swiss knife" is Beyond Compare from http://www.scootersoftware.com/

Foot

Beyond Compare doesn't work for binary files above 500MB... – Liegnitz

Try this one github.com/Shelwien/cmp – Foot

@BorisIvanov: It probably helps to mention that Beyond Compare is a paid software that will work only for 30 days. After that you'll have to get the license that costs $60. – Cranny

strange things but version I have downloaded from official site always working even after trial period. no hacks. – Foot

Beyond Compare doesn't appear to have binary diffing capability, which is what the question was about. – Architect

Check Shelwien tool – Foot

Answer 5

I prefer to use objcopy to convert to hex, then use diff.

Friary

Useful answer. The output file size is about 3 times as big as the input file. This command will convert a binary file to hex. objcopy -I binary -O ihex <in_file> <out_file> – Ludie

Answer 6

In Cygwin:

$cmp -bl <file1> <file2>

diffs binary offsets and values are in decimal and octal respectively.. Vladi.

Anallese