Comparison of Two “Silent Runners” Output Files

1. PrestoSoft's ExamDiff, or …
   
   
2. Microsoft's WinDiff.exe along with a companion freeware program, RunWinDiff.exe, that simplifies file selection.
   
   There are a number of ways to obtain WinDiff:
   
   
   1. Find a Windows XP or Windows 2000 installation CD and navigate to the SUPPORT.CAB file in the “\support\tools” directory. Using WinZip, extract gutils.dll, windiff.exe and windiff.hlp to the same directory.
      
      
   2. Find a Windows 98 CD – the three files are in the “\tools\reskit\file” directory.
      
      
   3. Download the Windows NT 4.0 Resource Kit Support Tools:
      
      
      • Extract sp4rkx86.cab from the self-extracting zip file and then extract the following three files from the .CAB file:
        
        STORMGMT_FILETOOL_gutils.dll
        STORMGMT_FILETOOL_windiff.exe
        STORMGMT_FILETOOL_windiff.hlp
        
        
      • For each of the three above files, remove the characters “STORMGMT_FILETOOL_” from the filename and place the three files in the same directory.
        
        
   4. Finally, download Chris Maunder's “RunWinDiff”, a convenient GUI “front end”, extract the executable and launch it. Enter the location of WinDiff.exe in the “WinDiff location:” field.

To compare two files:

• Start ExamDiff or RunWinDiff.
  
  
• Note that there are fields for two filenames, which will be called the top and bottom files.
  
  
• Drag and drop the files to compare onto the fields in the ExamDiff or RunWinDiff window or …
  
  
• Use the “Browse” (ExamDiff) or “Select Files” (RunWinDiff) buttons directly to the right of the top and bottom filename fields.
  
  
• For ExamDiff, press the “OK” button on the bottom; for RunWinDiff, press the “Compare Files” button in the upper right-hand corner.
  
  
• For ExamDiff:
  
  
  • The two files are shown side by side. The top file is on the left. A legend is at the bottom.
    
    
  • Each difference is selectable in the drop-down list above the file display.
    
    
  • Use the mouse scroll wheel or Ctrl-N to move from one difference to the next.
    
    
• For WinDiff:
  
  
  • Lines found only in the top file are shown on a red background.
    
    
  • Lines found only in the bottom file are shown on a yellow background.
    
    
  • Lines common to both files are shown on a white background.
    
    
  • To skip from one difference to the next, press F8. Press F7 to go back.