Tool for comparing 2 binary files in Windows

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?

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

Answer 2

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.

Answer 3

In Cygwin:

$cmp -bl <file1> <file2>

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

Answer 4

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

Answer 5

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

Answer 6

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