How to Compare two exe files One built from the ol

Question

I am looking to compare two exe files. I should ensure that the existing exe on the server is a product of the code I have now.

I am using

>dumpbin /rawdata oldfile.exe > oldfile.txt
>dumpbin /rawdata newfile.exe > newfile.txt
>fc /b oldfile.txt newfile.txt  //compare them like this
>windiff  oldfile.txt newfile.txt // or this 

I guess they should only differ by the timestamp. These are VB.net exes from visual studio 2003.

Any thoughts?

Thanks.

Answer 1

I always use fc with /b option to compare two exes (or any binary files).

Answer 2

There are date stamps internal to executable files. Wrote a PASS/FAIL program to do this 10 years ago for a build backup process, but lost the code since. Easy to do on your own though.

I remember that after checking the header for the location of the build date stamp and ignoring that address, it was a straight byte to byte block compare.

Answer 3

If all you're looking to do is verify the binaries are identical, then you could use a utility like md5sum or sha1sum which will effectively hashes the binary. If the hashes for each binary are the same, then the chances are the files are identical.

Answer 4

Here's an add-in for Reflector that lets you compare the code between 2 assemblies.