Windows 7 Genuine Check Tool

If you are running Windows 10, Windows 8.1 or Windows 8, first run the inbox Deployment Image Servicing and Management (DISM) tool prior to running the System File Checker. (If you are running Windows 7 or Windows Vista, skip to Step 3.) Type the following command, and then press Enter. If you are running Windows 10, Windows 8.1 or Windows 8, first run the inbox Deployment Image Servicing and Management (DISM) tool prior to running the System File Checker. (If you are running Windows 7 or Windows Vista, skip to Step 3.) Type the following command, and then press Enter. Once the Activate Windows utility has started up, you will see a message stating “Activation was successful” if your copy of Windows 7 is indeed genuine. In addition, on a computer that has an authentic copy of Windows 7, you will also see the genuine Microsoft software logo to the right of the “ Activation was successful ” message.

When you download a file from the internet, quite often you cannot be 100% guaranteed that the file has not been changed in some way from the original. This could either be by the site you are downloading from, corruption due to errors in the download process, an individual who has uploaded the file for you, or possibly the most dangerous, the file has been infected by malicious software.

One of the ways you can identify whether a file has been changed from its original state is to check its digital signature. Or you can verify a file’s integrity by checking its hash value. Every file has unique data contained within it, and when you apply a certain algorithm called a “cryptographic hash function” to it, a string value is returned which is only valid for that file in its current state.

If even one byte in the file changes, the value given when the check is run again will be different. A couple of popular hash algorithms are MD5 and SHA-1 and you will sometimes see these values listed on website download pages. A prime example is ISO images for operating systems like Linux and Windows. All the official Windows ISO images will have an SHA-1 hash listed somewhere online which you can then compare against to see if the one you downloaded is identical to the original.

If you have something like an MD5 or an SHA based hash value from a website and want to check the integrity of the downloaded file, a way to calculate its hash value is required. Here we show you 10 different tools that can calculate and compare hash values, they were tested on Windows 10 and 7.

1. IgorWare Hasher

Hasher is a small, portable and easy to use freeware tool that is able to calculate SHA1, MD5 and CRC32 checksums for a single file. You can browse for the file, drag and drop or add a context menu entry to right click and choose “Generate Hash”. There’s also an option to generate a hash from a block of text which you can type or paste into the box. The program opens a window for each file you select so don’t open more than a couple at once.

In addition to copying or saving the hash result to a file, you can load the hash file back into the program to check against another or the same file. The Options menu has some useful settings like keeping the program on top, making the hash values upper case, auto calculating after drag and drop, and adding the context menu entry. For some strange reason, Igorware Hasher downloads as a RAR file so make sure you have an archiver like WinRAR or 7-Zip to open it.

Download IgorWare Hasher

2. HashCheck

HashCheck works in a slightly different way to a traditional checking tool because it integrates into the system’s file properties window. You’ll get an extra tab called Checksums alongside the standard tabs of Compatibility, Details, Previous versions and etc. The original Hashcheck is from 2009 but seems to work fine in Windows 10. A more recent version is available on GitHub which we’ll also mention below.

The tiny (85KB) installer simply registers HashCheck.dll on the system so it’s very light on resources. Right click on one or more files or a folder and go to Properties > Checksums. Values for CRC-32, MD4, MD5, and SHA-1 will be shown in the window. The Save button can save the selected file checksums into a separate list for each hashing method which you can load later on to see if any of the files have changed.

A list can be created quickly from the context menu by right clicking on the file(s) and selecting “Create checksum file”.

Download HashCheck

As HashCheck is open source software, someone has taken the original code and updated it while adding some new features. Notable improvements include multithreading support, adding SHA-256 and SHA-512 (MD4 has been removed), calculating only selected checksums, adding extra translations, and digitally signing the files/installer.

This version of HashCheck is much newer and from 2016. It was created by Christopher Gurnee and is hosted on GitHub. MD5 and SHA-3 are disabled by default in this version but can easily be enabled in the Options window.

Download HashCheck 2.4 From GitHub

3. Nirsoft HashMyFiles

HashMyFiles is another small and portable tool from Nir Sofer that is simple and straightforward to use. The number of ways to open files is impressive because you can add single or multiple files, folders (including sub folders), running processes, and also by wildcard with custom folder depth. There’s also the Explorer context menu which can be manually enabled. The program shows hashes for CRC32, MD5, SHA-1, SHA-256, SHA-384, and SHA-512. General file information is also included in the display.

HashMyFiles can export the data to a TXT, HTML, XML or CSV file but you can’t use it to load back into the program to re-check files later on. A number of command line arguments are also available and other functions like always on top, extra file information, uppercase text, and send the hash to VirusTotal are in the Options menu. Also in the Options menu, “Mark Hash in Clipboard” compares a hash in the clipboard with the files and will show a match in green. “Mark Identical Hashes” shows the same files in differing colors.

Download HashMyFiles

4. HashTools

HashTools is from software developer BinaryFortress who make well known shareware applications like DisplayFusion and ClipboardFusion. This program is portable and will accept an individual file, multiple files or an entire folder for processing. An option to add a “Hash with HashTools” entry to the context menu is in the Settings window.

When you add files to HashTools they will not be processed until you press one of the buttons across the bottom to calculate the appropriate checksums. CRC32, MD5, SHA-1, SHA-256, SHA-384, and SHA-512 are supported. The Create SFV button will create CRC32 checksums for the files and save them into an SFV file which you can use to verify later on. Right clicking a file will allow copying of the hash or its path along with supplying a hash manually or from the clipboard to compare with.

Download HashTools

5. ComputeHash 2.0

ComputeHash is a small and very simple tool to use with no advanced or confusing features. It works entirely from the Windows context menu and you simply right click on a file and select the “Computer Hash” option. It will display MD5, SHA-1, SHA-256, SHA-384, and SHA-512 hashes all at once. Double click the executable to add the entry to the context menu, use uninstall.bat to remove it again.

Each checksum can be copied to the clipboard, or all values can be saved to a text file. The uppercase checkbox might make the values a bit easier to read. ComputeHash requires .Net Framework 2 so Windows 10 users will be prompted to install it if it’s not already installed. We are looking at version 2.0 from 2011 here, there is a version 4.4 from 2015 but we found it doesn’t display the checksums properly in Windows 7 or Windows 10.

Download ComputeHash 2.0

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Sean Kearney1 year ago

An option that is built into current versions of Windows is using the Get-Filehash Cmdlet to generate the hash. It will do SHA1,SHA256,SHA384,SHA512,MACTripleDES,MD5,RIPEMD160

Process in PowerShell

Get-Filehash -path c:foofilename.exe -algorithm SHA1

for filename.exe in the C:foo folder to generate an SHA1 hash.

Full details here for documentation
docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/microsoft.powershell.utility/get-filehash?view=powershell-6

What I really want is a tool that will generate a CRC64 for single or multiple files / folder; And then append this checksum to the files “extended attributes” so that it is forever linked to the file. This would allow the file to be tested for corruption easily. (I know it is not perfect but good enough for most of us).
It would also allow another program to quickly find potential duplicate files. This would be very fast as each file already has its own checksum.
This seems a very simple idea – it must have been done – can anyone suggest suitable windows apps?

Steve2 years ago

I know I’m stating the obvious, but one reason this simple idea isn’t realized to the extent you would like is the fact that many, if not most, files change due to legitimate update via patches, and of course data files are frequently edited. And of course any compressed file in a lossy format will change if opened and re-saved.

The problem with adding anything to a files “extended attributes” is like this:

1. A file’s extended attributes are a part of the file. Add or change something there and the file’s hash changes. BTW, that’s one sneaky way malware writers get malware onto a system – they hide it in the extended attributes. And! That changes the file’s hash, alerting you to the fact that it’s not original.

2. Not all file systems support extended attributes, and not all file transfer protocols support them either.
(a) If you copy a file to a FAT formatted flash-drive or SD card, all the extended attributes are lost.
(b) Writing a file to a Windows (SMB) share, (which is what many inexpensive network file storage devices use), may or may not keep the extended attributes – most likely not.
(c) File transfer protocols like wget (HTTP), ftp, sftp, rsync, (etc) are not guaranteed to handle extended attributes correctly.

3. Even if the file system you’re copying to supports extended attributes, if they’re not supported in the same way, no banana. A prime example is a file copied between a Windows and a Mac file system. They both implement file streams (extended attributes), but implement them differently and are therefore incompatible. The same is true for ext-2, 3, and 4 on Linux systems.

StarMessage2 years ago

If you are comfortable with the command prompt, you can use my free utility, CrcCheckCopy.
It compares large sets of files and creates a CRCstamps.txt file where you can see the crc of every file. The verification is done against the CRCstamps.txt.
For Windows and MacOS, you can see it here: starmessagesoftware.com/crccheckcopy

all the files listed here get flagged by Norton as a dangerous file, hummmmm

HAL9000 Author3 years ago

If Norton is really flagging all the files listed here then it is truly messed up. I tested at least half in VirusTotal and they came up completely clean. In my ESET AV and Malwarebytes as well.

I have looked for an answer to this on several tech help sites.
Every one of these sites fail in the same way.
How do you automate the testing of the new hash against the developer’s official hash?
These things can be quite long, making it easy to make mistakes.

HAL9000 Author3 years ago

Some of the tools here have a verify option where you can paste in the official hash and see if it matches the hash from the file.

Isn’t that exactly what you are looking for??

James And HAL9000
When manually checking only matching a few digits is enough ….
Bcuz as far as i know A checksum is a extremely unique Sequence of characters …
Even if the two files differ by just a few bytes of data they will have entirely different checksums …
P.S. this is from my personal experience.

HAL9000 Author2 years ago

It’s not so likely but entirely possible to have two vastly different files and the first few characters of the checksum match, so that simply isn’t enough if you want to be totally sure the file is a 100% copy.

HAshGenerator website downloaded file, gets flagged by Norton as a dangeorus file and quarantined. Just FYI

shrikanth3 years ago

is that possible to know a application name using Hash value (MD5)

How can ı found original hash values of windows 10?

TBan4 years ago

Also note that 7-Zip has hash checking built-in.
7-zip.org

Hashcheck reworked: github.com/gurnec/HashCheck/releases/

Mick4 years ago

There is a new Universal tool called Amazing Hash Utility built for Windows 10, available in the store for free

Very useful info about hash value, thanks!

hamidreza4 years ago

hello
thanks alot

Still a great post after a few years. Thanks for making and creating it. Cheers~

—
Sam Smith

Windows 7 Genuine Test

phoenix61425 years ago

I found this article very useful, Thanks!

Thanks for mentioning ExactFile. Their console utility does a decent job when you need to process files within a large folders tree. Unfortunately it misses few advanced features such as including/excluding files by wildcards and it stores checksum of the whole tree into one file.

John Galt5 years ago

Similar to HashTab by ImplBits is the program by Kai Liu named HashCheck. It, too, installs as a shell extension for Windows Explorer, and works on both x86 as well as x64. See code.kliu.org/hashcheck/

Even though it has not been updated in a very long time (over 6 years!) it works well in XP through 10. Although it shows only CRC-32, MD4/5, and SHA-1, it also has the ability to *save* the MD5 check file for future verification.

Another advantage over HashTab is that you can select multiple files and hash them all at once, and again, save the MD5 of all selected files together in a single file.

+1 for HashCheck. Just grabbed it and it’s comprehensive and super-lightweight. Ability to handle multiple files and shell integration are musts.

dan5 years ago

hey , i have a question , i want to know if i am givan a md5 signture as this :
e9bf1dd6bfe8ec57f6a41b3cab428b28
can i know if the file is melicios just by looking at the md5 signture ?
if not , what is the best way to figure it out?

You can’t tell just by looking at the signature, the only way to find out is to identify what the file is that matches that MD5, and then check if the file is malicious.

For example, Googling your MD5 tells me that the file is gcBar.dll and it’s classed as “Adware” by some antivirus.

If a search engine can’t tell you, then you can try to decrypt the MD5, here is an article on the subject:
raymond.cc/blog/ask-raymond-how-to-decrypt-md5-hashed-strings/

Carl4 hours ago

For SHA256 you certainly can by getting the hash and entering it on the VirusTotal website. The file, if it has already been scanned will show the detection rate for a large amount of different Malware detection softwares. You can have it re-scan the software if it has not been checked recently. This saves you having to upload the software to check it.

For me this tests software with just about all Malware scanners for a very comprehensive analysis. However some Malware can work around AntiVirus software, particularly when it is run in Sandboxes or Virtual Machines which these AV applications use. A Malware free analysis does not always mean that it is Malware free! This has been known for many years by Malware creators.

I totally agree with taco, HashCheck is the best file integrity verifier you can get, despite it hasn’t been updated since 2009. Highly recommended.

Lawrence5 years ago

Just spent an hour trying to download latest version (5.0) of Download Hash Verifier. There are way, way, too many links labelled “Download” or something similar to determine the actual, magic link that will download the software. After the third return to the same Web page I finally gave up. I have the 4.5 version which seems to work fine. Or I may try one of the other alternatives listed here.

If you are talking about the the SecurityXploded tool, I would agree it has quite a few download buttons to go through, although I managed to get the file downloaded in under 30 seconds.

On the final page it will say “Here is your direct download link”, click on download link and the file will come down.

Catalin5 years ago

Great tool HashCheck. Thank you taco!

The best one is not on the list: HashCheck

Check it out here: code.kliu.org/hashcheck/

It’s the easiest to use and very fast and the best is that it seamlessly integrates into the windows explorer.

Vinzzy6 years ago

Thanks for this man. Great resource. cheers

MD5 & SHA-1 Checksum Utility for me. Lite and easy to use!