MD5summer Development Log
Windows MD5 Sum generator.

Version 1.2.0.5:

Compiled in Delphi 7, so this may be buggy. I'm hoping the Large Fonts issue some people have been experiencing is fixed by Delphi.
Coments at the top of generated md5 files with date and time of creation.
Semicolon (";") at the start of a line denotes a coment, just as hash ("#") does currently.
Err, some other minor stuff too, but I forget now.

Version 1.1.0.27:

Visual changes, mostly affecting Windows XP
  1. Fancy new icon with alpha channels and perspective thanks to Brandalls Corporation
  2. New logo in about box also thanks to Brandalls Corporation
  3. My own fancy maze generator/solver in the about box.
  4. XP Style support, again thanks to Brandalls Corporation for showing me how to do it!

Important note: The old md5summer (v1.1.0.24 and older) got its file size information from windows. This filesize is included as part of the data being checksumed so any change in the reported file size affects the resulting sum. Unfortunately in some cases windows was reporting the filesize incorrectly. For this reason the old md5summer gave a checksum which was always the same (and in a way, correct) but that differed from what other checksum programs with correct file sizes reported. The new md5summer no longer relies upon windows to supply the filesize, and hence gets a checksum that in some cases differs from the old md5summer, but agrees with all other MD5 checksum programs.
What does this mean? If you have calculated checksums (with an old version of md5summer) on files >200MB and saved the result in a .md5 file for later verification, the new md5summer may report a verification failure when in fact the only difference is that noted above. I will endevaour to release a version of md5summer which detects this.

Version 1.1.0.26:

Only 3 changes, all fairly significant though:
  1. Some people (including myself) were getting incorrect checksums on some files over 200MB. As I suspected, Windows and/or Delphi was providing me with an incorrect file size. Fixed.
  2. Files larger than 2GB can now be checksummed, I've tested it on a 4.5GB tar and it works
  3. Basic .md5 file association. Double clicking on a .md5 file will run verify the file with the current folder (the one containing the .md5 file) as the root.

Version 1.1.0.24:

Again only a few little extras:
  1. Fixed top line dissapearing act.
  2. Handles checksum files seperated by 2 spaces instead of space-asterisk.

Version 1.1.0.22:

It's .19 but with a few little extras:
  1. Can save output of verification
  2. Can resize columns
  3. The error with the top file dissapearing should be fixed.

Version 1.1.0.19:

Several items of the "To do" list were checked off for 1.1:
  1. When creating or checking files, if there are errors during the process you are asked at the end whether you want to rearrange the file list to bring all errors to the top. This mean you don't have to go scrolling through hundreds of files to find the 1 or 2 that were broken!
  2. All windows are now resizable.
  3. Windows sizes and positions are stored in the registry between sessions. This is not as complete as I would like it yet. For example, if you have the window at the bottom left of a 1024x768 screen, then change your res. to 640x480, the window will appear off the screen. This is easy to do and will be fixed in 1.2
  4. The default file extension is now ".md5" instead of ".txt" - this is in anticipation of associating this extension with the md5summer.
  5. Default file names are now dependent on what you are summing. If you are summing a single file, it is filename.md5 where "filename" is the name (sans extension) of the file you are summing. If you are summing a directory, it is directory.md5 and if you are summing a drive, it is DriveLetter_drive.md5.
  6. v1.0 had an error with the autoscrolling in the summer window, when the file list didn't fill the entire grid, it would scroll off the top of the window. This is fixed.
  7. Some people (including myself) were experiencing access violations related to a third party file viewer I was using. This has been replaced with one I wrote myself and the problem is fixed.

Version 1.0:

MD5summer was originally a tool to help me in my work. I was working on some windows software that was distributed on CD. I didn't have a CD writer in my machine but my colleague down the hall did. This arrangement involved a lot of FTP file transfers from my machine to his. Testing of my CD's was bringing to light a lot of errors that I just couldn't explain, then someone suggested that there may have been errors introduced during the transfer from my machine to his or in the CD burning process. Since my colleagues machine was running debian linux, checking MD5sums of all the files was a snap, but actually generating the sum file was difficult as I only had a command line, non-recursive sum generator. Besides, I'm a GUI freak so I thought I'd make a nice windows version all my own. MD5summer is the resulting product.