Giveaway of the Day Forums

1. 

   Dragonlair
   Member

   Can anybody help me?

   I got SwiftCompare from here ages ago and really like the program. I use it mainly because of a bug in BurnAware (both free and licensed versions) that adjusts the times of the files burned by a few seconds. The result is it's verification step fails. I use SwiftCompare as a replacement.

   However, SwiftCompare won't handle data DVDs. It works great with CDs but it will not do a compare of any file or folder on a DVD against a file/folder elsewhere.

   Does anybody know of a free comparison program that will handle any file type (especially zips) and folders with one of the files/folders on a DVD?

   BTW - I tried WinMerge but it wouldn't open the file on the DVD.

   TIA!

   Diane

   Posted 12 years ago #
2. 

   Dragonlair
   Member

   I did find that OLD FASHIONED DOS will work for all files in a single folder. However, the COMP command doesn't have a "/S" parameter to work down into sub-folders.

   COMP will work fine for the backup I was doing today but it won't work for other backups.

   No, I don't want to use a backup utility. I want control over what is backed up and how and be able to easily verify my backups. That's the one step I don't have right now.

   Posted 12 years ago #
3. 

   delenn13
   Minbari Ambassador

   I just had a few minutes to look..Hope this helps.

   Best Free File Comparison Utility - https://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-file-comparison-utility.htm

   Read the comments too. Sometimes that is where the most helpful info is.

   Posted 12 years ago #
4. 

   Dragonlair
   Member

   I found that link and that's where I tried WinMerge.

   Oddly enough, further searching did find what I needed. The user interface is a little bit primitive (no "browse" for folder selection) but it worked - WinDiff! It's a windows utility. I had to do some searching to find one for Vista because everything kept saying either Windows 7 or XP. They kind of skipped over me but I found one that worked.

   It also seems to be faster then SwiftCompare and designed more to compare text files but it did do exactly what I needed and will do sub-folders, too.

   The really strange thing about this utility. With the change in "terms" from "Directories" (DOS) to "Folders" (Windows), why does this utilities use the term "Directories"?

   Thanks for trying. The best thing, though would be for Burnaware to fix it's bug but that bug has been around for a year now from what I understand.

   Posted 12 years ago #
5. 

   Anonymous
   Unregistered

   http://nirsoft.net/utils/folrep.html

   FoldersReport v1.21
   Copyright (c) 2003 - 2005 Nir Sofer

   Description
   The FoldersReport utility scans a drive or a base folder that you select, and displays essential information for each folder that it finds: The size of all files inside the folder

   Posted 12 years ago #
6. 

   Dragonlair
   Member

   I would be very very cautious of any utility that hasn't been updated for 6 - 7 years!

   Posted 12 years ago #
7. 

   ChrisS
   Administrator

   You might give FreeFileSync 5.0 a look. It will compare by either Date & File Size or by File Contents. I tested the program with both a data CD and data DVD by copying the contents to a directory on my hard drive then unzipping and rezipping a file from the CD and simply resaving a text file from the DVD. The program found the changes without problem (it returned the results from 1.5 GB of data from the DVD in less than a second). Maybe it will do what you need.

   But why are you still using BurnAware? The time stamp error doesn't seem like a bug to me - it looks like a fatal error. There are a plethora of free burners available but, perhaps, BurnAware has other features that you need.

   Posted 12 years ago #
8. 

   Dragonlair
   Member

   Chris,

   Actually, BurnAware finally fixed the bug! I checked a week or so ago and upgraded from 3.3.1 to 4.6 (just a few months time, too) and it did compare properly. The timestamp error was that on the FIRST session of a disk (ONLY the first session), the date on the burned file was shifted by a few hours. It appeared to use the time zone of the original source of the software rather than yours. Subsequent sessions were fine! When I did a backup of my install programs for my newer games a week or so ago (1st session of a DVD), it worked fine and the verify "Verified"! A subsequent check with WinDiff also verified the burning.

   BurnAware, for me, is easy to use and when I checked free burners, it seems to be the one that fits my needs best. Everybody is different!

   I am very disappointed with SwiftCompare. They had a chance of possibly even SELLING me their software if they could report that a newer version than the old GOTD version I had would handle DVDs. However, they never did respond to my email and so completely lost out when I found WinDiff. The slightly cumbersome interface to select folders other than disks for WinDiff is better than paying for the software and it did exactly what I needed with a nice progress trail along the way.

   Posted 12 years ago #

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