Windows – Complete file system diff

diff()filesystemswindows 8windows-registry

I have a program which I need to install on top of Windows 8. Trouble is, the program makes changes to a few files which makes another program not work, chances are that registry settings are involved, too.

So here's my situation – I need to figure out exactly which files and registry entries are modified compared to a system which doesn't have it installed. Basically my idea is to use VMWare. Install first program, clone that VMWare, install second program and then get the diff for the two systems and find out which files have been modified/added.

How can I do that? File system diffs as far as I can find, have been made either for only a few files, or for linux.

Ideas are welcome, as both programs are imperative for our work.

Best Answer

If you just want to uninstall cleanly you can use something like Revo Uninstaller to monitor the installation process.

If you want details then perhaps running Process Monitor before launching the installer will help, although filtering out all unrelated file system/registry changes might become difficult. NirSoft's RegFromApp could be of use here.

Finally, guess you can always create a complete before and after file listing of the drive using dir or any appropriate program, as well as a before and after full registry export, then compare the two sets of data. For the latter (registry compare), programs such as RegShot or RegShot2 can help you out.

Related Solutions

Linux – How to diff large files on Linux

cmp does things byte-by-byte, so it probably won't run out of memory (just tested it on two 7 GB files) -- but you might be looking for more detail than a list of "files X and Y differ at byte x, line y". If the similarities of your files are offset (e.g., file Y has an identical block of text, but not at the same location), you can pass offsets to cmp; you could probably turn it into a resynchronizing compare with a small script.

Aside: In case anyone else lands here when looking for a way to confirm that two directory structures (containing very large files) are identical: diff --recursive --brief (or diff -r -q for short, or maybe even diff -rq) will work and not run out of memory.

macOS – How to Enable Colored Output for diff

Perl has a a lackluster colordiff wrapper for diff, but I prefer grc (generic colorizer).

With grc (generic colorizer), you can write your own wrappers for different types of commands or inputs (if you like that sort of thing).

Below, grc is running against /var/log/syslog (in the config, this file is set to a certain color scheme), where it highlights processes, pids, IPs and "connect"s.

Of course, it is recommended to use an alias so you don't forget:

alias diff="/usr/bin/grc /usr/bin/diff"

grc running against syslog

If you have git, you may just want to use that, which allows very robust diffing, even across branches.

git diff master:cogs/foo.txt branch:widgets/bar.txt

You do not have to use git diff within a repository, you can use it for just regular files.

git diff old.txt new.txt

As always, you can alias diff for ease of use.

alias diff="git diff"

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Linux – How to diff large files on Linux

macOS – How to Enable Colored Output for diff

Related Question