And TreeCompare has just been designed for that purpose. The free portable program for Windows compares the files of two selected root directories, including files in subfolders.

compare files

The two directories have to be selected in the beginning. This is done with the file browser, a click on compare will compare the contents of the directories. Each unique file is displayed in its own row in the program. The columns path one and path two specify if the file exists in directory one or two. The description column lists if the files are identical, or different.

TreeCompare compares several parameters that are divided into the categories attributes, times and miscellaneous. Parameters can be edited in the options, so that only relevant comparisons are made.

The following parameters can be added or removed from the comparison:

• Attributes: Archive, Hidden, Read Only, System
• Times: Access, Creation, Modification
• Miscellaneous: File Size, Binary Compare

tree compare

The software lacks the option to display the differences in detail, and there is also no option to open the file in an editor, or the directory in Windows Explorer to investigate the differences further.

Still, TreeCompare is a lightweight (33K) tool for Windows that may come in handy for quick directory comparisons. Users who need additional information should take a look at Winmerge instead.

Fingerprint calculates hash values of every file during the first selection unlike many other tools that simply report file size or file date modifications. This way might take a bit longer but it ensures that every modification can be noticed as the program compares the hash values and not data that can be easily modified.

Some aspects of a directory scan can be configured during setup. It is for instance possible to include or exclude files from the scan, switch from hash generation to file size, date and time records or schedule scans for the profile.

The Windows Task Scheduler is used to schedule file comparisons at a later time or on a regular basis. File changes will be written to a log file that is automatically displayed in the default web browser of the computer system. Fingerprint is a small program for the Windows operating system that can be downloaded from the developer’s website.

UltraEdit is a text editor at its core and one could mistakenly think of it as yet another Notepad clone. While it still provides the speed of the default Windows text editor it comes with an impressive feature list that beats most – if not all – other text editors in Windows fair and square. Yes, that includes Notepad++ and the likes. That’s of course only true if you need the additional features that it provides. The feature list includes syntax highlighting, code folding, Unicode support, spell checking, ftp & sftp browser, ssh. macro engine, html building and customizations among others.

The editor provides professionals with the tools needed in their job. Webmasters and web designers who do use text editors and not a web designing software will find the features offered indispensable. UltraEdit provides syntax highlighting for web standards such as html, php, xml, javascript or css including a html file validator that checks if the code is W3C compliant. More than 500 wordfiles can be downloaded from the official homepage to add support for additional programming languages from Assembly languages to C++ and World of Warcraft Lua. The integrated ftp & sftp browser makes updating files on the Internet a breeze. Add to that a dockable SSH / Telnet window to access a remote server command line right from the editor.

Versioned backups ensure worry free editing as files can be backed up before changes are committed to them. A file comparison tool can be used to compare different versions of a file to highlight the differences.

Additional UltraEdit features include:

• Configure word wrap and tab settings for different file types
• Organize and access local or FTP files with projects.
• Hex, Unicode, Large Files support
• Integrated Scripting Engine
• Customize nearly every aspect of the editor
• WebSearch Toolbar (Wikipedia, PHP.net, MSDN..)

UltraCompare is a powerful file comparison tool that can compare files and folders with each other. Two or three binary and text files can be compared with each other at the same time and it is possible to merge the differences of the compared files. The folder mode supports both local and network directories and jar / zip file comparison. It also offers the means to merge the differences between compared directories.

The interface will display the text files that are compared visually highlighting the differences. Tabbed sessions allow to run multiple comparisons at the same time int he same window. The folder compare displays the folder structures next to each other using symbols and colors to highlight the differences.

Additional UltraCompare Features include:

• Differences navigation
• Multiple merge options
• Relational lines
• Isolate lines
• File Editing
• File Compare Profiles

You can grab a copy of UltraEdit or UltraCompare by leaving a comment below. Tell us what you currently use for file editing and text comparison.

The GUI is a bit messy at first but the help file has some hints on how to use the different parameters properly. The user can define files and directories that are excluded from being compared, wildcards are supported.

The next two lines are paths of two directories. The first path is the so called input directory which contains the files that are compared with the files of a second directory and copied to the third if they are found to be unique.

The next settings can be ignored and the last required field is the output directory where the unique files of directory 1 are copied to.

Instead of selecting a second directory it is possible to select a file list from the hard disk instead but there is unfortunately no information about its format. The four check boxes on the other hand are easily explained.

• Dates: Will copy newer files with the same file size
• Lengths: Files with the same name but different lengths will be copied.
• Update: Only files existing in both directories but with a newer date in the first will be copied.
• Recursive: Subfolders are included in the comparison.

Third Dir is a nice application especially for its size. It’s fast and reliable but definitely needs a better help and some GUI improvements.