MAKEMSI quickly and reliably creates MSI files in a non-programmatic way\Tips and TricksToolsWinMerge.EXE

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WinMerge.EXE

This is a free program which you can get from You can download it from "http://winmerge.org/". Although this tool can compare directories I mainly use it to compare text files.

If you can get your information into a text file then it can be compared. Simply commands can export databases, registry, Active Directory, directory listings and more. The following is comparing output from the "IisDumpMetaBase.VBS" tool:

Trick 1 - Poor Man's Directory Tree comparison

Perform a directory command sorting to make the output "reproducible", for example:

dir /od /s > Before.TXT

Note that WinMerge can compare directories so the above is mainly useful if its hard to access the files of one or both directories.

Trick 2 - Poor Man's Registry Comparison

Use regedit.exe (there are many other alternative tools) to export the required registry in a text format (such as "REGEDIT4").

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