Chip Hitware 6 A/CHIP_HITWARE6_A.iso/tools/CHKFILES/CHKFILES.TXT

Text File | 1998-06-16 | 55KB | 1,003 lines

CHKFILES Version 1.5a
by Ron V. Webber
Release date: June 17, 1998
http://www.lightlink.com/ym
[e-mail]
[e-mail]
Copyright 1998, Stochastic Systems

What is CHKFILES?

CHKFILES is a program that keeps track of the name, time, date, size,
and checksum of every file in every path that you select (which could be
every path on your hard drive).  You can select paths either recursively
(where selecting "C:\" will select every path on partition C) or
non-recursively (where selecting "C:\" will only select the root path of
partition C).  On subsequent runs CHKFILES will update its information
and tell you what has been added, changed, or deleted since the last
run.  It will also tell you if any files have been corrupted.  If a file
has a different time, date, or size, it will be listed as having been
changed, and a new checksum will be calculated and stored.  For every
file that has not changed time, date, or size, the current checksum will
be calculated and compared with the old checksum.  If these are
different, the file will be listed as bad.  The old checksum on a bad
file will be kept so that you can check the file again later once you
have fixed it.

CHKFILES can store the information about every file in two different
ways: The "One File" method stores all the information in one main file,
named CHKFILES.ALL, which is stored in the same path as the CHKFILES
program.  The "Every Path" method stores the information for each
individual path in that path in a file named CHKFILES.CHK.  If you
choose to use individual CHKFILES.CHK files for each path, the
information remains valid even if you move it and all the files to
another path, but you won't be able to tell if an entire path has been
deleted since the CHKFILES.CHK file for that path would have been
deleted as well.  If you choose to use one CHKFILES.ALL file, then you
will be able to tell when paths have been deleted, but if all the files
in a path are moved to a different path they won't be checked.  (They
would be listed twice: Once as having been deleted from their original
path and once as being new files in their new path.) The "Every Path"
method is good if you want to check files that are going to be moved to
a new partition and you want to make sure they got there without any
corruption.  The "One File" method is good if you want to have one file
that you can copy to a safe location and use later to check on any
corruption.  You can also use the "One File" method to check files on a
device such as a CD-ROM.

The CHKFILES.CHK and CHKFILES.ALL files are in pure ASCII format, so you
can print or edit them or use them for other purposes.  They also
compress quite nicely, which is especially good if you want to store the
CHKFILES.ALL file offline somewhere.  Starting with version 1.5, the
file format has been changed slightly to make the files easier to import
into spreadsheet programs.  Tabs have been used to seperate the fields
on each line, and a header line has been added that CHKFILES uses to
determine the format of the file.  Files in the older format are
automatically converted to the new format when you run CHKFILES.  Older
versions of CHKFILES can not read the new format.

==========================================

Who can use CHKFILES?

CHKFILES is released as shareware and is licensed for individual
evaluation.  Individuals may use CHKFILES for evaluation on their
personal computers.  If they keep using it, they are expected to pay for
it.  (See the final section, "How do I pay for CHKFILES".)

Business, Commercial, Educational, Institutional, Corporate, or
Government use of the shareware version of CHKFILES is not allowed.
Contact Stochastic Systems if you wish to include a special version of
CHKFILES with some commercial product.  The only exception to this is
that vendors of shareware programs may include the CHKFILES.EXE program,
this text file, and the registration program as a shareware package
being distributed.  This means that you can include the CHKFILES package
on a disk of other shareware that you are selling, but you can not use
this version of CHKFILES as a file checking program to check for
corruption in the files on the disk of shareware that you are selling.
If you received CHKFILES from a shareware distributor, it was NOT
registered by that distributor and you are still expected to register if
you continue to use it.

A special version of CHKFILES is available for commercial distribution.
This commercial version is only available directly from Stochastic
Systems and is customized with a special licensing file for each
commercial licensee.  This licensing file also contains the number of
copies you are allowed to use at any one time.  The commercial version
does not work without the licensing file.  The commercial version states
on the main screen the name of the licensee (usually a company or
institution or a specific department) along with the number of licensed
copies.  Special "commercial only" features may exist.  Contact
Stochastic Systems for commercial licensing information.

CHKFILES is distributed "AS-IS".  No warrantee is expressed or implied,
including fitness for any purpose.  Stochastic Systems will not be
responsible for any damage caused by the use, misuse, or abuse of
CHKFILES.

==========================================

Why should I use CHKFILES?

Do you run your system with VERIFY turned OFF to save time?  When you do
a tape backup, do you leave the auto-compare turned off?  If you
answered yes to these questions, then you probably can't be bothered
with a utility that, if your system is working 100% perfectly, may be
just a waste of time.  BUT...  if you would rather have some peace of
mind, read on!

Situation 1a: You have a beautifully designed Summer Solstice Card on
your computer that you use every year during that hurried summer holiday
season.  Sometime in August, after the holidays are over, this file is
corrupted by that game you downloaded, tried once, and then erased.
Since you won't need Solstice Cards until next June, you don't notice
the corruption.  You do your daily backups, your weekly backups, and
your monthly backups.  Eventually, this corrupted file gets backed up to
all of your tapes.  Next June, when you go to mail merge your database
with your wonderful card, you notice the corruption.  You search all of
your tapes and disks, and all you can find is the corrupted file.  Too
bad you didn't have any way to know that it had been corrupted before
you overwrote all your good backup copies!  If you had used CHKFILES at
least once before the file had been corrupted, then the first time you
used it after the file had been corrupted it would have warned you about
it, in time to retrieve a good version from your backup tape.

Situation 1b: Instead of being corrupted, the file was somehow deleted.
CHKFILES, by keeping track of what files are supposed to be in the
directory, would tell you that the file had been deleted the next time
you ran it.

Situation 2a: While you were away from your desk at work, your boss,
needing to write a quick note, used your computer to type in and print
out a message to the accountant about how wonderful your work was.  The
file is accidentally stored deep inside the directory that holds all of
your fonts.  (You happened to be working on font editing before you were
called away from your desk, and your boss couldn't be bothered to change
directories before he saved the note.) Without CHKFILES, you never would
have found this note.  With CHKFILES, you see that one of the new files
on your computer is a text file inside the font directory.  That looks
strange, so you look at the file and learn that now would be a great
time to ask for a raise!

Situation 2b: Instead of being a file that you didn't expect to be
there, it is a file that you wrote containing important client
information, but you forgot where you stored it.  By using CHKFILES, you
can get a list of all the new files on your computer and easily find
what you need.

Situation 3: You just downloaded a complex program that will install all
sorts of files all over your system.  By running CHKFILES before and
after installing this program, you can tell exactly what files this
program added, changed, or deleted.  This information will be very
useful when you want to remove this program from your system.

Situation 4: Your brother-in-law is constantly messing with his computer
and then calling you to fix it.  By running CHKFILES on his computer
before he messes with it, you can then run it afterwards to see just
what he has deleted so you can get him up and running much faster.

==========================================

Which version of CHKFILES should I use?

This release is version 1.5a.  It is only available in a 32-bit version
for use with Windows 95, Windows NT (tested on 3.51 and 4.0), and later
operating systems.  This version will not run properly in Windows 3.1
with Win32s.  (It will not run at all without Win32s.)

Previous versions may still be available for 16-bit environments.  See
the Stochastic Systems website at www.lightlink.com/ym for more
information.  If there is enough demand from registered users, there may
be a 16-bit version of 1.5a, but it is unlikely at this point.

Starting with version 1.5, the file format was changed slightly.  Files
created with version 1.5 or higher will not work with version 1.4 or
lower versions of CHKFILES.  When using the "one file" option, the
CHKFILES.ALL file will be updated to the new format the first time you
run the new program, and will then be incompatable with older versions.
When using the "each path" option, older format CHKFILES.CHK files will
be updated to the new format whenever any of the information in them is
changed (any files are added, deleted, or changed in the directory), and
will then be incompatable with older versions.  If nothing changes in a
directory, the older format CHKFILES.CHK file will be unmodified.  (This
was done so that you could continue to check older CDs with embedded
CHKFILES.CHK files in them.  If nothing changed on the CD, no attempt
would be made to overwrite the old format CHKFILES.CHK file, so there
would be no error messages.  If anything changed, then the changes would
be noted and there would also be an error message about not being able
to write the new CHKFILES.CHK file to the CD.)

==========================================

How do I use CHKFILES?

CHKFILES.EXE is a self-contained program.  There are no support files
required.  CHKFILES will create a CHKFILES.PTH file in the same path as
the executable file if you use the "Save Paths" option.  It will also
store the CHKFILES.ALL file in the same path if you are using the "One
File" option, or it will store a CHKFILES.CHK file in every path it
checks if you use the "Every Path" option.  To run CHKFILES, either use
the "Run" function in program manager, double-click on it from file
manager or explorer, or assign it to a program group in program manager.
In Windows 95 and NT 4.0 you can also put a shortcut to CHKFILES.EXE on
your desktop or drag it to the start menu.

When CHKFILES runs, it first looks for a CHKFILES.PTH file in the same
path.  If it finds this file, it will attempt to open it and read the
last paths and settings that were used.  If there is no CHKFILES.PTH
file, which there won't be the first time you run CHKFILES, the program
will come up with no paths selected and default to "Recursive" and
"Every Path" modes.

If you want to save the paths that you select so that they will be there
the next time you run CHKFILES, make sure that the "Save Paths" box is
checked before you click on "Begin".  The "Save Paths" box is checked by
default.

If you want to select every path on your C drive, select the C drive in
the drive select box (upper left), click on the "<..>" entry in the
directory select box until the root directory is displayed, and then
click on the "Add Path" button.  An entry for "C:\" should appear in
paths list box.  Make sure that the "Recursive" box is checked.

When you change drives in the drive select box, the directory box will
be updated to show the subdirectories that are in the current path on
that drive.  The current path is shown at the top of the screen.  The
"Add Path" button adds the current path to the path list box.  If the
recursive box is checked, any path that is included inside another
already selected path will be removed from the list box.  Duplicate
paths are also removed.  Paths are shown sorted alphabetically.  This
sorting includes all the characters in the path, including the final
"\".

If you click on the recursive box when it is not checked, it will become
checked and any now-redundant paths will be removed from the list box.
If you click on the recursive box when it is checked, it will become
clear and all paths in the list box will be automatically expanded to
show all paths inside of them.  This could take a few seconds if you
have many paths on your hard drive(s).  You can click on the recursive
box while it is expanding the lists and it will stop expanding and go
back to the recursive path list.  This is useful if you have many paths
on your hard drive and you clicked the recursive button by accident.  If
you have too many paths on your hard drive, and the list box fills up,
you will receive an error message saying that the list box is full.
This means that not all of the paths could be expanded.  If you click
"Begin" with this incomplete list in the list box, not all of the paths
will be checked.  (In tests with Windows 3.1, it required over 1000
nested directories to fill up the list box.  Windows 95 has an even
higher limit.) If you click on the recursive box again, the list will be
compressed back down.  You can then click "Begin".  When you click
"Begin" with the recursive box checked, the list of paths is expanded as
they are being checked, and paths are removed from the list box once
they are checked to make room as later paths are expanded.  This
increases the number of paths that can be checked successfully.  If
there are still too many paths to fit into the list box, you will get a
message in the error box that will tell you which path was being
expanded when the list box got full.  Checking will continue, but some
paths may not be checked fully.  (A drive with over 2000 nested
directories checked perfectly, so this limitation probably won't matter
much.)

To remove a path from the path list, simply click on it.  Path delete is
disabled while the path list is expanding through the use of the
Recursive box.

If you want to quit from CHKFILES without checking any files, click the
"Quit" button.  Any changes you made to the path list will be ignored.

Once you have all the paths set up the way you want them, click the
"Begin" button.  If the "Save Paths" button is checked when you click on
the "Begin" button, the paths and recursive state will be stored in the
CHKFILES.PTH file located in the same path as the CHKFILES.EXE file.

If the "Recursive" box is checked when you click the "Begin" button, all
the paths in the list box will be expanded to include all
subdirectories.  Each subdirectory is expanded as it is being checked,
so expansion doesn't delay the start of checking.

Before starting the actual file checking, the screen will be
reconfigured to show five empty lists.  The caption of the window will
show the name of the current path being checked.

The first list shows the new paths being checked and the new files in
old paths.

The second list shows the names of all files deleted from old paths
since CHKFILES was last run.  If you use the "One File" option, this
list will also show any paths that were present the last time CHKFILES
was run but are not currently present.

The third list shows the names of files that have changed since
CHKFILES was last run.  If the line with the file name starts with
"L!:", this means that the file has changed in length but not time or
date.  If the file changed in time and/or date, the file name will be
listed without any prefix.  (Normally, when a file changes the time
changes as well.  It is somewhat unusual for a file to change in size
without changing time or date, which is why this is flagged so you can
know what is going on.)

The fourth list box shows the names of any files that are "bad".  A
"bad" file is defined as one that has a changed checksum but not a
changed time, date, or size.  "Bad" files will not be updated in the
CHKFILES.CHK or CHKFILES.ALL file, so if a file shows up as "bad", the
old checksum of the file will remain in the CHKFILES.CHK or
CHKFILES.ALL file and not be updated to the checksum of the file as it
now stands.  This is so you can restore this file from your backup
(you DID keep a backup, didn't you?) and then re-run CHKFILES to make
sure that your backup was good.  In the odd case where the file was
changed intentionally somehow without changing the time, date, or
size, and you don't want to do anything about it, then you will just
have to ignore the "bad" reading.

The fifth list box shows any errors that happened during the running
of the CHKFILES program.  This can include one of the other four list
boxes running out of memory due to too many messages.  If the error
list box ever runs out of memory due to too many error messages, you
will be shown a message to that effect and then the checking procedure
will abort.

During the check procedure, you can click on the "Abort" button.  This
will abort the procedure after the current file is finished (which can
take a few seconds if the current file is large).  The current path
being worked on will not be updated.  If you are using the "Each Path"
method, and the current path is a new one, then no CHKFILES.CHK file
will be created in this path.  If the current path is an old one, then
the CHKFILES.CHK file will not be updated. All previously checked
paths will have been finished correctly.  If you are using the "One
File" method, then the original CHKFILES.ALL file will remain intact.
You can look through the results on the screen, but no information
will be saved from this run.

When the last path is checked (or the abort button is pressed), the
bottom of the screen will show some statistics, which will include the
total number of files checked, the number of new files, number of
deleted files, number of bad files, number of updated files, total
number of bytes checked, time it took to check these files, number of
bytes per second, and total number of paths checked.  Note that the
total number of paths includes empty paths.  An empty path will not
have a CHKFILES.CHK file put in it or will not be entered in the
CHKFILES.ALL file.  If a path has only a CHKFILES.CHK file in it (all
other files having been deleted) the files that the CHKFILES.CHK file
says should be there will be listed as having been deleted and the
CHKFILES.CHK file will be deleted, leaving an empty directory.  When
using the "One File" method, a path that used to have some files in it
that is now empty will have those files listed as being deleted but
the now-empty directory will still be listed in the CHKFILES.ALL
file.  Note that this is different from the case where the entire
directory was deleted, which will only result in a single message
saying that all the files in that directory were deleted rather than
individual messages for each file.  If you then delete this now-empty
directory and run CHKFILES again in "One File" mode, it will report
that this directory has been deleted.  (If the directory never
contained any files then it would never be stored and so deleting it
would never be noticed.)

When the "Done" button appears, all checking is finished.  Clicking on
the "Done" button will end the program.

CHKFILES was written to be very "multi-tasking friendly".  You can run
CHKFILES in the background, minimized if you like, while you run other
things.  You shouldn't be changing, creating, or deleting files in the
paths that CHKFILES is looking at, but you can certainly play Solitaire
while checking your files.  Since CHKFILES is using the hard disk
controller quite a bit, any program you use that accesses the hard disk
will be slowed down somewhat and will also slow down CHKFILES.
(Starting with version 1.5a, minimizing actually works!)

==========================================

When should I use CHKFILES?

Any time you want to!  _I_ use CHKFILES at the following times:

 - Before a backup, so the backup will contain updated CHKFILES.CHK
files, so I know if any files are bad or have been deleted so I can
restore them before I do my backup, and so I can see if there are any
new files that I don't need and want to delete so they don't waste
space on my backup.

 - After defragmenting, so I know if any files were corrupted by the
process. I always backup before defragmenting, and I always run
CHKFILES before backing up, so I know that the files weren't corrupt
before defragmenting.

 - After moving large blocks of files from one partition to another or
to a new hard drive.  When I bought a larger hard drive, I ran
CHKFILES (and backup), then copied all the files over to the new hard
drive, and then ran CHKFILES again before deleting the old hard
drive.

When do other people use CHKFILES:

One user downloads and tries out lots of shareware programs.  He uses
CHKFILES to find out what files have been added to his system by these
programs, which makes it easier for him to clean up his system.

If you find an interesting use, please let me know!

What do other people like best about CHKFILES:

One registered user had inadvertently deleted some important files
from his system.  CHKFILES let him know that these files had been
deleted, and he was able to restore them from his backup.

==========================================

Are there interactions between CHKFILES and the operating system?

Because of they way CHKFILES can leave a CHKFILES.CHK file in every
directory that you check, this can interact with some of the "special"
directories that are used by the Windows 95 and NT 4.0 operating
system.

If you use CHKFILES to check all the paths in your WINDOWS directory,
and use the "Each Path" option, you may notice that all the entries in
your start menu have a CHKFILES.CHK file added to them.  This is
because the start menu is stored in a directory structure which is
normally filled with the links that point to the programs you want to
run when you click on items in the start menu.  Since this is stored
like any other directory structure, CHKFILES will check these link
files and place a CHKFILES.CHK file in each path.  After running
CHKFILES, the start menu will show these CHKFILES.CHK files in the
menu.  If you want to remove these from the start menu you can simply
set the CHKFILES.CHK files as Hidden.  There are many ways to do this:
You can use the explorer, the "Advanced" editing in the "Start Menu
Programs" section of the "Taskbar Properties", or the old file
manager.  All you need to do is go into the subdirectories of the
"Start Menu" directory (located in your Windows directory) and find
all the CHKFILES.CHK files.  For each file select "properties" and
then click on the "Hidden" box and then click on "Apply". Hiding the
CHKFILES.CHK file will only stop it from showing up in the Start menu,
and maybe in the explorer.  It won't stop it from being found by
CHKFILES and used to check the status of the other files in the
directory.  Starting with version 1.3, CHKFILES can find a hidden
CHKFILES.CHK file. The file will remain hidden even when it has been
updated so you won't have to go back and hide it again.  If you remove
all the other items from the directory then the CHKFILES.CHK file will
be deleted the next time CHKFILES is run.  If you then add files back
to that directory, a new CHKFILES.CHK file will be created which will
not be hidden, so you will need to hide it again.

If you have any program shortcuts on your desktop, you will find that
CHKFILES will create a CHKFILES.CHK file on the desktop when run in
"Every Path" mode. This is because all the shortcuts are stored in a
directory called "Desktop", and CHKFILES checks this directory just
like all the others.  The easiest solution, if you want to continue
running in "Every Path" mode, is to simply delete this CHKFILES.CHK
file from your desktop after you run CHKFILES.  You can easily drag
this file to the Recycle Bin.  Marking this file as "Hidden" doesn't
seem to make it disappear from the desktop.  You could also run in
"One File" mode.

A future version of CHKFILES may have an "exclude" list that will
allow you to select all directories and then exclude certain
directories such as the start menu and the desktop.

==========================================

Does CHKFILES work under Windows NT?

Yes.  Version 1.4a, fixed an incompatability problem with NT.  It has
been tested with NT 3.51 and NT 4.0 (both with and without service
pack 3) and it seems to work just fine.

Note that if you try to check directories for which you do not have
permission, this will cause an error message and the directory will be
skipped.  It is probably best to run in Administrator mode.

==========================================

Can I run older versions of CHKFILES on the same computer?

Yes, as long as they are not checking the same directories, or you use
the "one file" option with one of the versions.  Previous versions
used a different file format.  This version will automatically update
this format, and make the file unreadable by the older version.
CHKFILES will not overwrite a CHKFILES.CHK file that it can not read,
so any directory with such a file in it will not be checked.  Also
remember that the 16-bit version doesn't recognize the long versions
of file names, so if you are using Windows 95 and alternate between
older 16-bit and 32-bit versions you may see the 16-bit version
reporting all your files with long names as being deleted and the
short name versions of these files listed as new.  Then when you run
the 32-bit version, it will report that the short name versions have
been deleted and the long name versions will be listed as new.  This
happens in "Every Path" mode because both versions use the same
CHKFILES.CHK files for their information.  If you use "One File" mode,
it would be better to put the two versions in separate paths so that
they would use their own versions of the CHKFILES.ALL file.  If you
keep both programs in the same path, they would not only cause false
deleted/new reports on files, but also on whole paths that contained
at least one long name.

==========================================

Can I run in both "One File" and "Every Path" mode on the same
computer?

Yes.  The two modes don't interfere with one another, though you will
see listings for new and changed CHKFILES.CHK files in every path when
you run in "One File" mode, and you will see listings for a new or
changed CHKFILES.ALL file when you run in "Every Path" mode.  When
CHKFILES runs in "One File" mode, it ignores the files CHKFILES.ALL
and CHKFILES.TMP in the path where it is running from.  (If you have
files with these names in other paths it will process them just like
any other file.)  It will also process any CHKFILES.CHK files in any
path just like any other file.  When CHKFILES runs in "Every Path"
mode, it ignores any file named CHKFILES.CHK in any path, since that
is where it stores its information, but it doesn't ignore the
CHKFILES.ALL or CHKFILES.TMP files.  Note that the CHKFILES.TMP file
will normally only exist while CHKFILES is running in "One File"
mode.  It automatically deletes this temporary file when it is done
running.  If your system crashes during a run, this file may still
exist, but it will be deleted the next time you run CHKFILES in "One
File" mode.

==========================================

Why did I write CHKFILES?

Because I wanted a program that would do this sort of thing and I
couldn't find one.  There may be some other program out there that
does the exact same thing, but I don't know of one that works in
exactly the same way.  I also wanted something fairly easy to write
that I could use to try out the shareware market.

A well-known anti-virus program from a well-known software company
does something like CHKFILES - it creates a small file in every path
with checksums in it - but it didn't do this in the way I wanted it
to, wouldn't give me the information I wanted, and I couldn't get it
to do only the paths I wanted.  It also seemed to only calculate
checksums on executable files, and I wanted to check all the files.
(It uses the checksums to see if an executable file has been modified
by a virus.  I wanted to use checksums to see if files had been
corrupted.)

Many years ago I attended a talk by a programmer who was describing
his new backup program.  It was called the "GOOD" backup program, and
he made a strong case about always doing a checksum of every file and
checking each file before storing it to the backup.  He used the story
of a corrupt file that was used only once a year not being discovered
until it had been copied to all the backup disks, thus making recovery
impossibly.  I bought a copy of his program, used it religiously, and
was very glad every time it enabled me to find a corrupt file and
recover from it.  This was for a different computer system, and the
"GOOD" backup program was not a big seller, but it made a big
impression on me.

When I started using Windows, I wanted the same sort of protection,
but I couldn't find it.  I toyed with the idea of writing my own
version of "GOOD", but since tape backup was so much more convenient,
I decided to write CHKFILES to add the protection I wanted without
having to rewrite the entire backup program.

The first version was done in Visual Basic version 3.  It worked, but
it was slow doing the checksums on the files and had some problems
with certain "unusual" date combinations.

I then moved the checksum routine to a DLL written in Turbo C++ 3.1,
and that sped things up quite a bit.  (The checksum routine is now so
fast on a modern computer that the slow part is reading the file off
of the hard drive.  I was thinking of optimizing the checksum routine
in assembly language, but that wouldn't make much difference.)

When I thought about releasing CHKFILES as shareware, I wanted it to
be a self-contained executable without requiring any external DLL's.
For this reason I translated it into Turbo C++.  (I also wanted to
have a project so I could learn Windows programming in C++.) I then
updated to Borland C++ version 4.0, which allows the program to
easily release time to other tasks when it is busy doing something
complicated.  This allowed me to play Freecell while the files were
being checked.  This current version is written in Borland C++ version
5.0, which allows the program to use the "look and feel" of Windows 95
without having any extra DLL files required.

The concept and basic structure of CHKFILES seems very solid.  I have
been using it on multiple machines for over 5 years now.  The C++
version also seems very solid, though there are a few areas that are
not fully "idiot-proof".  See the next section.

==========================================

How dangerous is CHKFILES:

I have taken many precautions to avoid potentially dangerous
situations.  If you are using the "Every Path" mode and a path already
contains a file named CHKFILES.CHK, but it is not a file that was
created by this program - say for some strange reason you saved your
favorite apple pie recipe in a file of this name - you will get an
error message that this path can't be processed and your pie recipe
will not be touched.  (If your pie recipe file happens to be in the
same format as a CHKFILES.CHK is supposed to be in, then it will get
modified.)

When using the "One File" mode, CHKFILES uses a temporary file called
"CHKFILES.TMP" and creates or overwrites a file called "CHKFILES.ALL".
When you save paths, it creates or overwrites a file called
"CHKFILES.PTH".  It does not check to see if these files may actually
contain something you want to keep, but it only does this in the path
that the CHKFILES.EXE program is running in, so you are pretty safe.
If you must use files with these names, put the CHKFILES.EXE program
in a different path.

If your hard drive is so full that it doesn't have room for the
CHKFILES.CHK or CHKFILES.ALL files, the program may crash, but it
shouldn't do any damage (other than filling up what little space you
had left).

When using the "Every Path" option, the contents of the CHKFILES.CHK
file that is being created or updated is kept in memory until the
entire path is finished, and then the file is created and re-written.
If the system crashes during the path checking, the old CHKFILES.CHK
file will remain intact.  If the system crashes during the short time
that the CHKFILES.CHK file is being written, it is possible that a
corrupt or incomplete CHKFILES.CHK file will be in the path.  In this
case, this path may give an error message the next time you try to
check it.  The corrupt CHKFILES.CHK file will not be deleted
automatically, because the program doesn't know if this corrupt file
is really a corrupt file or your pie recipe.  You would then have to
manually delete this corrupt file and recheck that path.

When using the "One File" option, the contents of the CHKFILES.ALL
file that is being created is stored as CHKFILES.TMP.  This is because
the old CHKFILES.ALL file is read as each path is checked.  If the
system crashes during checking, the old CHKFILES.ALL file will remain
intact and the CHKFILES.TMP file may remain in the path.  The
CHKFILES.TMP file will be overwritten when CHKFILES is next run.  When
the checking is done, the old CHKFILES.ALL file is deleted and the
CHKFILES.TMP file is renamed to CHKFILES.ALL.  It is unlikely that any
corruption of the CHKFILES.ALL file could happen.

There may be limitations on the number of paths that you can check in
one run of CHKFILES.  The paths are stored in a standard Windows list
box, and there may be limits on how much can be stored in a list box.
In Windows 3.x, these list boxes couldn't hold more than 32K of text.
Assuming 32 characters in the average path, this means you couldn't
check more than 1000 paths in one run.  You could, however, run
CHKFILES multiple times with different sets of paths.  Only one user
has ever reported hitting this limit, and he was using an older
version of CHKFILES.  Starting with version 1.3, the paths are
expanded while they are being checked, and paths that have been
checked are removed from the list to free up space.  If you had all
1000 subdirectories in the same directory, you would still have this
limit.  If you had these directories nested within one another (a more
likely situation) then you probably wouldn't hit this limit.  Windows
95 expands the memory limit on list boxes so it is very unlikely that
youy will see any limitations when running CHKFILES under Windows 95.

Because of the same listbox limitation, if you have too many new,
changed, deleted, or bad files, the list boxes may overflow during
checking.  (This is one reason when an entire path is new it only
generates one line saying "All files in path X" rather than a line for
each new file.) If, for example, you have thousands of picture files
in multiple directories that have already been checked, and then you
run all of these picture files through a program that creates
thumbnail files for each picture, you could end up with so many new
files in old paths that the "new files" list box would fill up.  This
_has_ happened to me, before I switched to Windows 95.  In this case,
the list box that filled up would stop accepting any more information
and an error message would be added to the error list box stating
that the "new files" list box was full (or whatever box happened to
fill up).  Once this error message is added to the error list box, no
more attempts are made to add information to the full list box, so
you won't get multiple error messages about the same problem.
Checking will continue so that all the selected paths will be
checked, and all you will lose is the notification about more files
of the type that caused the list box to fill up.

==========================================

What should I not bother complaining about:

CHKFILES was designed to be a self-contained executable.  As such, it
doesn't use or need any external files (except the CHKFILES.PTH file
to store the paths and the one CHKFILES.ALL file or the multiple
CHKFILES.CHK files, but it creates these for you).  Because of this
goal, CHKFILES only uses the standard system buttons.  Starting with
Windows 95, this now includes "3D" buttons, but does not include some
of the newer features.

CHKFILES was designed to be easy for ME to use.  I use a mouse to run
it.  I realize that someone who tries to use the keyboard will have a
very hard time of it.  Specifically, with the keyboard it is not
possible to select individual items in the directory and paths list
boxes.  Since I didn't want to have to double-click on items with the
mouse to select them, that meant that keyboard use would be
restricted.  Sorry.  (The earlier version in Visual Basic required
double clicking, and I didn't like that.)  Windows is hard enough to
use with just a keyboard that I figure that not enough people will
need to use the keyboard to make it worth while.  If this causes
anyone real problems, please let me know.  I have some ideas on what
to do about this, but if no one needs it, I won't bother with it.

==========================================

What is in the future for CHKFILES:

CHKFILES is shareware.  This was my first venture into Windows-based
shareware, though I have a different shareware program on another
platform and have actually received some payments for it (though not
that many).  (This other program, Rapsheet, is now available in
Windows.)  I am not expecting to get rich from this program, but if I
make enough I will keep supporting it and do some other programs.

There are some enhancements that I plan on adding to CHKFILES, and I
will continue to fix bugs or limitations as they come up.  How much
work I put into upgrades will depend on the response I get.  Some of
the plans I have include adding things that happen when you click on
files after the checksum phase is over (or possibly during it).  For
instance, if you clicked on a file marked "Bad" you could get the
option of marking the file as good and updating the CHKFILES.CHK or
CHKFILES.ALL file.  If you got an error saying that a CHKFILES.CHK
file was corrupted so it couldn't process a path, you would get an
option to delete the CHKFILES.CHK file and reprocess that path.  If
you got an error due to an overflowing list box, it could pause for
you to read all the list boxes and then clear their contents and
continue.  So far, none of these things have been requested by
registered users.  The features I have added have mainly been ones
that users have requested.  If you have other things you would like,
let me know.

==========================================

Can I use CHKFILES commercially or in an educational or governmental
institution?

The shareware release of CHKFILES is only for individual use.  If you
wish to license a special version of CHKFILES for your business or
other institution, contact me at the address given below.  The
commercial licensing rate is quite reasonable, and there are quantity
discounts.  The special version would have your business or
institution name clearly visible to the user.

==========================================

How do I pay for CHKFILES:

If you like CHKFILES, use it and share it with your friends.  If you
find that you use it regularly, I would expect you to register it.
The registration fee is US$15.  Starting with version 1.5,
registration is being handled by Kagi.  Registration can be done by
email, fax, phone, or mail.  Run the included REGISTER program and
fill out the form.  If you are a U.S. resident and wish to register by
check or money order, you can still register directly with Stochastic
Systems.  There is a slight discount for doing this.  If you want to
register by credit card, you will have to use Kagi.

When you register, you should provide a user name.  This name should
be the name of the registered user (personal name, not a business name
or "handle"), must be 20 characters or less, and should consist only of
printable ascii characters, such as those that you can type from the US
standard keyboard.  Please do not use accented letters, as this can mess
up the registration process.  This name will be used to generate a
unique registration key number that will be sent back to you.  When you
click on the Register button on the startup screen, you will be
presented with a form that will ask for the user name and key number.
When you enter your valid user name and key number, the program will
generate a file called CHKFILES.SER which will contain this name and key
number (so the program won't have to ask you again) and from then on
when you run CHKFILES it will not show the startup screen any more.
(The startup screen is still available - you can get to it from the
upper-right hand icon on the main screen before you click on the Begin
button.)  The main screen will show your user name and state that the
program is registered to you.  To remove the registration from the
program, simply delete the CHKFILES.SER file.  For fastest response,
include your email address with your registration order.

In the future there may be some new features that are only activated by
the registration key, such as being able to save a text file that lists
the contents of the list boxes at the end of the test.

If you registered CHKFILES before March of 1998 (when version 1.5 was
released) and would like a registration number, please send me email.

If you registered an older version of CHKFILES, but did so after March
1998, you can upgrade to a current registration for the difference
between your originally registration fee and the current fee of $15.
Upgrades must be done directly with Stochastic Systems, so please
contact Stochastic Systems first to verify your registration status.

You are allowed 30 days to evaluate CHKFILES.  If you do not want to
register it after that time, you should delete all copies of CHKFILES
and all of the CHKFILES.CHK and CHKFILES.ALL files from your computer
system.

If you are a US resident and wish to register by check or money order,
you may mail your money (payable to Stochastic Systems) to:

Ron V. Webber
Stochastic Systems
P.O. Box 925
Dryden, NY 13053 USA

Please use the REGISTER program, select "US Check or Money Order" for
the payment type, print out the form, and send it with your payment.

For non-US residents, or those who wish to register using a credit card,
please use the REGISTER program and following the instructions for
registering through kagi.

I can be reached by email at:  [e-mail]
I can also be reached at: [e-mail]

The second email address should remain valid even if I change servers.

You can also reach me at my web page:  http://www.lightlink.com/ym

The web page has a link to the latest version of CHKFILES and also has
links to any other shareware programs I may have released.

I am interested in knowing who is using CHKFILES.  If you find an
interesting use that I didn't think of, let me know by email.  If you
have sent me money, let me know that it is on the way.  If you register
by email or web access through Kagi, they will let me know that you have
registered, so you don't have to bother sending me email directly,
though you still could.  If you find a bug or could recommend a new
feature, let me know.  If you think it is stupid and a waste of your
time, don't bother to let me know.

I would also be interested in hearing ideas for more projects, job
offers, donations, praise, etc..  Sorry, marriage proposals will no
longer be accepted.  (My wife wouldn't like that!)

==========================================

Revision history:

Version 1.5a fixes a problem with the statistics given at the end of the
run if you have more than 4G (4,294,967,295) total bytes in files that
were checked.  The byte count would wrap around back to zero and so
would give a much smaller number.  This would also affect the statistic
about how many bytes per second were checked.  This would not cause any
problem with the CHKFILES.CHK or CHKFILES.ALL files.  Also, you can now
minimize the program when it is running.

Version 1.5 added registration keys to turn off the startup screen and
also changed the file format to make the files easier to load into
spreadsheets.  If you abort a "one file" run, it will no longer list all
the remaining paths as being deleted.  Some of the list boxes had their
sizes changed slightly to accomodate more lines of text (they were
slightly too short to allow 5 lines).  This version also is the first one
to allow on-line regstration through Kagi.

Version 1.4a fixed an incompatibility problem with Windows NT.  NT sorts
list boxes in a different way from 95.  CheckFiles relies on the
directory list box always having the ".." entry as the first entry
(unless it isn't there at all).  In earlier versions I found a problem
with people who had a directory that would sort to before the "..", such
as a directory beginning with a "#" character.  I solved this problem by
turning the ".." entry into "<..>" and having all the other entries
begin with "[".  "<" should always sort to before "[", and it does this
in every version of Windows I had tested it on, until I tried it on
Windows NT.  For some reason, Windows NT sorts "[" before "<", which
messed everything up.  This version solves this by adding a space before
the "<".  Space always sorts to before any other character, so this
works in all versions of Windows.

Version 1.4a is also the first version to use version 5 of Borland C++.
Previous versions used version 4.  This allows the program to be listed
as a real Windows 95 program, which makes Windows 95 show it with the
3-d buttons and gray background.  In other words, it finally has the
"look" of a Windows 95 program.  This means that it will not look
right in older versions of Windows.

I also fixed a problem with the one-file option that related to the
strange sorting method.  If you had a directory that began with a
strange character (like "~"), the order the directories would be stored
in the CHKFILES.ALL file would not be in ASCII order but in the order
that Windows puts them in.  This would cause a problem if you added this
directory to one with other directories - you would be told that all the
other directories had been deleted and then these same directories would
be listed as "new".  No one has complained of this problem, and I only
found it by accident, but it is now fixed.

Version 1.4 finally fixed the last (?) incompatibility with Win32, and
is the first release to have both 16-bit and 32-bit versions.  (The
last problem was the way Win32 stored volume names, which is quite
different from the way 16-bit Windows does it.)

The "<..>" entry was removed from the directory list for root
directories. This would only show up on networked drives that look
like root directories but are actually subdirectories on other
computers.

The "One File" option was added to store all information in a master
file called CHKFILES.ALL.  This was requested by some users.

The main screen now shows the copyright notice, which was previously
only on the startup screen.  This is needed for commercially licensed
versions that do not have the startup screen.

The CHKFILES icon on the main screen now brings up licensing
information.

Version 1.3a corrected a bug that was reported by a user.  If you have
a subdirectory whose first character is one of the following
non-alphanumeric characters: !"#$%&'()+,- then when the recursive
search would lock up, which could cause a general protection fault.
The reason for this is that the program always assumes that the first
entry in the subdirectory list is the ".." sequence, which marks the
way back up the directory tree.  Since the subdirectory list is a
sorted list and the characters given above come before the "."
character in the normal character set, this would stop the ".." entry
from being the first one in the list.  The solution was to change the
first entry from "[..]" to "<..>".  Since the "<" character comes
before "[" in the character set, "<..>" would always sort to before
"[anything]", which solves the problem.

Version 1.3 Changes:

Changed the way information was stored internally, resulting in a
slightly smaller program than 1.2, even with more features!  The most
visible change is that the path expansion when you click "Begin" is
now done during the checking phase.  Previously, when you clicked
"Begin", all the paths would expand first, and then the checking
phase would start.  This caused a delay before checking started and
meant that you couldn't check more paths than would fit into a list
box.  By expanding paths as they are checked and removing checked
paths from the list box, many more paths can be checked.  (If you
have two directories, each with 500 subdirectories in them, the older
version might not be able to fit all 1000 paths into the list box.
Version 1.3 will expand the first 500 subdirectories, check and
remove each of them from the list box, and then have plenty of room
to expand the second set of directories.  Expanding paths by clicking
on the "Recursive" box will still have the original limitation, but
it now has an error message telling you that not all paths could be
expanded and that you should click the "Recursive" box again to
compress the paths before clicking "Begin" to start checking.

Each path now ends in a final backslash.  Before, only root
directories ("C:\") would have the final backslash.  This
modification allows the paths to be sorted better and aids in the
proper collapse of expanded path lists.  The CHKFILES.PTH file still
stores the paths without the final backslash, except for root
directories, in order to maintain compatibility with older versions.

Files which have a date after 2079 will now have their dates stored
using the full four digits.  Previously, only the last two digits of
the date would be stored in the CHKFILES.CHK file - 80 to 99
representing 1980 through 1999 and 0 to 79 representing 2000 through
2079.  It is possible to set the date on the computer as high as 2099,
and if you had any file with such a date on it the program would
always report that the file had changed.  For example, a file that
thought it was created in 2083 would previously have the date
recorded as "83", which would be confused with 1983.

If the CHKFILES.CHK file is marked "Hidden", it will still be found
and updated while remaining hidden.  Previously, if the CHKFILES.CHK
file was hidden, the program would not find it and would treat the
path as a new one, though when it tried to create a new CHKFILES.CHK
file in the path is would overwrite the hidden one and the new file
would retain the hidden attribute of the older file, thus the
CHKFILES.CHK file would remain hidden but the files would not be
checked and the path would constantly be listed as new. This feature
was added because of the way Windows '95 stores the task bar start
menu.  The menu is stored as a nested directory structure  in the
"Start Menu" directory (usually STARTM~1 in short file names).  Any
files found inside this "Start Menu" directory will be shown in the
start menu, and this includes the CHKFILES.CHK files.  Since you
wouldn't normally want to see the CHKFILES.CHK files in your start
menu, you can now make these files hidden (using the Explorer or File
Manager) so that they won't show up on the start menu but will
continue to protect the files in the start menu.

Version 1.2 changed how some of the internal disk routines worked,
trying to eliminate any that don't work with Win32.  This is in
preparation for a 32-bit version that will handle the long file names
of 95 and NT.  This version also will recognize subdirectories and
files that are marked "System" (but not those marked "Hidden"), which
the previous versions would ignore.  Note that this still doesn't work
with long file names since it is still a 16-bit application.  If I
compile it as a 32-bit application, which I have done in unreleased
tests, it works with long file names, but some other things don't work
properly.

Version 1.1 translated characters from DOS text to Windows ANSI text.
This would only show up on files with non-standard characters such as
the one-half symbol.

Version 1.0a corrected a minor bug that would cause the first
subdirectory on any given partition to be skipped if you operated in
Recursive mode.

Version 1.0 was released for about 2 hours and no one ever used it.

==========================================

Other products from Stochastic Systems:

RapSheet Time Logger.  Helps you to keep track of how much time you
spend doing various tasks.  It can be used to determine a breakdown of
your time spent doing various types of things on your computer, which
is useful (and required) for those who plan on deducting some of their
computer expense from their taxes.  It can also be used to keep track
of any other time based activities.  Available NOW from the Stochastic
Systems home page and from major shareware distributors.

Coming Soon (maybe): The Too Many Notes Tune Editor.  At the forefront
of CAMP (Computer Aided Music Performance).  Allows you to create
musical performances that sound exactly the way you would have played
them if you had the talent to play them that way.  Requires the
ability to read music and a sense of rhythm, but not necessarily at
the same time (or by the same person).