Help on sha1sum.exe on Windows

   When you download file / ISO images sometimes you wonder that the file you download is ok or corrupted.  To ensure the download images not corrupted or tempered by human or by  a virus program, we need some kind of tools (program) that can verify the ISO images downloaded is same with the ISO images on that FTP site.   It is recommended that after downloading the ISO images, check the SHA1 hash checksum value for the ISO images to ensure that your download was successful.

   Now  you can do this by running the sha1sum program for Windows PC from a command prompt against your ISO images and comparing the values returned against the ones published by the owner of the image. Usually the official sha1sum values is called SHA1SUM and is located in the same directory as the ISO images on the FTP site.  The article below show step by step help on how to using sha1sum.exe tools or program on MS Windows 2000 and XP computer presented with screenshot example.

If you using Windows 2000 and XP, you can download the sha1sum program for MS Windows at:

 ftp://ftp.gnupg.org/gcrypt/binary/sha1sum.exe  (20k)

 ftp://ftp.gnupg.org/gcrypt/binary/sha1sum.exe.sig

 ftp://ftp.gnupg.org/gcrypt/binary/sha1sum.c (9k)

 ftp://ftp.gnupg.org/gcrypt/binary/sha1sum.c.sig

 ftp://ebible.org/pub/sha1sum.zip

Need help on using sha1sum.exe for MS Windows / Windows 2000 and XP to check the sha1 hash value?

   This step by step guide using sha1sum tool are design to demonstrate on using sha1sum tool on windows 2000 to check the value of Fedora Core 4 ISO image (FC4-i386-disc1.iso).  You can find the actual image and the official sha1sum value at http://fedora.redhat.com/download/.  This step by step using sh1sum tool also apply on Windows XP.

1.  Firsts download 'sha1sum.exe' program...

2.  Put the sha1sum.exe program in the same folder with your ISO image, then...

3.  Click (Start) button -> click on (Run)

4.   On the run box type in ‘cmd’ and to open Windows 'command prompt' click [ OK ] button.

5.   After the ‘command prompt’ appear on your desktop, use windows 'explorer' to explore your ‘sha1sum.exe’ program that you are already download earlier, then drag and drop the sha1sum.exe to your ‘command prompt’.

6.  Then drag and drop the file / ISO images to the ‘command prompt’ that you want to check for their checksum value.  In this project, we used the FC4-i386-disc1.iso image as and example. 

NOTE: Make sure that you put a ‘space’ between the sha1sum program and the ISO image.

7.  Then press [ Enter ] key to execute the sha1sum.exe program and wait for the result…

NOTE: This process may take some time depending on the size of the ISO image.

8.  Compare the result between sha1sum program value and the official sha1sum values from the images owner site.

Sha1sum value from the ‘command prompt’:-

Microsoft Windows 2000 [Version 5.00.2195]

(C) Copyright 1985-2000 Microsoft Corp.

C:\>F:\fedora4\sha1sum.exe F:\fedora4\FC4-i386-disc1.iso

3fb2924c8fb8098dbc8260f69824e9c437d28c68 F:\fedora4\FC4-i386-disc1.iso

C:\>

Below is the example of sha1sum value on Linux Fedora Core 4 iso images, you can get the official Linux Fedora Core 4 sha1 checksum value from the http://fedora.redhat.com/download/ site:-

For x86-compatible (32-bit):

FC4-i386-disc1.iso (sha1sum: 3fb2924c8fb8098dbc8260f69824e9c437d28c68)

FC4-i386-disc2.iso (sha1sum: 31fdc2d7a1f1709aa02c9ea5854015645bd69504)

FC4-i386-disc3.iso (sha1sum: 032455cdf457179916be3a739ca16add75b768b7)

FC4-i386-disc4.iso (sha1sum: f560f26a32820143e8286afb188f7c36d905a735)

What these sh1sum result tell you?

Compare the sha1sum value that you get from your PC ( computer ) to the sha1sum value from the download server, if you get this two sha1sum value match, that mean the result is PASS and your have the good file / ISO images on your hand :-).

NOW you can start to burn the ISO image to your CD :-)

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