How to compute the MD5 or SHA-1 cryptographic hash values for a file

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INTRODUCTION

When you apply the hashing algorithm to an arbitrary amount of data, such as a binary file, the result is a hash or a message digest. This hash has a fixed size. MD5 is a hashing algorithm that creates a 128-bit hash value. SHA-1 is a hashing algorithm that creates a 160-bit hash value.

MORE INFORMATION

You can use the File Checksum Integrity Verifier (FCIV) utility to compute the MD5 or SHA-1 cryptographic hash values of a file. For additional information about the File Checksum Integrity Verifier (FCIV) utility, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

841290 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/841290/ ) Availability and description of the File Checksum Integrity Verifier utility

To compute the MD5 and the SHA-1 hash values for a file, type the following command at a command line:

FCIV -md5 -sha1 path\filename.ext

For example, to compute the MD5 and SHA-1 hash values for the Shdocvw.dll file in your %Systemroot%\System32 folder, type the following command:

FCIV -md5 -sha1 c:\windows\system32\shdocvw.dll