Hexiwin - free hex edit utility for Windows 32/64
Introduction:
Hexiwin is a free Windows 32/64 utility. It is for dumping the byte values of any file to Hexadecimal and ASCII format. You can view,
edit, search, or export the opened files hex/ascii values to a .txt or .doc file. At this time Hexiwin is limited to opening 2gb files for the
32 bit version, and 4gb files for the 64 bit version. I plan on changing the way Hexiwin maps files so it can open files of any size no
matter what.
I built this program to teach myself windows programming in 1997 from the excellent book "Programming Windows 95", by Charles
Petzold. I just recently have been trying to bring Hexiwin into the 21st century, from it's Windows 95/98/2000 days, so it will work
properly with windows 7/8/10/11.
I've tested Hexiwin on windows 7, 10, and 11. I found out that in windows 7 32bit hexiwin can open files up to around 1.8gb, and not
2gb for some reason. The reason Hexiwin has problems with really large files is because I'm mapping the full file to memory. I need to
learn how to open files like the pros Hex Workshop and Free Hex Editor Neo do.
Then Hexiwin could open files of any size no matter
what. I believe I see where I need to change the way Hexiwin maps files so it can open a file of any size, and that is in and around the
MapViewOfFile function. I need to MapViewOfFile with a portion of a file, and then in the windows "switch (iMsg)" loop UnmapViewOfFile -
re-MapViewOfFile with the new position as the file is scrolled through.
I've went back to building with dynamically linked librairies, so Hexiwin is smaller again. Hexiwin is linked against the vcruntime140.dll,
and there are older systems that may not have that installed, but you can download the needed librairies from Microsoft if needed. The
link to the 32bit version is: vc_redist.x86.exe, and the link to the 64bit version is: vc_redist.x64.exe
Hexiwin is free because it's not at the point to where it's worth asking money for, and will be free for the unforeseeable future. If it gets
to the point to where it's worth asking money for, then I probably will, but at the rate I'm going at upgrading it it'll take a good while.
Please report bugs to: wjack@wjack.com
Latest versions of Hexiwin:
- Hexiwin-0.61-64bit.zip (20.58kb) - Latest 64bit version of Hexiwin.
Checksum for Hexiwin-0.61-64bit.zip: SHA-256: 88462e546c0a75a92bf7f349399309e33e9510b9cd41b60707a69a5d5737d494
- Hexiwin-0.61-32bit.zip (23.83kb) - Latest 32bit version of Hexiwin.
Checksum for Hexiwin-0.61-32bit.zip: SHA-256: 2d6a8cef8955f67a36e2889d8cd401d1fa9506634eb643ba8202cdec51c8e6fd
TODO List:
- Change how Hexiwin maps files so it can open files of any size. I think I've learned how this is done, but it means making a lot of
changes, so it may take awhile. I think the best way to do this is to start from scratch, because the way hexiwin is made everything
is so closely tied together that to change MapViewOfFile will break so much other stuff, that it would be better to start fresh.
- Add ability to copy and paste.
- Speed up the way Hexiwin searches for hex and ascii values.
- Add ability to create new files.
- Port Hexiwin to Linux. I've done some Linux command line programming, but never tried X windows programming, so I imagine it
will be a job.
Some useful links:
- virustotal.com Virustotal.com is a great website to check suspicious files, domains, IP's and URL's for malicious content.
- HashMyFiles is a great and free windows application from NirSoft for verifing checksums MD5, CRC32, SHA1, SHA-256, SHA-384, and
SHA-512.
- 7-Zip is a great and free file compression/decompression utility that can handle about any compression format. It's also a great tool
for checking a files checksum simply by right clicking on the file and choosing the 7-Zip added CRC SHA option in the context menu.
- Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable packages If you need the vcruntime140.dll, this is the place to get the package that includes it.
- Microsoft Visual Studio Community Microsoft's latest version of their free Visual Studio for program development. I used this to build
Hexiwin. You don't need anymore than this free version for building free or paid applications, unless you've got a huge project with
many people contributing. In MS's bigger is better tradition it's a beast, and takes a lot of disc space. The way the editor tries to be
helpful can be very infuriating, but you can adjust that out to some extent. Just wish it wasn't so "helpful", Ugh! I may have to try GCC
for Windows to get away from all this unwanted help, or just use Notepad to edit.
- Hex Workshop is a serious Hex tool that's been around since 1995, and is the program that got me interested in making Hexiwin. It
was the first Hex editor I ever tried, and I used it for years. Hex Workshop hasn't been updated since 2014, but it's still a badass Hex
tool. I especially like how Hex Workshop can open a file of any size on a 32 or 64 bit system. I need to figure out how Hex Workshop
does that, so I can incorperate it into Hexiwin. I also like that you can make a new file in Hex Workshop, and definately want to
incorporate that into Hexiwin also.
- Free Hex Editor Neo is a great free full featured Hex Editor. It can also open files of any size on 32 and 64 bit systems, make New files,
and so much more. One thing that really impresses me about Neo is the speed of searching a file for hex values or ascii characters, it's
almost instantaneous. The search speed of Hexiwin is good, it's faster than Hex Workshop, but Neo blows Hexiwin's doors off. Like to
know how Neo works that magic, so I could incorporate it into Hexiwin. I'm thinking that possibly Neo is making full use of multi cores
with it's search loops to get such a blazingling fast search speed, but I don't know that for sure.
- UPX (the Ultimate Packer for eXecutables), is a great free utility for compressing executables to a very small size that will uncompress
on the fly when ran.
- hexidump-1.7.tar.gz (6.94kb) - Hexidump is a Linux command line utility. It's the first program I made a long time ago that actually does something
useful. It isn't anything special, but it seems to work alright for what it is. You can dump a file's hex and ascii values to a text file, or edit a
file's hex or ascii values, but it's a pain to edit files with this command line tool. It comes with the makefile, source code, and a prebuilt
binary, but you may have to build it on your own machine to get it to work.
Checksum for hexidump-1.7.tar.gz: SHA-256: 88c450804d555f9886cdc37a51407ffdfbd3053abb2138a983c3afec5818a1cb
