HashCheck 2.6
HashCheck 2.6 brings native Windows 11 Explorer context menu support, command-line checksum creation, new XXH3 algorithms, Unix LF checksum output, long-path fixes, and multiple reliability and performance improvements.
Highlights
- Added native Windows 11 Explorer context menu support using IExplorerCommand, while keeping the legacy context menu integration for older Windows versions.
- Added HashCheckPackageHost.exe to create or verify checksum files without launching Explorer.
- Supports /create, /verify, and /options.
- Supports silent checksum creation with /output, /hash, /encoding, and /eol.
- Added XXH3 checksum support:
- XXH3-64
- XXH3-128
- Includes save formats, verification parsing, file filters, options UI, and tests.
- Added a dedicated Verify Checksum File context menu entry for recognized checksum files.
- Added an option to save checksum files using Unix LF line endings.
- Updated BLAKE3 to version 1.8.2 and added gated x64 oneTBB-based BLAKE3 acceleration support.
- Improved hashing buffer selection, using adaptive read buffers depending on the target path.
Fixed Issues
- Fixed verifier status sorting so failures are shown first. Fixes #33.
- Sorted checksum output after hashing for deterministic output order. Fixes #15, #4, and #29.
- Improved default checksum save names by using a shared filename stem when appropriate. Fixes #11.
- Fixed child checksum save locations to use absolute paths. Fixes #7.
- Retried file opens with long-path prefixes to better support very long paths. Fixes #22 and #1.
- Installed the shell extension under Program Files instead of system directories. Fixes #32, #2, and #20.
- Improved CRC32 update performance. Fixes #30.
- Added Unix line ending support for checksum files. Fixes #21.
Other Changes
- Sorted checksum saves from the Properties tab.
- Retried checksum output file creation using long-path prefixes.
- Improved Windows 11 Explorer command responsiveness.
- Added a Windows 11 context menu command for HashCheck options.
- Improved installer logging, AppX registration diagnostics, uninstall cleanup, and reboot-required notifications.
- Removed Windows 11 package assets during uninstall.
- Hardened shell extension cleanup, worker shutdown, registry access, file size handling, ReadFile error handling, and memory allocation paths.
- Updated code signing certificate and release metadata.
Full Changelog: v2.5.0...v2.6.0