instverify

NAME

SYNOPSIS

instverify [ -n ][ -v ]

instverify [ -n ] -s executable

instverify [ -n ] -l executable

AVAILABILITY

DESCRIPTION

The verification is done thru checking the MD5 checksum of each installed file against a reference checksum.

All files whose checksum do not match against the reference or which do not exist on the system are printed to stdout.

During setup or upgrade of the WA2L/WinTools package, the instverify command is also used automatically to verify the installation.

OPTIONS

-h

help message.

-i

install the instverify command to the 'Send To' context menu in 'Windows™ Explorer'.

-u

uninstall the instverify command from the 'Send To' context menu of 'Windows™ Explorer'.

-V

print program version.

-v

verbose output printing also the files which are OK to stdout.

-n

non-interactive execution.

Where the interactive part is only a keypress at the end of the execution when the command is double clicked in the explorer.

When executing instverify from the console the execution is always non-interactive.

Therefore the -n option will be of minor importance in normal use.

-s executable

show virus scan report of a given executable file.

When specifying a non-executable file, the checksum is verified.

-l executable

show virus scan report of a given executable file and open the virustotal.com link in a web browser.

When specifying a non-executable file, the checksum is verified.

ENVIRONMENT

EXIT STATUS

0

no error.

1

the installation could not be verified successfully completely against the reference.

There can be files missing or the checksum of files do not match with the reference.

Missing files can be caused thru manual deletion by the user (by error) of by "false positive" reports of Antivirus programs which remove potential virus infected files from the system.

See also section BUGS related to "false positive" problems.

4

usage printed.

5

version printed.

FILES

lib/revision.md5

MD5 checksums of all files that are part of the WA2L/WinTools package. This file is updated by the pack command.

lib/revision.zip

MD5 checksums of historic releases of the WA2L/WinTools package.

The contents of this file can be used to display the changes between the releases.

To list all files in revision.zip, use:

  llcomp revision.zip

To display the changes between a specific release and the current installation, invoke:

  catcomp revision.zip WA2LWinTools-1.2.09-202601311543-revision-RELEASED.md5 | rcmp -a -

lib/src/vscan/vscan.zip

virus scan reports of virustotal.com for all executable (.exe, .com, .dll, .a, .bat, .cmd, .awk, .ps1, .tcl, .lua, .js, .vbs, .xlsm and .zip) files.

See vscan.rpt(4) for the current virus scan reports.

The instverify -s executable command reads the virus scan report details directly from this file without decompressing the whole *.zip archive.

EXAMPLES

SEE ALSO

NOTES

BUGS

VIRUS SCAN

Antivirus False Positive Problems

It frequently happens that a (small) number of antivirus programs report programs I developed as being Virus/Trojan infected.

Which of course is not the case, because I know the code and I have no motivation to develop destructive things.

The WA2L/WinTools package is Open Source and all commands I developed are either realised as scripts or when using a programming language that need compilation the source code that I used to compile the tools is included in the package and is available in the lib/src/ directory.

See also startprog(3) for (false positive) threat detections on the startprog.exe program launcher.

Virus Scan

All executable files of the WA2L/WinTools package are scanned using Virustotal.com (https://virustotal.com/).

This service enables to scan a file with more than 70 (09.03.2024) virus scanners to allow a more comprehensive judgement if a file alerted by a system wide installed virus scanner is really infected or if the discovery is more likely a false-positive (=false alarm).

See vscan.rpt(4) for the current virus scan reports of the executables in the WA2L/WinTools package.

More Information

See more information about Antivirus "false positive" issues:

[1]

NirBlog Homepage, Antivirus companies cause a big headache to small developers, 24.11.2019, URL: https://blog.nirsoft.net/2009/05/17/antivirus-companies-cause-a-big-headache-to-small-developers/

[2]

NirBlog Homepage, Archive for the 'Antivirus Issues' Category, 24.11.2019, URL: https://blog.nirsoft.net/category/antivirus-issues/

[3]

Techadvisor Homepage, How to deal with an antivirus false positive, 24.11.2019, URL: https://www.techadvisor.co.uk/how-to/security/how-deal-with-antivirus-false-positive-3689720/

[4]

Datenschutz-Praxis Homepage, False Positives: Wenn sich die IT-Sicherheit irrt, 24.11.2019, URL: https://www.datenschutz-praxis.de/fachartikel/fehlalarm-wenn-die-anti-viren-software-zum-risiko-wird/

[5]

Portableapps.com Homepage, Antivirus Scans and False Positives, 30.05.2025, URL: https://portableapps.com/support/antivirus

AUTHOR

COPYRIGHT

This is free software; see WA2LWinTools/man/COPYING for copying conditions. There is ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.