The first thing we’ll do is generate a text document for each folder that lists all of its files. Let’s learn how to compare the folders now. For the sake of this tutorial, we will assume that you do. If you do indeed have a FolderA and FolderB there, you should seem them listed. You should see a listing of the files and folders on the Desktop. We can optionally verify that the folders we want to compare are indeed on the Desktop.

We can now verify that our folders are here. NOTE: The Windows file system is case insensitive, so typing “cd desktop” is the same as typing “cd Desktop”. ‘cd’ is the cmd’s command for “change directory.” This is how you navigate the folder structures of your storage media using the cmd. To change the directory to the desktop, type.This article will refer to the Command as simply “cmd” from here on out.

Unless you ran the Command Prompt as Administrator, you should be in your default user library directory. Now that we have the Command Prompt open, you should see a blinking cursor preceded by the directory the Command Prompt is currently looking at. NOTE: If you want to compare files in protected directories, such as the Windows directory, you must run the Command Prompt as “Administrator.” You can do this by right clicking on the Command Prompt item in the Start menu (in Windows Vista, 7, and 8), and choosing “Run as administrator.” This will open the Run dialog in Windows.įrom here, type “cmd” and hit Enter. To open the Command Prompt, hold the Windows key down, and press the ‘R’ key on the keyboard.To do this, we will make use of the Windows Command Processor, which is also known as the Command Prompt.

Checking for differences between folders in Windows is pretty simple, but is a bit hidden from plain view.įor the sake of this tutorial, consider that we FolderA and FolderB, both on the Desktop, and we want to see the difference in the folders’ contents. Have you been in the situation where you have two folders that are almost exactly identical, and you want to know the difference between the two folders? Maybe you want to compare the System32 folder of one computer with that of another, to make sure they both have the same drivers.

Windows compare two directories