Why are key executables missing from Windows 7 and previous and where to download such tools free: telnet, ssh, md5, sha1, sha256, and more
Ok, so is anyone else frustrated that Microsoft fails to include certain executable tools that are standard on BSD and Linux? On my FreeBSD system, I don’t have to install anything special to telnet, or ssh, or check any type of hash (md5, sha1, sha256, etc…) and ump-teen other simple free features.
Especially the ability to check a hash, which is a key step to verify that a file was downloaded securely, and was not tampered with. In fact, it is a security risk that Microsoft doesn’t have these tools. We pay a lot of money for a Microsoft operating system and yet they fail to provide me with the tools I need to maintain security, tools that are ubiquitous and free. Also you wrote a tool for this already, were you just too thoughtless to include it in Windows 7? See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/841290.
So here is what you have to do to get these tools added to your windows platform.
| Telnet | See this post or google for a 3rd party telnet tool. Where is telnet in Windows 7? Or Windows 7 is missing telnet.exe |
| ssh | Download PuTTY from here: http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html. I like to rename it to ssh.exe and put it in the system32 directory. |
A quick search in Google led me to this download which will provide you with most the tools you need for comparing hashes or check sums.
http://www.nfllab.com/sums/sums611.zip
However, here is what I had before:
| md5 | I use md5sums which you can get here: http://www.pc-tools.net/win32/md5sums/ |
| sha1 | You can use this one: ftp://ftp.gnupg.org/gcrypt/binary/sha1sum.exe |
| sha256 | This will work for you: http://www.labtestproject.com/files/win/sha256sum/sha256sum.exe |
And if you want more tools that are ubiquitous to open source platforms but somehow Microsoft has excluded from their operating systems, check these out:
| Other GNU Utilities | Download them from here: http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages.html |
I hope this page helps you. I mostly wrote it for myself, so I could remember where I find this stuff again.
