A cryptographic hash, also called digest, is a kind of unique signature for a text or a data file. Comparing a digest of your copy of a file with the known original signature is a way to ensure you have an exact copy of the file. Many Linux distributions come with utilities to create this hash, however one does not come with the Windows operating system. You may download the attached hash.exe utility that will allow you to create and validate the hash of files. This utility can run as both a GUI application where you may drag and drop files into it to validate the hash, or as a command line utility. By the way, the MD5 hash of hash.exe is: 3CBF901690F530738A44260A470CEB26