Visual Basic for Applications/Running the FCIV Utility from VBA

Summary

The Microsoft FCIV Utility, the File Checksum Integrity Verifier , is a free downloadable zipped package that allows a user to produce both SHA1 and MD5 hashes for any single file, a flat folder, or recursively for all files and folders. It can export its entire results package to a nominated .xml file. It can also conduct verification of file sets against a previously saved listing. It is used from a command prompt, but can be run using the Shell function from code like VBA, or from a batch file. For further reading in its use see: Availability and description of the File Checksum Integrity Verifier utility.

Making File Hash Listings

FCIV Hash Run at the Command Line

For completion, the command line code here will make an XML file of SHA1 hashes of the entire Documents folder. Omission of the xml term and the path that follows it will result in a screen listing. Notice the need for double quotes for paths that contain spaces.

The fciv utility is assumed here to reside in the FCIV folder.

c:\>FCIV\fciv.exe -r "C:\users\My Folder\Documents" -sha1 -xml "c:\users\My Folder\Documents\myhash.xml"

FCIV Hash Run from VBA

The Shell function in VBA has no Wait feature, so the Shell line is best as the last. That is to say, even while the Shell command is still processing, it will pass control to the next line in the procedure that contains it before it is done; so the procedure's end will otherwise interrupt the Shell function and the process is likely to fail. The quotes are also a little different in this case from the usual VBA expectation. Note that all of the paths have been enclosed in two sets of double quotes and that the entire command line itself is then enclosed in one additional set of double quotes. Assuming that the fciv.exe has been downloaded and installed as shown, this code line exports all of the hash strings for every file in the users Documents folder, and all of its subfolders, to the file myhash.xml. An exclusion file path could also have been added.

Notice that the use of VBA has some limitations, in that although an output can be made to a file with great success, verification output is limited to the command line processor. See examples on the page File Checksum Integrity Verifier (FCIV) Examples.

Sub FCIV()
   'runs the fciv function from VBA   
Dim Ret
   Ret = Shell("""c:\FCIV\fciv.exe"" -r ""C:\users\My Folder\Documents"" -sha1 -xml ""c:\users\My Folder\Documents\myhash.xml""")
End Sub

External Links

Availability and description of the File Checksum Integrity Verifier utility : The Microsoft page on fciv, though a bit sparse in description.
Folder Hashing in VBA :Another companion page that makes recursive folder hash listings, and logs. Uses up to date hash algorithms, but limited to files no larger than about 200MB.