Inconsistent CRC or Checksum Values on Large Applications

WORKAROUND

To calculate a CRC or Checksum with the SMS Administrator, do the following:

1. Create a new package and click the Inventory button.
2. Select "Add AND..." or "Add OR...".
3. In the File Properties window, click the ellipse button (...) to the right of File Name.
4. Browse to and select the file you want to calculate the CRC or Checksum of.
5. Choose "Checksum" or "CRC" from the Properties Available list and click Add>.
6. Enter a value in the At Byte field. This is the data offset, or byte position, within the file where the algorithm will begin calculating the sum.
7. Enter a value for the Length field. This is the total number of bytes that are summed.
8. Click the Retrieve button. The value displayed in the CRC-16 (or Checksum) field is your result.

The values calculated here can be used to customize your Audit.rul file. For more information on Software auditing, see Chapter 6, page 217 of the "SMS Administrator's Guide."

NOTE: This documentation mentions the Filetokn.exe utility which was not included with SMS 1.1. Use the steps listed above to perform the same functions. Generally, an offset of 10,000 and a length of 10,000 to 50,000 will return a consistent value for most large executable files. Don't forget to consider that the larger the values for the length, the longer it will take to calculate. To really be certain that the value you calculate does not contain any unique data, calculate the CRC or Checksum on the executable file installed from two installations of the same application.