DesktopIniManager v4.3.0 — FFFE edition

DesktopIniManager v4.3.0

v4.3.0 improves comparison window responsiveness, adds configurable .gitignore exclusions, and expands DIFF VIEW with GIF frame selection and drag-and-drop comparison.

Developer Differencer

• Load comparison history asynchronously when opening the window, without automatically comparing folders or rebuilding the previous result tree.
• Save comparison history in the background when closing, and wait for persistence to finish before exiting.
• Allow cancellation while restoring a selected history tab, including ignore discovery, file-row preparation, and folder-tree construction. Cancelling discards the partial display while preserving the saved history for later selection.

Configurable .gitignore exclusions

• Respect .gitignore files within both selected roots, including nested rules, wildcard patterns, anchored paths, escaped characters, and negation rules.
• Open the merged Source/Target exclusion list using the ignore button beside the filter button. The button is disabled when no exclusion rules are available.
• Show folder patterns ending in / first, followed by other patterns, with each group sorted in ascending order.
• Keep a rule checked to exclude matching paths. Uncheck it and apply to rescan both sides and update the current comparison tab. Other enabled exclusions and negation rules remain effective.
• Provide Cancel, Invert Selection, and Apply actions.
• Retain exclusion choices with comparison history and apply them during synchronization, without modifying the original .gitignore files.

Rules above the selected roots and global Git excludes are not used. A child cannot be re-included while its parent directory remains excluded.

Image and GIF comparison

• Fix image display errors that prevented zoom controls from appearing.
• Preserve sharp pixels with nearest-neighbor scaling for BMP, JPG/JPEG, PNG, GIF, and TIFF/TIF images, without smoothing.
• Retain zoom up to 1600%, with the pixel grid visible only at that maximum.
• Preserve independent Source/Target image selection and XOR overlays.
• Select animated GIF frames using the slider below the image panes to compare them as still images.
• Use the larger frame count for the shared slider range. Frames unavailable on the shorter side are displayed as missing.
• Display original frame delays and compare composed frames with transparency, local frame rectangles, and frame disposal applied. Playback is not automatic.

MP4 remains outside the supported DIFF VIEW formats.

External DIFF VIEW and drag-and-drop

Open a comparison even when one of the specified files is missing, allowing added or deleted files to be reviewed:

DesktopIniManager.exe -diff "C:\work\Source.txt" "C:\work\Target.txt"

Open an empty viewer without specifying paths:

DesktopIniManager.exe -diff

• Drop one file onto Source or Target, or drop two files together to populate both sides in drop order.
• The first input determines text or image mode. Mixed types, unsupported binary files, and files already loaded on either side are rejected.
• Use the clear button immediately to the left of Reload to clear both sides and reset the comparison mode.
• Clear and drag-and-drop work in both text and image views, including viewers opened from Developer Differencer. Manually loaded pairs remain independent of the original folder comparison results.

Invalid arguments, directory arguments, and two specified paths with neither file present remain errors.

Language support and documentation

• Localize the new ignore settings and drag-and-drop guidance in English, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, and Korean.
• Update the README and Japanese manual for v4.3.0.

Requirements

• Windows 10 or Windows 11, x64.
• .NET 10 Desktop Runtime, x64.

DesktopIniManager v4.0.0 — FFFE edition

DesktopIniManager v4.0.0

DIM v4 brings five independent workspaces, separate document searching, and a focused read-only diff viewer to its folder analysis, search, comparison, and icon-management tools.

Highlights

• Five process slots: DIM1–DIM5 retain independent settings/history. Launch a free slot or activate an occupied one.
• Seven restored themes: Dark, Light, and DIM1–DIM5 theme selections survive restarts.
• Document Grep: search Excel (.xls, .xlsx, .xlsm) and PDF contents through Document, separately from Code Grep. Excel hits show [Sheet][Cell] matched content; PDF hits identify their page.
• Main-window navigation: fixed single-root tree row, folder-name hit counts/highlighting, list/icon views, and saved column/pane widths.
• Folder icons: empty/content states, network/cloud presentation, and a bundled library resolved from the application directory.
• Comparison workflow: incremental results, folder-building progress, up to 20 result tabs, explicit rescans, and one-way Source-to-Target selection of an existing same-name folder.
• DIFF VIEW: Source-yellow/Target-blue frames, draggable map, and all-lines/differences-only display with filtered-line markers. The last mode is restored per slot.
• Shortcuts: Ctrl + Up/Down navigates sections; Ctrl + Left/Right navigates files; Ctrl + 0 toggles display mode. Plain arrows scroll; Shift + wheel retains horizontal scrolling.
• Scoped search: append results into file groups, retain tabs, export results, and open an editor at a file/line/column.
• Structured export: ZIP checked files or drag the ZIP icon to export their relative folder structure.

Inspection and explicit file operations

Scanning, searching, comparing, and DIFF VIEW do not edit or merge source contents. Use an external editor/merge tool when needed. Explicit icon management, synchronization, build/Clean, and export operations can write files.

Folder comparison uses size and optional modification time, not content hashes. Document Grep searches extractable text; it does not OCR image-only PDFs.

Download and upgrade

• Asset: DesktopIniManager-v4.0.0-win-x64.zip
• Checksum: DesktopIniManager-v4.0.0-win-x64.zip.sha256
• Requirements: Windows 10/11 x64 and .NET 10 Desktop Runtime (x64).
• Extract into a fresh directory and run DesktopIniManager.exe. Keep all DLLs, JSON files, Assets, and Languages together, including ExcelDataReader and every bundled PdfPig DLL.
• Settings/history are stored per slot under %LOCALAPPDATA%\DesktopIniManager.

GitHub downloads · Website · User guide

DesktopIniManager v2.0.3 — MFT final

DesktopIniManager v2.0.3 — MFT final

This is the last MFT-based release.

• Enumerates via NTFS MFT (mftree.exe included)
• Kept as the historical final package before the DIR edition (v3.0.0)

Package

DesktopIniManager-v2.0.3-win-x64.zip

Extract and run DesktopIniManager/DesktopIniManager.exe.

Later releases (v3.0.0+) use Windows DIR instead of MFT and do not require elevation for enumeration.