How to get the sha256sum of any file with certutil.exe



C:\Windows\System32\certutil.exe is part of the Windows operating system. 



The steps are:



1) Left click the "Start" button with your mouse on the left corner of your Windows Task bar, type "cmd" and hit the enter key.



2) Input the following cmd command:


certutil.exe -hashfile <full path to the file that you want to get its sha256sum> sha256


For example, if the file is target.tar, and its full path is d:\target.tar, then you type:

certutil.exe -hashfile d:\target.tar sha256



The output will be like:


SHA256 hash of target.tar:

5b887a5271be33ecfdd32d7137eb6c89171420d6befb45e4f2c1dc8fe465620d
CertUtil: -hashfile Command completed successfully