WinHex 17.0

'WinHex' is a hexadecimal editor with plenty of useful features. There are three licensing modes for this product. The 'Personal' license must be used by individuals. It contains all the features described in this review. The 'Professional' license is suited for business use. This offers scripting features and an API (application programming interface) that allows you to use the advanced capabilities of WinHex programmatically. Finally, the 'Specialist' license which is the most expensive. It adds data analysis tools and extra drive recovery, which are useful for advanced users.

The program supports various character data sets including ANSI ASCII, IBM ASCII, EBCDIC, and Unicode. You can open any file that uses these character sets. A dialog appears when you open a file for the first time, asking you to choose the editing mode. Files can be open in read-only mode, which allows you to see the content only without editing it. If you want to modify the content, you should select either the "Default Edit Mode" or the "In-place Mode". In-place editing means that any modification of the content is automatically written to the file, without any prompting. After opening the file, you can press F6 to change the editing mode.

The user interface is nicely designed. The edit window appears on the middle of the user interface. You can change the font used, by accessing the program's options. At first, I was a bit overwhelmed by the multitude of options. After using the program for a couple of minutes, I got accustomed to it and everything fell into place. Although the program is very well organized, it might scare off a beginner.

Pluses: There are numerous advanced features available. I guess the fact that you can directly edit any drive connected to your computer is the most important. It's also possible to edit the contents of your RAM, by using one of the program's features. WinHex supports data conversion and includes powerful search features.

Drawbacks / flaws:

In conclusion: This program is a complete solution for hexadecimal editing.

version reviewed: Personal 15.2