Release Notes & System Requirements (Windows)

Information Need to download an older version of Merge not available below? Please contact us.

2024 releases

Merge 2024.6002 for Windows 3 October 2024

This release enables WinGet to determine whether the latest version of Merge is already installed. Please read the notes below for a complete description of the change.

This is the current production-quality release that Araxis recommends for all users.

This release is free of charge to all customers with upgrade/support entitlement covering the build date indicated in the download box below, including everyone who purchased Merge within the year prior to that date.

System requirements

This release is tested and supported on 64-bit Intel versions of the following platforms:

Windows 11 24H2 (2024 Update)
Windows 11 23H2 (2023 Update)
Windows 10 22H2 (2022 Update)

The following platforms are also supported and expected to work but not routinely tested:

Windows Server 2022
Windows Server 2019

Defects fixed

The previous release of Merge added support for installation via the WinGet command-line tool. Unfortunately, the winget upgrade command would always consider Merge to be out of date, even when the latest version was already installed. This release resolves that problem via several changes: #6989
- The internal product version number shown in the Apps▸Installed apps section of Windows Settings is now the same for both the English and Japanese localizations of Merge.
- The scheme used to form that internal version number has changed to conform to WinGet requirements.
- The manifest for Araxis Merge published in the WinGet Package Manager Community Repository now includes a mapping from the product’s marketing version (for example, 2024.6002) to the internal version displayed in Windows Settings.
- Prior versions of Araxis Merge have been removed from the WinGet Package Manager Community Repository. This was necessary because the internal product version number scheme used by previous versions of Merge is incompatible with the requirements imposed by WinGet.
The following additional changes have also been made:
- The publisher of Merge shown in Windows Settings is now Araxis Ltd rather than Araxis.
- The Upgrading From an Older Version of Merge and Installing Using WinGet topics have been updated to caution against upgrading an existing Merge installation using the winget upgrade command unless the existing installation has machine scope (that is, unless it is installed for all users).

Download

Version	Build date
2024.6002	26 September 2024

Merge 2024.6001 for Windows 9 September 2024

This release adds support for Windows 11 24H2 and makes Merge available via WinGet. It also features an assortment of enhancements and fixes. Please read the notes below for a complete list of changes.

This is no longer the current release. All users are encouraged to upgrade to the most recent release.

System requirements

This release is tested and supported on 64-bit Intel versions of the following platforms:

Windows 11 24H2 (2024 Update, Build 26100.1591)
Windows 11 23H2 (2023 Update)
Windows 10 22H2 (2022 Update)

The following platforms are also supported and expected to work but not routinely tested:

Windows Server 2022
Windows Server 2019

Enhancements

Merge is now tested and supported on Windows 11 24H2 (Build 26100.1591). This support replaces that for Windows 11 22H2. (Merge may continue to work on the latter platform, but it is no longer officially tested or supported.) #6972
Merge for Windows is now available for installation via the WinGet command-line tool, thus offering a more convenient installation experience for many users. For more information, please see How to Install. #6864
The following quick-access commands have been added: Start or recompare , Delete selected , Retest selected , and Hide/reveal . #6898
Scrollbar thumbs and overview strip marks are now rendered in the same colours and in the same way as Merge for macOS. As a result, the thumbs and marks are drawn with increased contrast, making them more readily visible and easier to distinguish. #6891
The building of Merge is now entirely automated as part of a new continuous integration strategy implemented during this release cycle. Although this has taken a significant effort, customer-visible changes should be minimal. One exception is that the About dialog now shows a hash code indicating the precise commit in the Merge source code repository from which the build was created. #6907
The OpenJDK Java Runtime Environment subset bundled with Merge has been upgraded to Adoptium Eclipse Temurin OpenJDK 21.0.4+7. #6971

Defects fixed

Text comparisons can now open large Microsoft Excel spreadsheets and Microsoft Word documents without producing an exception. #6924
Text comparison history list entries now always display the actual character encoding last used to load or save the file. #6953
Character encodings expressly specified by the user are now always respected when loading text files, even when the Try to auto-detect character encoding from file content option is checked. Previously, Merge would ignore a character encoding expressly specified for a file if a suitable character encoding could be determined from a file’s contents. The Encoding field label on the dialog that appears after clicking Open URL… in an open-file dialog has also been renamed to Fallback encoding to reflect its purpose better. #6955
Recomparing modified files can now be cancelled from the resulting Save modified files dialog without having to save the files or lose the modifications. #6866
Swapping panes in a text comparison no longer causes syntax highlighting to stop working. #6840
Merge no longer crashes in certain circumstances when both the Blank lines line expression and the Add vertical padding to align changes option are enabled. #6874
The text comparison Show context around changes of only # lines option now has a minimum line count of one rather than zero. This fix avoids potential display problems and brings Merge for Windows into line with Merge for macOS. #6957
The margin on the right of the About dialog has been adjusted. #6945
Several slow resource leaks of Windows user and GDI objects have been fixed. #6921
A number of error message dialogs that can potentially appear during installation are better formatted and have Help buttons. #6860
Following an extensive review of the Merge source code, various minor, non-customer-visible infelicities have been addressed. #6858#6861

Notices

Following customer feedback and a careful review of little-used and obsolescent Merge features, Araxis has made the determinations listed below.

The Perforce file-system plugin (but not general integration with Perforce unrelated to the file-system plugin, which is preserved) is retained but deprecated. It may be removed in a future release. #6779
The FTP file-system plugin is retained but deprecated and provided without support on an as-is basis. It may be removed in a future release. This decision has been made because: #6779
- The FTP file-system plugin within Merge for Windows relies entirely on legacy Microsoft Windows APIs that are neither robust nor well-supported.
- The File Transfer Protocol is an insecure protocol that is effectively obsolete.
The VFS plugin API – little-used outside Araxis – is retained but deprecated for third-party use. #6893
The Merge .NET assembly is retained but deprecated for new customer projects in favour of the much more widely used Automation API. Should the .NET assembly be removed in a future release of Araxis Merge, customers can continue using a released version of their choice. #6902
Support for DLL-based file filters is retained but deprecated. It may eventually be removed in a future release. #6779

Download

Version	Build date
2024.6001	3 September 2024

Merge 2024.5981 for Windows 18 January 2024

This release features an assortment of enhancements and fixes. Please read the notes below for a complete list of changes.

This is no longer the current release. All users are encouraged to upgrade to the most recent release.

Warning Araxis is considering the removal of the following little-used features in a future release of Merge: text comparisons for patching, the FTP file-system plugin, and the Perforce file-system plugin (but not general integration with Perforce unrelated to the file-system plugin, which will be retained). Please contact Araxis if the removal of any of these features would inconvenience you.

System requirements

This release is tested and supported on 64-bit Intel versions of the following platforms:

Windows 11 23H2 (2023 Update)
Windows 11 22H2 (2022 Update)
Windows 10 22H2 (2022 Update)

The following platforms are also supported and expected to work, but not routinely tested:

Windows Server 2022
Windows Server 2019

Enhancements

When text is selected in a text comparison, the number of occurrences of that text in the file is now shown in the status bar. #6791
When a folder comparison encounters an error when comparing files, those files are now considered to be modified rather than unchanged. This ensures that the relevant row in the folder comparison is not hidden when Keep unchanged rows hidden is enabled. #6807
When a file is reformatted, Merge previously showed a notification message at the bottom of that file’s pane. This message disturbed the centre position used for linking panes together. Merge no longer shows the message, but instead displays a blue circular indicator (similar to the modified and read-only indicators) to the right of the pane’s filename entry field. The indicator has a tooltip to indicate its purpose. #6802
When reformatting a file fails, the message that is displayed now states that the file was not reformatted. #6802
Reformatting is now faster, especially for files where reformatting produces a large number of changes. #6805
When reformatting a file, if Clang-Format fails with an ‘incomplete format’ error message, the line number reported by Clang-Format is now displayed in the error message displayed by Merge. #6805
The Compile time regular expressions library has been added to the Legal Notices. #6855
The subset of the OpenJDK Java Runtime Environment bundled with Merge has been upgraded to the Adoptium Eclipse Temurin OpenJDK 21.0.1+12. #6832
The Merge major version number has been updated to 2024 to reflect the year of release. Copyright notices have been updated accordingly. #6838

Defects fixed

Extracting text from larger Microsoft Excel .xlsx files no longer fails with an inappropriate ‘Zip bomb detected’ exception. #6832
An appropriate error message is now shown when attempting to open a password-protected Office Open XML document. #6832
Comparison pane content now displays more predictably at small pane sizes. In resolving this issue, the minimum size of the Merge application window has been increased to 640×480 pixels at 100% UI scaling. #6818
The File Comparison Keyboard Shortcuts topic has been corrected and improved. #6828
The Configuring a Windows Paging File topic has been updated for current Windows versions. #6846
Three missing dialog help topics are now present. #6848#6849
Various other minor corrections and improvements have been made to the documentation. #6852#6854

Download

Version	Build date
2024.5981	16 January 2024

2023 releases

Merge 2023.5954 for Windows 25 October 2023

This release adds support for Windows 11 23H2, optional automatic reformatting for certain file types, binary comparison of very large files, and a variety of other enhancements and fixes. Please read the release notes for a complete list of changes.

This is no longer the current release. All users are encouraged to upgrade to the most recent release.

System requirements

This release is tested and supported on 64-bit Intel versions of the following platforms:

Windows 11 23H2 (2023 Update)
Windows 11 22H2 (2022 Update)
Windows 10 22H2 (2022 Update)

The following platforms are also supported and expected to work, but not routinely tested:

Windows Server 2022
Windows Server 2019

Enhancements

Merge is now tested and supported on Windows 11 23H2 (2023 Update). This support replaces that for Windows 11 21H2 and Windows 10 21H2. (Merge may continue to work on the latter two platforms, but they are no longer officially tested or supported.) #6799
A new option, Reformat the following types of text file before they are compared, enables certain types of files (JSON files and others supported by Clang-Format, including C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, JSON, Objective-C, and Protobuf files) to be reformatted automatically when loaded into Merge. For more information, please see Automatic formatting. #6760
On systems with sufficient memory, binary comparisons now support comparisons of files larger than 2–4 GB. #6727
Binary comparisons are more efficient in their use of memory than before. #6727
Binary and image comparisons now detect when loaded files are modified outside of Merge. The Automatically reload externally modified files setting on the File Comparisons options page also now works for image and binary comparisons. #5680
The split-view folder-comparison-with-file-comparison (Two-way with file comparison ) is now able to compare renamed files in the same way as file comparisons launched using the Launch comparisons button. Please see the Launching multiple file comparisons section of the Launching File Comparisons topic. #6777
The Launching multiple file comparisons and Launching a file comparison for arbitrary files sections of the Launching File Comparisons topic have been rewritten and expanded. #6777
More options are now provided for configuring the text antialiasing used by file comparisons. Please see the documentation for the Text antialiasing setting on the Fonts and Colours options page. #6781

Defects fixed

Line endings have been corrected in the Japanese-language example text files supplied with Merge. #6810
A problem with rendering text when text antialiasing is disabled has been corrected. #6781
The optional folder comparison Versions column now correctly displays the product version embedded in certain executable files in addition to the file version. #6803
The scroll bar buttons in image comparisons now scroll images in the correct directions. #6815

Download

Version	Build date
2023.5954	24 October 2023

Merge 2023.5916 for Windows 17 July 2023

This release includes various quality-of-life enhancements and fixes. Please read the release notes for a complete list of changes.

This is no longer the current release. All users are encouraged to upgrade to the most recent release.

System requirements

This release is tested and supported on 64-bit Intel versions of the following platforms:

Windows 11 22H2 (2022 Update)
Windows 11 21H2
Windows 10 22H2 (2022 Update)
Windows 10 21H2 (November 2021 Update)

The following platforms are also supported and expected to work, but not routinely tested:

Windows Server 2022
Windows Server 2019

Enhancements

The File Comparisons options page has a new Automatically show the first change when reloading files option. When unchecked, Merge endeavours to preserve the current scroll position when reloading files. #6768#6773
Character and Word line-wrapping options are now available as quick-access commands. #6739
New WhitespaceOpacity and LineEndingOpacity Windows Registry settings under the key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Araxis\Merge\7.1 define the opacity of whitespace and line-ending characters (if they are shown). These settings can be used to adjust the prominence of those characters relative to normal text. Both properties take values in the range 0–255, where 0 is fully transparent and 255 fully opaque. WhitespaceOpacity defaults to 96, and LineEndingOpacity to 255. #6754
A new LineEndingScale Windows Registry setting under the key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Araxis\Merge\7.1 defines the percentage scaling (relative to the size of the font for unchanged text) at which line-ending CR and LF characters are drawn. This is useful for enlarging line-ending characters when the configured font has very small CR and LF glyphs. (Rather than scaling the line-ending characters, it is generally preferable to use a font with clearer CR and LF glyphs. The Cascadia Code font, bundled with Windows 11 and Windows Terminal, is an example of such a font.) #6744
A new FAQ entry has been added to describe how to make Merge work with files and folders that have very long paths. #6741
The Merge .NET assembly now supports .NET 6 and .NET 7. Support for earlier .NET frameworks is deprecated. #6746
The Merge .NET assembly has been enhanced to use the same line-hashing strategy as Merge itself. This may result in improved performance for some comparisons. #6758
The obsolete AraxisGitDiff.exe and AraxisGitMerge.exe utilities have been removed. These have not been required for integrating with Git for a very long time. #6738
Merge and its documentation have been updated to reflect the renaming by Microsoft of Windows Explorer to File Explorer. #6772#6774
The FAQ entry on Linux has been updated to reflect customer experience that recent versions of Merge no longer seem to work under Wine. #6770
The subset of the OpenJDK Java Runtime Environment bundled with Merge has been upgraded to the Adoptium Eclipse Temurin OpenJDK 17.0.7+7. #6750

Defects fixed

Inappropriate keyboard shortcuts are no longer shown in the tooltips of quick-access commands. #6740
Formatting a file as XML once again results in proper indentation. #6742
Swapping folder comparison panes that have titles now also swaps those titles. #6769

Download

Version	Build date
2023.5916	14 July 2023

Merge 2023.5877 for Windows 4 May 2023

This release includes a variety of enhancements and fixes. Please read the release notes for a complete list of changes.

This is no longer the current release. All users are encouraged to upgrade to the most recent release.

System requirements

This release is tested and supported on 64-bit Intel versions of the following platforms:

Windows 11 22H2 (2022 Update)
Windows 11 21H2
Windows 10 22H2 (2022 Update)
Windows 10 21H2 (November 2021 Update)

The following platforms are also supported and expected to work, but not routinely tested:

Windows Server 2022
Windows Server 2019

Enhancements

The Alt+1 (one) to Alt+0 (zero) shortcut keys can now be used to activate the quick-access command that is at the position in the caption bar corresponding to the pressed number key: Alt+1 activates the left-most quick-access command; Alt+2 activates the second from left, etc.; Alt+0 activates the tenth quick-access command, if there is one. #6708
Additional whitespace-related options are now available as quick-access commands: Ignore all, Ignore leading, Ignore trailing, and Ignore consecutive. #6724
Quick-Access Commands that represent on/off options are now represented in the caption bar as two-letter icons. This makes it easier to identify particular options. #6724
It is now possible to choose between tabs or spaces when indenting or un-indenting blocks of text with Ctrl+I or Ctrl+U in a file editing panel. #6683
Individual entries in file/folder comparison history lists may now be removed by pressing the Delete key. #6725
Merge is now able to extract text from a wider range of PDF files. #6721
When extracting text from HTML files, character encoding is now detected if declared via meta elements. #6721
Various text-extraction filters have been enhanced to produce improved results. #6721
Text-extracted from PDF and .doc files now has LF line-endings. This provides consistency across macOS and Windows. #6729
The subset of the OpenJDK Java Runtime Environment bundled with Merge has been upgraded to the Adoptium Eclipse Temurin OpenJDK 17.0.6+10. #6628

Defects fixed

Printed folder comparisons (and their print previews) once again reflect the collapsed/expanded states of the folders in the folder comparison results list. #6723
Folder comparison status-line statistics are now updated when columns are swapped. #6703
The patch file pane and its toolbar are now properly aligned in text comparisons for patching. #6691
The Application menu ▸Save as… menu item icon is now correct and its label properly capitalized. #6713

Download

Version	Build date
2023.5877	3 May 2023

Merge 2023.5848 for Windows 30 January 2023

This release includes many enhancements and fixes. Please read the release notes for a complete list of changes.

This is no longer the current release. All users are encouraged to upgrade to the most recent release.

System requirements

This release is tested and supported on 64-bit Intel versions of the following platforms:

Windows 11 22H2 (2022 Update)
Windows 11 21H2
Windows 10 22H2 (2022 Update)
Windows 10 21H2 (November 2021 Update)

The following platforms are also supported and expected to work, but not routinely tested:

Windows Server 2022
Windows Server 2019

Enhancements

A new facility makes it possible to prevent folder comparisons from overloading a file storage device or service (e.g. a cloud-based datastore such as Microsoft OneDrive). For more information, see the FAQ item. #6529
The command-line Compare.exe utility has been enhanced to enable improved integration of Araxis Merge with Android Studio and various JetBrains IDEs. The corresponding instructions for integrating Merge with those IDEs have been updated accordingly. #6618
The Command-Line Reference has been completely reworked. #6657
When invoked with the /? or /h option, the command-line Compare.exe and ConsoleCompare.exe utilities now open the Command-Line Reference in a web browser. #6631
Folder comparison results lists now update much more efficiently for large folder comparisons, thereby improving user-interface responsiveness. #6631
The various comparison layout ribbon commands (Two-way (horizontal) , Two-way (vertical) , Two-way with file comparison , Three-way (horizontal) , Three-way (vertical) , and Three-way with file comparison ) may now be added to the window caption as quick-access items. #6634
The text comparison line-detail panel now has a context menu for text manipulation commands. The ribbon Cut , Copy , Paste , and Select all commands now operate on the line-detail panel when it has context. #6562
Two new items have been added to the External ribbon menu: Run program on current file… and Run program directly on current file…. This makes the pre-existing keyboard shortcuts for these commands (Shift+F9 and F9, respectively) discoverable via the user interface. #6555
The documentation screenshots and instant overviews have been updated. #2641
The subset of the OpenJDK Java Runtime Environment bundled with Merge has been upgraded to the Adoptium Eclipse Temurin OpenJDK 17.0.5+8. #6628
The libarchive library used by Merge has been updated to version 3.6.1. #6645
The libpng library used by Merge has been updated version 1.6.38. #6646
The liblzma library used by Merge has been updated to that provided by XZ Utils version 5.2.8. #6647
The zlib library used by Merge has been updated version 1.2.13. #6648
The Merge major version number has been updated to 2023 to reflect the year of release. Copyright notices have been updated accordingly. #6659

Defects fixed

Rows in a folder comparison now update correctly following a Swap panes operation. #6702
The Ctrl+F1 shortcut now correctly hides and shows the ribbon in folder comparisons. #6291
HTML reports once again correctly highlight changes for comparisons where a file is not present in one of the panes. #6598
The line-detail pane now correctly shows at most one concealed-change indicator for a given line. #6649
Line wrapping is now always disabled in the line-detail pane. #6649
Cancelling a long-running binary comparison can no longer result in a crash. #6661
A crash caused by the Find ▸Replace… ▸Replace all command in certain circumstances no longer occurs. #6651
It is now possible to replace text within a single-line selection. Previously, replacing text within a selection was possible only when the selection spanned two or more lines. #6651
Finding or replacing a string within the current selection will now only find or replace text that is entirely within the selection. #6651

Download

Version	Build date
2023.5848	30 January 2023

2022 releases

Merge 2022.5822 for Windows 29 November 2022

This release improves character-encoding detection for HTML files and also fixes several defects.

This is no longer the current release. All users are encouraged to upgrade to the most recent release.

System requirements

This release is tested and supported on 64-bit Intel versions of the following platforms:

Windows 11 22H2 (2022 Update)
Windows 11 21H2
Windows 10 22H2 (2022 Update)
Windows 10 21H2 (November 2021 Update)

The following platforms are also supported and expected to work, but not routinely tested:

Windows Server 2022
Windows Server 2019

Enhancements

Character encoding in HTML files can now be detected from meta elements. For example, Merge would detect UTF-8 encoding from either of the following: #6630
```
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
```
Instructions for integrating Merge with Android Studio and various JetBrains IDEs have been added. The existing instructions for integrating with JetBrains IntelliJ IDEA and PhpStorm have also been updated. #6621

Defects fixed

Merge no longer crashes when attempting to detect character encodings in files containing certain XML-like processing instructions (e.g. PHP files containing a <?php … ?> tag). #6629#6630
Files in text comparison history lists are now always recorded with an associated character encoding. Previously, there were certain situations where a character encoding would not be stored. #6633
Merge no longer crashes when attempting to open a file from a text comparison history list that does not have an associated character encoding recorded. #6633

Download

Version	Build date
2022.5822	28 November 2022

Merge 2022.5812 for Windows 31 October 2022

This release adds a files-only display option to folder comparisons and integrates with the new Windows 11 File Explorer context menu. It also provides several other enhancements.

This is no longer the current release. All users are encouraged to upgrade to the most recent release.

System requirements

This release is tested and supported on 64-bit Intel versions of the following platforms:

Windows 11 22H2 (2022 Update)
Windows 11 21H2
Windows 10 22H2 (2022 Update)
Windows 10 21H2 (November 2021 Update)
Windows 10 21H1 (May 2021 Update)

The following platforms are also supported and expected to work, but not routinely tested:

Windows Server 2022
Windows Server 2019

Enhancements

Folders in folder comparison results lists may now be hidden using a new Hide/reveal ▸Show flat list of files ribbon item. The resulting flat, non-hierarchical list of files can be useful to reduce clutter, especially when there are only a few files in deep folder hierarchies. File tooltips continue to show the full path. #6580
Merge now integrates directly with the new Windows 11 File Explorer context menu. #6344#6604
Merge commands now appear in the Windows File Explorer context menu for the currently open folder. Thus, for example, it is now possible to right-click on the background of a currently open folder window and choose Araxis Merge commands from the context menu that appears. #6590
In text comparisons, there is now a visible highlight for any empty lines included in the current text selection. #6582
On the Text comparisons▸Encoding options page, when the Code pages radio button is selected and multiple entries in the Default character encoding list match the currently configured encoding, the top-most matching encoding is now selected when the page is opened rather than the bottom-most one. This means, for example, that Unicode (UTF-8 with BOM) is displayed in preference to the equivalent 65001 (UTF-8). #6572
Various minor performance improvements have been made. #6567
The subset of the OpenJDK Java Runtime Environment bundled with Merge has been upgraded to the Adoptium Eclipse Temurin OpenJDK 17.0.4+8. #6433#6576

Defects fixed

An extra space in the tooltip for the Edit comment… ribbon item has been removed. #6574

Download

Version	Build date
2022.5812	31 October 2022

Merge 2022.5757 for Windows 4 August 2022

This release fixes a problem that could occur when upgrading directly from Merge 2018.5059 or earlier.

This is no longer the current release. All users are encouraged to upgrade to the most recent release.

System requirements

This release is tested and supported on 64-bit Intel versions of the following platforms:

Windows 11 21H2
Windows 10 21H2 (November 2021 Update)
Windows 10 21H1 (May 2021 Update)
Windows 10 20H2 (October 2020 Update)

The following platforms are also supported and expected to work, but not routinely tested:

Windows Server 2022
Windows Server 2019

Defects fixed

Merge no longer crashes when attempting to upgrade any file or folder comparison Show history list entries stored in the Windows Registry by Merge 2018.5059 or earlier. This problem was introduced by Merge 2022.5752. #6568

Download

Version	Build date
2022.5757	4 August 2022

Merge 2022.5754 for Windows 26 July 2022

This release fixes a problem with user-interface performance that was introduced by the previous release.

This is no longer the current release. All users are encouraged to upgrade to the most recent release.

System requirements

This release is tested and supported on 64-bit Intel versions of the following platforms:

Windows 11 21H2
Windows 10 21H2 (November 2021 Update)
Windows 10 21H1 (May 2021 Update)
Windows 10 20H2 (October 2020 Update)

The following platforms are also supported and expected to work, but not routinely tested:

Windows Server 2022
Windows Server 2019

Defects fixed

The user interface no longer becomes sluggish when there are many entries in comparison Show history lists. #6568

Download

Version	Build date
2022.5754	25 July 2022

Merge 2022.5752 for Windows 18 July 2022

This release adds the ability to reformat C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, JSON, Objective-C, and Protobuf files. It also features various visual improvements and enhanced launching of external programs. Many other enhancements and fixes are also included.

This is no longer the current release. All users are encouraged to upgrade to the most recent release.

System requirements

This release is tested and supported on 64-bit Intel versions of the following platforms:

Windows 11 21H2
Windows 10 21H2 (November 2021 Update)
Windows 10 21H1 (May 2021 Update)
Windows 10 20H2 (October 2020 Update)

The following platforms are also supported and expected to work, but not routinely tested:

Windows Server 2022
Windows Server 2019

Enhancements

Merge is now able to reformat JSON files and also file types supported by Clang-Format (including C, C++, C#, Java, JavaScript, JSON, Objective-C, and Protobuf files). For more information, please see Formatting. #1162#6493
Several variables may now be specified as arguments when launching an external program on a file in a file comparison. In particular, it is now possible for Merge to provide the current cursor position to an external program. For full details, please see Run Program. #6546
New F9 and Shift+F9 keyboard shortcuts launch an external program on the file in the currently active comparison pane. For further information, please see Run Program. #6546
The background colour of comparison scroll bars has changed to match the comparison panel background. In addition, linking lines now extend across the middle-pane vertical scroll bar in text comparisons. These changes improve clarity and reduce visual clutter, as well as better aligning the visual appearance of Merge for Windows with that of Merge for macOS. #6515#6545#6557
Four text comparison toggle options can now be configured as Quick-Access Commands: Ignore case, Ignore line endings, Show line endings, and Show unchanged lines only for context. #6469
Binary comparisons can now take advantage of multiple processor cores, improving performance for large files by up to two times. #6467
Holding Alt while completing the selection of a file or folder for a path entry field now suppresses the start of the comparison. This makes it possible, for example, to choose one folder to be compared and then another, without the comparison starting automatically in between. Holding Alt works for all methods of selecting files or folders, including double-clicking a file/folder in an open-file or open-folder dialog, choosing folders or files from Versions and Show history lists, and dragging-and-dropping files on to a comparison. Thus, in general, holding Alt populates the comparison path fields from the relevant source but does not launch the comparison. Note, however, that pressing Return in a file or folder path entry field still causes the comparison to be performed. #6492
In the central pane of file comparisons, inserted blocks always use the foreground and background colours for inserted text rather than potentially blended colours as before; likewise, removed blocks always use the removed text colours. This change improves clarity and reduces visual clutter. #6473
Change highlighting in three-way binary comparisons is now relative to the common ancestor (middle) pane, as it is with text comparisons. #6484
In binary comparisons, the value of the Columns field is now remembered when a comparison is closed, and subsequently used when a new binary comparison is opened. Previously, new binary comparisons always opened with Columns set to Auto. #6491
The gap above the status text at the bottom of the application window has been reduced. This slightly increases the amount of vertical space available to comparison content. #6516
On Windows 11, the border of file and folder comparison path entry fields is now visually consistent with the border of the file/folder comparisons panels. #6508
On Windows 11, the window caption bar background colour now matches the background of the ribbon, giving a cleaner, less-cluttered appearance. #6513
In folder comparisons, the Changes column now shows ≥1 instead of 1 when there are changes between files compared using the File timestamps and sizes only method. For more information, please see Method. #6460
The CxImage, LibTIFF, LibJPEG, and JasPer libraries have been removed from Merge. This eliminates a considerable amount of third-party code from Merge and thereby reduces the potential for security issues. As a result, the following legacy image file types are no longer supported: .j2c, .j2k, .jp2, .jpc, .jpx, .pbm, .pgm, .ppm, .ras, .tga, .emf, .wmf, .dib, .pcx. #6499
The Libarchive library used by Merge has been updated to version 3.6.0. #6495
The Libbzip2 library used by Merge has been updated to version 1.0.8. #6497
The subset of the OpenJDK Java Runtime Environment bundled with Merge has been upgraded to the Adoptium Eclipse Temurin OpenJDK 17.0.3+7. #6536
The Extended Validation digital certificate used to sign Araxis Merge has been updated. #6438

Defects fixed

Merge no longer crashes when launching comparisons from a folder comparison in very specific circumstances. #6543
It is now possible to open versions of a file located within a Git worktree using the Versions list. #6549
The comparison of certain large text files is no longer unexpectedly slow. #6538
When repositioning a comparison tab by dragging it to the right-most position in the tab strip, the insertion point showing where the tab would move is now shown. #6532
The history button in file/folder entry fields is now disabled when there is no history. #6521
The Git File-System Plugin and Mercurial File-System Plugin documentation topics have been corrected to remove the suggestion that the Versions button could be populated with folders in a repository. #6479
The sizing and alignment of file and folder comparison path entry fields is now consistent. #6508
It is no longer possible to position the text cursor over a merging button. #6510
The background of line numbers in the optional line-detail panel is now drawn properly and in the correct colour. #6553
On Windows 10, the file/folder comparison path entry-field border colour now exactly matches that of the comparison panels. #6508
A border is now drawn on the top edge of the tab strip when the ribbon is minimized. #6514
The status text for image comparisons no longer mentions irrelevant notable options. #6531
In the central pane of file comparisons, inserted and removed blocks of text (and their line numbers) now use the appropriate font styles. #6473

Download

Version	Build date
2022.5752	18 July 2022

Merge 2022.5696 for Windows 14 February 2022

This release adds syntax highlighting for Markdown files and supports additional image formats. It also features many other enhancements and fixes.

This is no longer the current release. All users are encouraged to upgrade to the most recent release.

System requirements

This release is tested and supported on 64-bit Intel versions of the following platforms:

Windows 11 21H2
Windows 10 21H2 (November 2021 Update)
Windows 10 21H1 (May 2021 Update)
Windows 10 20H2 (October 2020 Update)

The following platforms are also supported and expected to work, but not routinely tested:

Windows Server 2022
Windows Server 2019

Enhancements

Syntax highlighting is now supported for Markdown files. #6273
Image comparisons now support 32-bit .bmp files in addition to those with lower bit depths. #6391
Image comparisons also now support .dds, .dng, .wdp, and .cr2 files. In addition, .cr3 files are supported if the Microsoft Raw Image Extension is installed from the Microsoft Store and the appropriate pattern is added to an Image file type. #6391
A new Notifications options page makes it easy to configure whether various notifications are shown. #6412
Most notifications now have a close button that enables them to be dismissed. #6412
A new NotificationDuration Windows Registry setting under the key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Araxis\Merge\7.1 enables the time for which notifications are displayed to be specified. #6412
A new option on the Display options page, Highlight text matching the current word/selection with background colour, enables the matching-text highlight colour to be configured. #6423
In folder comparisons, it is now possible to copy files out of an archive (.zip, .tar, etc.). #6401
The documentation for the folder comparison Changes column has been improved. #6408
Obsolete Visual Basic 6 Automation sample code is no longer provided with Merge. References to Visual Basic 6 have been removed from the documentation. #6393
The subset of the OpenJDK Java Runtime Environment bundled with Merge has been upgraded to the Adoptium Eclipse Temurin OpenJDK 17.0.1+12. #6418
The Merge major version number has been updated to 2022 to reflect the year of release. #6432

Defects fixed

The text-extraction filter used by Merge previously included – but did not use – code from the Log4j library v. 1.2.14. Although this version of Log4j is unaffected by widely publicized security flaws that are present in some later versions of Log4j, and although this code was not in any case used by Merge, Log4j has now been removed entirely from Merge. #6436
Image comparisons are no longer subject to the Warn when comparing files larger than threshold set on the Launch options page. #6138
The trailing … has been removed from the folder comparison Delete selected ribbon item. #6402
The spin controls have been removed from the byte offset fields in the binary comparison dialogs used to add or edit synchronization links. #6403
In text comparisons, the left-margin cross-hatching indicating lines excluded from the comparison now always renders correctly. #6424
Disabling the Extend linking lines across documents option on the File Comparisons options page no longer prevents the display of cross-hatching for lines excluded from the comparison. #6425
Merge is now able to start even if the Windows UAC shield icon is unavailable for some reason. #6431

Download

Version	Build date
2022.5696	11 February 2022

2021 releases

Merge 2021.5618 for Windows 11 October 2021

This release features compatibility with Windows 11. It also provides many other enhancements and fixes.

This is no longer the current release. All users are encouraged to upgrade to the most recent release.

System requirements

This release is tested and supported on 64-bit Intel versions of the following platforms:

Windows 11 21H2
Windows 10 21H1 (May 2021 Update)
Windows 10 20H2 (October 2020 Update)

The following platforms are also supported and expected to work, but not routinely tested:

Windows Server 2022
Windows Server 2019

Enhancements

Merge is now fully tested and supported on Windows 11. #6329
The options pages and other dialogs throughout the application have been updated to use modern Windows fonts (Segoe UI for English and Yu Gothic UI Regular for Japanese) and dialog font sizes (10 points). #6332
The various options pages have been reworked to improve consistency and greatly reduce alignment and clipping problems caused by Windows UI scaling. (Pixel-perfect alignment is still not always possible across all UI scale factors due to the mechanism Windows uses to position controls in Win32 dialogs.) #6332
The ribbon in the Japanese localization has been updated to use the Yu Gothic UI Regular font. #6377
The image comparison blend and zoom controls now stay in better vertical alignment at higher UI scale factors. #6386
The text comparison Replace with first and third and Replace with third and first items removed in Merge 2021.5548 from the merging button context menu have been reinstated. Note that these items are not shown when multiple merging buttons are selected. #6326
Tooltips have been added to the tab strip’s drop-down Comparisons list . This makes it possible to see long tab titles that are otherwise truncated in the list. #6278
Progress is now indicated for individual large files being copied in a folder comparison. #6382
Following an automatic merge (whether invoked using the ribbon Merge to common ancestor button or via the command-line compare utility /merge option), Merge now shows the first conflict (if any). Any first conflict is similarly shown following a Mark conflicts operation. #6303
The Libarchive library used by Merge has been updated to version 3.5.1. #6337
The Use 7-Zip (if installed) for .udf, .rar and .7z archives option has been changed to Use 7-Zip (if installed) for .rar archives. #6337
All application keyboard shortcuts are now documented. See File Comparison Keyboard Shortcuts and Folder Comparison Keyboard Shortcuts. #5874#5930
A new FAQ item explains how to use the free AutoHotkey utility to redefine keyboard shortcuts. #5922
Help topics have been written for the Edit synchronization link dialogs of text and binary comparisons. #6376
The subset of the OpenJDK Java Runtime Environment bundled with Merge has been upgraded to version 16.0.2. #6373

Defects fixed

The borders of the various comparison panels now render correctly on Windows 11. #6345
Folder comparisons now preserve the file creation date when copying a file from source to destination and overwriting a destination file of the same name. #5958
Merge no longer suddenly exits when attempting to open certain .rar archives. #6337
Text files containing embedded NUL characters that are identical at a binary level are now consistently reported as being identical. #6356
Text may now be extracted from .xlsx spreadsheets containing a great many more rows than before without running out of heap space. #6383
Extracting text from certain .xlsx spreadsheets no longer results in a crash. #6385
Development-related assertions are no longer enabled for Merge releases. #6370

Download

Version	Build date
2021.5618	6 October 2021

Merge 2021.5585 for Windows 22 July 2021

This release fixes a problem with the use of certain fonts and font styles.

This is no longer the current release. All users are encouraged to upgrade to the most recent release.

System requirements

This release is tested and supported on 64-bit Intel versions of the following platforms:

Windows 10 21H1 (May 2021 Update)
Windows 10 20H2 (October 2020 Update)
Windows 10 20H1 (May 2020 Update)

The following platforms are also supported and expected to work, but not routinely tested:

Windows Server 2019
Windows Server 2016

Information Preliminary testing on early Windows 11 previews suggests that Merge is eminently usable, although certain minor rendering and other issues are currently present that slightly impair the user experience.

Defects fixed

Following the change to use DirectWrite for rendering text in the previous release, file and folder comparisons no longer respected configured font styles other than Regular. In addition, certain fonts (e.g. those with names beginning with @) did not work at all. These problems have been fixed. Note also that, as a result of the change to use DirectWrite for text rendering, the use of bitmapped (non-scalable) fonts is no longer supported. #6346

Download

Version	Build date
2021.5585	22 July 2021

Merge 2021.5581 for Windows 19 July 2021

This release adds a basic zoom capability for image comparisons, enhances text rendering, better supports certain Unicode characters, and improves the extraction of text from ODF and OOXML word-processing documents. Various other enhancements and fixes are also included.

This is no longer the current release. All users are encouraged to upgrade to the most recent release.

System requirements

This release is tested and supported on 64-bit Intel versions of the following platforms:

Windows 10 21H1 (May 2021 Update)
Windows 10 20H2 (October 2020 Update)
Windows 10 20H1 (May 2020 Update)

The following platforms are also supported and expected to work, but not routinely tested:

Windows Server 2019
Windows Server 2016

Enhancements

Image comparisons now have a basic zoom facility. For more information, please see Comparing Image Files. #1509
Text in text and binary comparisons is now drawn using DirectWrite; general graphics rendering now uses DirectDraw. These changes affect the general appearance of comparisons in mostly minor ways. They also have the following benefits: #5667
- Drawing performance is potentially improved due to better use of hardware acceleration.
- Emoji are in colour.
- Certain Unicode characters (e.g. some mathematical symbols, Emoji, diacritical decomposed characters) draw correctly.
- Combining diacritical marks are shown correctly and differences are highlighted. Cursor navigation and word-based highlighting also work properly with combining diacritical marks. #6288
- Inserting an Emoji using the Emoji Input Method Editor (IME) works properly with Undo and Redo .
- The option to use a fixed width for characters has changed, enabling the width to be specified.
- The width of the border around messages that appear within comparison panels scales with the user-interface scaling factor.
- Line-ending characters (CR and LF) are drawn using the appropriate font characters rather than with bitmap images.
A new Application menu ▸Open▸Recently closed comparisons menu offers a convenient way to re-open recently closed comparisons. #6279
It is now possible to change the Ctrl+Tab and Ctrl+Shift+Tab keyboard shortcuts to step through comparisons in order of their most recent use. For more information, please see How can I switch between the most recently used comparisons? #1304
The extraction of text from OpenOffice ODF and Microsoft OOXML documents is improved. In particular, word-processing documents containing tables are no longer erroneously processed as spreadsheets and the handling of footnotes is enhanced. #6333
Folder comparisons offer optional new File version and Product version columns. #6274
The documentation for the use of the git-mergetool command has been improved. #6302
As of Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 21354, the default path to access Linux files from Windows using the Windows Subsystem for Linux has been changed from \\wsl$\ to \\wsl.localhost\. Merge integration with WSL now operates correctly with the revised path. #6311
In folder comparisons, .war and .ear files are now treated as .zip archives whose contents may be scanned. #6313
The Generic Syntax Highlighting options page has a new Backslash is an escape character in strings setting. #6286
The command-line setup.exe utility is now able to remove Windows registry keys that it has created. #6284
The subset of the OpenJDK Java Runtime Environment bundled with Merge has been upgraded to version 16.0.1. #6299

Defects fixed

Certain users were seeing Automation objects not registered error messages when using the command-line utilities. To avoid this problem: #6282
- The Windows Installer setup package now detects whether a per-machine or per-user installation of Merge is already present and upgrades it as appropriate without offering a choice between the two types of installation. (To replace a per-machine installation with a per-user installation, or vice versa, Merge must therefore first be uninstalled manually.)
- If the command-line utilities fail to create an Automation object, they will now check whether Merge has been installed in a per-user or per-machine configuration and offer to repair the installation appropriately using the Windows Installer.
A block of blank lines that is ignored by a text comparison due to the default Blank lines line expression is no longer treated as a separate unchanged text block for the purpose of comparison statistics when there are adjacent non-blank unchanged lines. #6276
The text comparison Find previous command can no longer cause Merge to become unresponsive in certain situations. #6312
In folder comparisons, the Application menu ▸Print▸Quick print selection… no longer causes Merge to exit if binary files are included in the selection. #6339
Syntax highlighting for DataFlex files (.pkg) now works correctly. #6286
The Application menu ▸Open third file… item is now disabled for folder comparisons using a two-way layout. #5955
Status bar text now truncates appropriately when the application window is too narrow for it to be displayed in full. #6320
The progress message displayed by the Windows Installer setup package is no longer slightly clipped at 250% UI scaling. #5861

Download

Version	Build date
2021.5581	16 July 2021

Merge 2021.5548 for Windows 15 April 2021

This release includes various enhancements and fixes.

This is no longer the current release. All users are encouraged to upgrade to the most recent release.

System requirements

This release is tested and supported on 64-bit Intel versions of the following platforms:

Windows 10 October 2020 Update
Windows 10 May 2020 Update
Windows 10 November 2019 Update

The following platforms are also supported and expected to work, but not routinely tested:

Windows Server 2019
Windows Server 2016

Enhancements

The recently introduced text comparison line-detail panel is no longer experimental. Use the ribbon Options ▸Show line-detail panel menu item (or press Ctrl+Shift+L) to show or hide the panel. For more information about this feature, please see the relevant section in the Comparing Text Files (or Typed/Pasted Text) topic. #6255
Multiple merging buttons can now be selected. Clicking any selected merging button applies its action to all the blocks of changed lines that have selected buttons. To select several merging buttons, hold Alt and then click-and-drag to draw a selection box around the buttons. Additional merging buttons can be added to the selection by holding Alt and click-dragging further boxes. Press Ctrl+Shift+A to select all the merging buttons. #6224
The Hide/reveal menu has a new Reveal manually hidden rows command. #5903
File and folder name drop-down history lists now show a Double-click to open a row. Hold Ctrl and double-click to open a single item. hint. This makes the ability to open a single file or folder from the list easier to discover. #5904
In folder comparisons, it is now possible to select multiple, non-contiguous ranges using the standard Windows Shift and Ctrl modifiers. For example, the following sequence of actions is now possible: #1263
1. Select a row in a folder comparison.
2. Shift-click another row. The indicated range of rows is selected.
3. Ctrl-click a row outside the first selected range.
4. Shift-click another row. A second range of rows is selected.
The Windows Choose how many lines to scroll each time mouse wheel setting is now honoured. #6247
Having compared an archive (.zip, etc.) in a folder comparison, it is now possible to launch further folder comparisons from resulting folder rows. #6227
Files with the .xmind extension are now treated as zip archives and may therefore be compared using folder comparisons. #6251
By default, various audio and video file types (*.aif, *.asd, *.ogg, *.wma, *.mpg, *.mpeg) are now recognized as binary files and will be opened using a binary comparison. #6260
The Replace with first and third and Replace with third and first commands have been removed from the merging button context menu due to a lack of utility. #6290
The number of processors used for multi-threaded operations has been optimized. #6259
The subset of the OpenJDK Java Runtime Environment bundled with Merge has been upgraded to version 16. #6271
Scroll bars and the status bar are now drawn using DirectDraw instead of GDI. This should have no user-visible effect. #6235#6236
Legacy code relating to Windows 8.1 has been removed. In addition, Merge now refuses to run on Windows 8.1. (Support for Windows 8.1 was dropped by the earlier Merge 2021.5498 release.) #6210

Defects fixed

Dropping an archive (.zip, etc.) file on to a pane in a binary comparison now opens that archive in the binary comparison, rather than launching a folder comparison of the contents of the archive. #6242
The Don’t show again checkbox in certain notification messages now takes effect even if Merge is closed shortly after the box is checked. #5868
The command-line Compare.exe utility now works even when a file named Program is present in the root directory. #6248
The progress indicator in the status bar for a running folder comparison is now removed when the comparison is closed and no other comparisons are open. #6280
A possible problem relating to tooltips in debug builds of Merge has been fixed. #6268
The Options ▸Show line-detail panel menu item has been removed from the ribbon in text comparisons for patching. #6262
Certain diagnostics are no longer enabled in release builds of Merge. #6277

Download

Version	Build date
2021.5548	14 April 2021

Merge 2021.5534 for Windows 22 February 2021

This release fixes a crash that could sometimes occur.

This is no longer the current release. All users are encouraged to upgrade to the most recent release.

System requirements

This release is tested and supported on 64-bit versions of the following platforms:

Windows 10 October 2020 Update
Windows 10 May 2020 Update
Windows 10 November 2019 Update

The following platforms are also supported and expected to work, but not routinely tested:

Windows Server 2019
Windows Server 2016

Defects fixed

Merge no longer sometimes crashes when an in-progress folder comparison is manually stopped. #6256

Download

Version	Build date
2021.5534	19 February 2021

Merge 2021.5498 for Windows 19 January 2021

This release features substantive enhancements and several fixes.

This is no longer the current release. All users are encouraged to upgrade to the most recent release.

System requirements

This release is tested and supported on 64-bit versions of the following platforms:

Windows 10 October 2020 Update
Windows 10 May 2020 Update
Windows 10 November 2019 Update

The following platforms are also supported and expected to work, but not routinely tested:

Windows Server 2019
Windows Server 2016

Information Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2 are no longer supported. Customers may, of course, continue to use an older version of Merge (2020.5480 or earlier) that works with that platform.

Enhancements

The tab strip has been considerably enhanced: #6150
- Buttons have been added to the tab strip to scroll tabs left and right when there are too many to fit on the screen at once.
- A Modified indicator is now shown in tabs for text comparisons that have modified files. The style of the file comparison Read-only and Modified indicators has been updated to match the new in-tab indicator.
- The tab strip’s drop-down Comparisons list has a new icon. The list is now scrollable and can show all the open comparisons. Previously, the number of comparisons listed was limited to 20 items, necessitating a (now removed) More comparisons … menu item that displayed a modal dialog showing all the open comparisons.
Merge is now able to compare text files compressed with the gzip or bzip2 utilities. By default, files with the relevant extensions (.gz or .bz2) are automatically decompressed when loaded into a comparison. The extensions recognized may be changed on the File Types options page. Merge is also now able to save compressed text files. See Saving compressed files for more details. #5973
The application and document icons have been refreshed; they are also now a little larger. #6191
The folder comparison Merge to common ancestor button now only enables if at least one file row is selected. #5714
The Ctrl+= and Ctrl+- keyboard shortcuts can be used to increase and decrease the size of text in text and binary comparisons. #6097
In text comparisons, an experimental full-width line-detail panel (similar to that available on Merge for macOS) can now be enabled by setting the Windows Registry ShowLineDetailPanel value to 1 under the key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Araxis\Merge\7.1. #6129
The tab icons at 300% user-interface scaling are a little bolder and now match the icons in the ribbon. #6153
The spacing of items in the caption bar has been improved. #6154
By default, Merge uses the Windows PATH environment to locate Git, Mercurial and Subversion executables. Merge now has registry keys that can be set to specify absolute paths to these utilities. For more information, please see the Git File-System Plugin, Mercurial File-System Plugin, and Subversion File-System Plugin topics. #5848
In a folder comparison, it is possible for filenames that look the same to contain different Unicode code points. A new option, Show Unicode code points alongside file and folder names, on the Display options page can help determine why names differ when they appear to be composed of identical characters. #5856
In a folder comparison, clicking the Browse button in a folder-path entry-field that contains a non-existent path now shows a suitable error message before reverting to a default location. #5915
Various dialogs are now resizeable. #5932
Syntax highlighting is now faster. #6028
Very large file comparisons close much more quickly. #6028
The Libarchive library used by Merge has been updated to version 3.4.3. #5968
The Merge major version has been updated to 2021 to reflect the year of release. #6199

Changes

With Microsoft having ended mainstream support for Windows 8.1 in September 2018, and with very few Araxis customers still using Windows 8.1, support for running Merge on Windows 8.1 is removed as of this release. Customers may, of course, continue to use an older version of Merge (2020.5480 or earlier) that works with that platform. #6210
The Araxis snapshot service has been removed. #6143

Defects fixed

Folder comparisons now draw correctly when the font size is increased or decreased from the default. The vertical alignment of icons with file and folder names is also improved with non-default font sizes. #6201
When merging text using an append action, the newly appended text is now selected. This matches the behaviour of merging text with replace or prepend actions. #6061
Launching Merge Standard using the Explorer shell extension to compare more than two folders no longer causes the folder comparison’s split-view file comparison to close if it was open. #5987
An inconsequential logic error relating to the folder comparison Browse buttons has been corrected. #6147

Download

Version	Build date
2021.5498	13 January 2021

2020 releases

Merge 2020.5480 for Windows 30 November 2020

This release features several enhancements and fixes.

This is no longer the current release. All users are encouraged to upgrade to the most recent release.

System requirements

This release is tested and supported on 64-bit versions of the following platforms:

Windows 10 October 2020 Update
Windows 10 May 2020 Update
Windows 10 November 2019 Update
Windows 8.1

The following platforms are also supported and expected to work, but not routinely tested:

Windows Server 2019
Windows Server 2016
Windows Server 2012 R2

Information This may be the last release of Araxis Merge to support Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2.

Enhancements

A new Folder comparisons▸Use multiple processor threads to compare folders option makes it possible to disable the use of multiple processor threads when performing folder comparisons. Folder comparisons may complete more quickly when this option is checked. However, on machines with many processor cores and slower storage devices (e.g. spinning hard disk drives), it may help to disable this option to prevent overloading the storage medium containing the folders being compared. #5897
New settings on the Application▸Display options page enable the horizontal, vertical, and drag scrolling directions to be independently reversed. #5980
A new Folder comparisons▸Launch▸Warn when launching comparisons larger than # KB in size option makes it possible to configure the threshold at which Merge will warn about opening a large comparison. This option prevents large (and therefore potentially slow) file comparisons from being inadvertently performed. For more information, see the Launch topic. #6033
The Text comparisons▸Display▸Show only # lines of context around changes option now treats lines forcibly ignored by block and line expressions as unchanged lines. #5999
MathLab Simulink .slx files are now recognized as zip archives. #5962
The instructions for integrating Merge with IntelliJ IDEA have been updated to take into account a change in the way IntelliJ IDEA works. #6123
If titles are provided for only some of the files or folders in a comparison launched using the command-line utilities, files/folders without titles now have editable pathname entry fields. Previously, all the entry fields were read-only if a title was provided for any of the files/folders in a comparison. #6084
Command-line tool usage dialogs are now high-DPI on high-DPI displays. #6017
The subset of the OpenJDK Java Runtime Environment bundled with Merge has been upgraded to 14.0.2. #6092

Defects fixed

Scrolling image comparisons horizontally no longer leaves an unrendered strip at the left-hand edge of the image panel. #6038
Merging a change in reformatted XML should no longer sometimes insert unnecessary line endings. #5918
Replacing the last line of a file no longer adds a line ending if the line replacing it does not have a line ending. #5972
The araxisp4diff.exe utility can no longer crash if it is passed a parameter to set a title for a non-existent file or folder panel. #6161
When constructing arguments for hg.exe, the Mercurial plugin now appends the closing quote using a wide string instead of a narrow one. This has no practical effect, but the previous behaviour was incorrect. #5823

Download

Version	Build date
2020.5480	25 November 2020

Merge 2020.5406 for Windows 13 July 2020

This release features a number of enhancements and fixes.

This is no longer the current release. All users are encouraged to upgrade to the most recent release.

System requirements

This release is tested and supported on 64-bit versions of the following platforms:

Windows 10 May 2020 Update
Windows 10 November 2019 Update
Windows 10 May 2019 Update
Windows 8.1

The following platforms are also supported and expected to work, but not routinely tested:

Windows Server 2019
Windows Server 2016
Windows Server 2012 R2

Information This may be the last release of Araxis Merge to support Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2.

Enhancements

The folder comparison ribbon Launch comparisons button can now be used to open new folder comparisons. Previously, it only worked to open file comparisons. #5952
History lists in the Japanese localization of Merge now use the yen sign as the path separator. #6023
A new Assume FTP servers use UTF-8 character encoding option has been introduced. When enabled, Merge is able to interpret and display filenames containing Unicode characters from certain Unicode-capable FTP servers (e.g. FileZilla). #5916
When comparing text files with certain block expressions enabled, any insertion or removal block that is adjacent to a change block will be combined with that change block, except when Intelligently split blocks of changed text based on matched line pairs is enabled. This helps to minimize visual clutter. #6046
Any surrounding double-quotation marks are now stripped when pasting a path into a comparison filename or folder-path entry field. This makes it easier to paste paths copied using the Windows Explorer Copy as path context-menu command. #5938
The folder comparison ribbon Options▸Recurse into sub-folders menu item has been renamed to Compare full folder hierarchy so that it matches its label in the options dialog. #6066
A performance optimization has very slightly reduced the time needed to render merging buttons in certain text comparisons that have many changes. #6055
A minor visual improvement has been made to the icon for the ribbon External item. #6039

Defects fixed

Folder titles provided for folder comparisons (for example, when invoking a folder comparison from the command-line or via the Automation API) once again work properly. #6083
Semantic links are no longer generated for anonymous functions when comparing files of the same name from different folders. #6082
Ribbon text labels are now crisp on low-DPI displays. #6040
The Ignore differences in whitespace at the end of lines option now works properly for text comparisons with numeric data. #5917
Syntax highlighting of Pascal files now works with the dark theme. #6025
Text comparison linking-lines are now always drawn correctly when scrolling a comparison with vertical padding and certain block expressions enabled. #6050
Merging buttons and extended linking lines are now always drawn when certain line expressions are enabled. #6052
The pre-built COM interop assemblies interop.Merge70.dll file is no longer missing from the AutomationSamples subdirectory of the Merge installation. #6075

Download

Version	Build date
2020.5406	7 July 2020

Merge 2020.5368 for Windows 11 May 2020

This release features several enhancements and fixes.

This is no longer the current release. All users are encouraged to upgrade to the most recent release.

System requirements

This release is tested and supported on 64-bit versions of the following platforms:

Windows 10 May 2020 Update (Build 19041.208)
Windows 10 November 2019 Update
Windows 10 May 2019 Update
Windows 8.1

The following platforms are also supported and expected to work, but not routinely tested:

Windows Server 2019
Windows Server 2016
Windows Server 2012 R2

Information This may be the last release of Araxis Merge to support Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2.

Enhancements

Any differences in the case or Unicode normalization of filenames within a folder comparison row are now highlighted #5690
Folder comparison Open folder dialogs now have an Open URL… button and work in the same manner as file comparison Open file dialogs. #5858
Folder comparisons now start immediately when an Open folder dialog is dismissed with the Select Folder button. #5858
Dimmed text in a folder comparison has more contrast when using the light colour theme. #5946
The subset of the OpenJDK Java Runtime Environment bundled with Merge has been upgraded to 14.0.1. #5989

Defects fixed

Under WSL2, hg merge no longer sometimes hangs after Merge returns control to Mercurial. This problem was not specific to Araxis Merge, but seems to have been caused by an interaction between Mercurial under WSL2 and Windows console programs generally. The problem has been resolved by always invoking Merge from WSL using the non-console Compare.exe command-line utility, rather than the console-based ConsoleCompare.exe as before. #6012
Syntax highlighting now works correctly in files containing Cyrillic characters. #5767#5885#5996
In text comparison panels, the horizontal position of the text caret is now maintained appropriately when moving up and down with the cursor keys after having edited the text. #5956
Saved comparisons now include any configured block expressions, as do options saved in the legacy (.mop7 or .MergeOptions7) format. #6000
In a folder comparison showing a file comparison view underneath, it is no longer possible for a crash to occur if a dialog is opened from the file comparison immediately following the selection of a new row in the folder comparison. #5979

Download

Version	Build date
2020.5368	5 May 2020

Merge 2020.5354 for Windows 20 April 2020

This significant release introduces block expressions, improves the ribbon interface, and features other enhancements. Several defects are also fixed.

This is no longer the current release. All users are encouraged to upgrade to the most recent release.

System requirements

This release is tested and supported on 64-bit versions of the following platforms:

Windows 10 May 2020 Update (Build 19041.207)
Windows 10 November 2019 Update
Windows 10 May 2019 Update
Windows 8.1

The following platforms are also supported and expected to work, but not routinely tested:

Windows Server 2019
Windows Server 2016
Windows Server 2012 R2

Information This may be the last release of Araxis Merge to support Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2.

Enhancements

Merge for Windows now supports block expressions to define blocks of lines that you wish Merge to ignore. These blocks are bounded by lines matching a starting and ending regular expression. This capability can be useful for filtering out unimportant changes or blocks of auto-generated content. For more information, please see Block Expressions. #5803
As a result of the introduction of block expressions, the previously existing expressions have been renamed to line expressions. For more information, please see Line Expressions. #5803
Lines matching an expression having the Force a line unchanged if any part matches the regex option set are now truly treated as unchanged for comparison purposes. Change blocks and linking lines are therefore no longer generated for such lines, and those lines can cause what would otherwise be a single change block to be split into two. #5803
There is a new Options…▸Text Comparisons▸Display▸Highlight text matching the current word or selection setting. When enabled, other occurrences of the currently selected word or selection in a text comparison are highlighted. #5833
One-click access to frequently used ribbon sub-menu commands is now provided via quick-access commands. For more information, see Making the Most of the Ribbon. #5944
The ribbon may now be hidden, thus maximizing the space on screen available for comparisons. Click Hide ribbon in the window caption bar or press Ctrl+F1 to hide the ribbon. Once hidden, click Show ribbon or press Ctrl+F1 to show the ribbon. #5950
Numbers with exponents prefixed by a plus sign (e.g. 1e+1) are now supported in comparisons with numeric data. #5913
The subset of the OpenJDK Java Runtime Environment bundled with Merge has been upgraded to 13.0.2. #5941

Defects fixed

Image comparisons now support TIFF files. #5957
Comparison history lists now show three columns of history when Merge is using an evaluation serial number. #5954
In comparisons, both Shift+F10 and the keyboard context menu key (where present) now open the context menu. #5951
Double-clicking an empty folder comparison pane no longer causes a crash. #5993

Download

Version	Build date
2020.5354	15 April 2020

Merge 2020.5310 for Windows 11 February 2020

This major new release features support for the forthcoming Windows 20H1 Update, a more space-efficient ribbon interface that leaves more room on screen for comparisons, enhanced WSL support (including WSL 2), and a number of other improvements. Several defects have also been fixed. Support for Windows 10 20H1 replaces that for Windows 7, which is now end-of-life.

This is no longer the current release. All users are encouraged to upgrade to the most recent release.

System requirements

This release is tested and supported on 64-bit versions of the following platforms:

Windows 10 20H1 Insider Preview (Build 19041.21)
Windows 10 November 2019 Update
Windows 10 May 2019 Update
Windows 8.1

The following platforms are also supported and expected to work, but not routinely tested:

Windows Server 2019
Windows Server 2016
Windows Server 2012 R2

Information With Microsoft having ended support for Windows 7, Merge is no longer supported (and this release will not work) on Windows 7. Customers may, of course, continue to use an older version of Merge (2019.5254 or earlier) that works with that platform.

Enhancements

Merge is now fully supported, optimized, and tested on the forthcoming Windows 10 20H1 Update, barring any breaking changes from Microsoft. Support for Windows 10 20H1 replaces that for Windows 7, which is now end-of-life. Customers who wish to continue to use Merge on Windows 7 may, of course, use an older version of Merge (2019.5254 or earlier) that works with that platform. #5862#5873#5921
This release features a new implementation of the ribbon interface. This was required to support the Windows 10 dark theme without using private Windows APIs (see also the related fixed defect below), but the change has enabled other improvements: #5862#5843#5920
- The new ribbon consumes significantly less vertical space than the old implementation, leaving more room on screen for comparisons.
- A new Options…▸Application▸Display▸Show group labels in the ribbon option enables you to hide the text labels underneath each group of buttons in the ribbon, further saving vertical space. The group labels also hide automatically when the application window is too narrow to show all the ribbon button text.
- The revised design reduces visual clutter.
- Selected items on various dynamically populated ribbon submenus (e.g. the text comparison Options ▸Expressions submenu) are now indicated simply using a check mark. The constraints of the old ribbon implementation forced a more convoluted scheme.
  
  The experience of using Merge with the updated ribbon should continue to be familiar for most users. However, you are strongly encouraged to read the Making the Most of the Ribbon topic, especially the Changes in Merge 2020 section. In particular, please note the comments there concerning removed support for ribbon Alt-key sequences.
Support for the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) has been considerably enhanced and extended: #5401
- WSL 2, available on Windows 20H1, is now fully supported in addition to WSL 1.
- Non-default mount points and WSL UNC paths (i.e. those beginning \\wsl$) are supported. This means that Merge is able to access and modify files directly within the Linux WSL filesystem on Windows 10 May 2019 Update (1903) and onwards, resulting in a virtually seamless experience.
  
  As a result of these enhancements, the instructions for integrating Merge with Git and Mercurial under WSL have changed. Please carefully review the relevant new instructions if you use Merge with WSL:
- Git WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux)
- Mercurial WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux)
The Git integration instructions have been updated with helpful aliases and usage examples. Please review the revised documentation carefully if you use Git with Merge. #5879
The application and document icons have been modernized with a fresh yet familiar appearance. In addition, a new tile icon is provided for when Merge is pinned to the Windows Start menu. #5871
The various comparison file and folder opening dialogs now remember the last opened location individually for each comparison pane. #5757
The new 450% and 500% standard user-interface scale factors introduced with Windows 10 20H1 are supported, in addition to the previously supported 100%, 125%, 150%, 175%, 200%, 225%, 250%, 300%, 350%, and 400% scale factors. #5877
By default, fresh installations of Merge now open folder comparisons with the Two-way with file comparison layout. Please see the Comparing Folders topic for more information. As before, Merge endeavours to remember the preferred folder comparison layout when opening new folder comparisons. #5890
Items on the folder comparison ribbon Hide/reveal drop-down menu have been renamed to help distinguish those that reflect a persistent application state from those that are one-off commands. #5899
The subset of the OpenJDK Java Runtime Environment bundled with Merge has been upgraded to 13.0.1. #5827
The Merge major version has been updated to 2020, to reflect the year of release. Copyright notices have been updated accordingly. #5876

Defects fixed

The application window caption bar and window frame are now themed correctly on the forthcoming Windows 10 20H1 Update when using the dark Windows theme.

The previous version of Merge used undocumented, private Windows APIs to achieve proper theming, resulting in an incompatibility when Windows 20H1 changed one of those APIs. With the new ribbon, caption bar, and frame implementation, Merge no longer uses private Windows APIs for its theme support. This should avoid any such problems recurring in the future.

Please see the Changes in Merge 2020 section of the Making the Most of the Ribbon topic for more information about these changes.

Finally, note that the new window frame implementation unavoidably has a small amount of padding around the inside of the application border when Merge is running on Windows 8.1 (but not on Windows 10). This should not affect usability. #5862
Status-line change counts are once again correct following the swapping of folder panes. #5906
Comparisons with numeric data now give correct results when the difference between two numbers being compared is equal to the specified absolute tolerance. #5934
The keyboard accelerators for items in the context menu of file comparison linking-lines panels now work. #5908
The checkbox label in the Update available notification message is no longer clipped at higher user-interface scale factors. #5867
The Japanese localization of the Register Araxis Merge for all users on this computer label on the Register Araxis Merge dialog is no longer clipped at higher user-interface scale factors. #5931
The SCM server login credentials notification message no longer displays a Merge evaluation icon on non-evaluation versions of Merge. #5936

Download

Version	Build date
2020.5310	11 February 2020

2019 releases

Merge 2019.5254 for Windows 13 November 2019

This release enables the comparison workspace to be saved and restored, adds ratio tolerance for comparisons of text with numeric data, and also features many other enhancements and defect fixes. Please read the notes below for a complete list of changes.

This is no longer the current release. All users are encouraged to upgrade to the most recent release.

System requirements

This release is tested and supported on the following platforms:

Windows 10 November 2019 Update (64-bit)
Windows 10 May 2019 Update (64-bit)
Windows 8.1 (64-bit)
Windows 7 SP1 (64-bit)

The following platforms are also supported and expected to work, but not routinely tested:

Windows Server 2019
Windows Server 2016
Windows Server 2012 R2
Windows Server 2012

Enhancements

Merge has a new option to save the current workspace of all open comparisons when it exits automatically due to a Windows sign-out or restart. The saved workspace is restored when Merge is next launched. Merge can also save the workspace at a specified interval, enabling recovery should Merge unexpectedly exit due to a problem such as a power failure. Finally, the comparison workspace can be manually saved using the ribbon File▸Save workspace and exit command. For more information, see Application. #5705#5838#5840#5845
Comparisons of text with numeric data now support matching with a ratio tolerance in addition to the existing absolute tolerance. For more information, see Text Comparisons. #5659
The progress of long-running comparisons is now indicated in the Merge taskbar icon. #5681
When comparing folders on case-sensitive file systems, Merge now pairs file and folder names with matching case in preference to file and folder names that differ in case but otherwise match. #5691
Overlapping semantic element links are now resolved by preferring to create links with elements in the left-hand pane, rather than the right-hand pane. This should improve the overall results of semantic element linking #5834
Scrolling within text comparisons is now faster when in panning mode (toggled using the middle mouse button). #5654
When sorting on a folder comparison column, rows that have no value or the same value in that column (e.g. several rows that have the same number of changes when sorting on the changes column) are now sorted within that block in ascending alphabetical order based on their filename. #5754
The performance of finding text in XML files with very long lines has been improved. #5708
The Merge shortcut in the Windows Start menu now sets the working directory to the Merge installation directory. #5725
When Merge.exe is run as an Automation server, such as when using the /Automation and /Embedding switches, the working directory is set to the first directory found out of %USERPROFILE%\Documents (CSIDL_PERSONAL) and %USERPROFILE% (CSIDL_PROFILE). If Merge.exe is not run as an Automation server, it will inherit the working directory of the calling process. #5725
The middle dot character is now used consistently as a separator within status line text. #5784
An Automation client holding a comparison object reference no longer prevents its comparison tab from being closed. #5801
The OpenJDK Java Runtime Environment bundled with Merge has been upgraded to 12.0.2. #5706

Defects fixed

The Working copy label in comparison version lists has been localized. #5676
Drag-selection is now cancelled within a folder comparison when the results pane loses focus (e.g. due to the appearance of a save dialog). #5712
The … browse button in the folder comparison Copy files dialog now moves correctly when the dialog window is resized. #5748
Comparison statistics dialogs no longer behave strangely when resized. In addition, the size of buttons in this dialog when using the Japanese localization of Merge is now correct. #5851
Changing the user-interface theme without restarting Merge no longer results in a resource leak that could eventually lead to a crash. #5790
The linking-lines context menu is now themed correctly even if the theme is changed within Merge without a restart. #5764
The Binary linking lines colour field is now updated appropriately when the user interface theme is updated while the options dialog is open. #5852
The message text in the folder comparison Files and folders progress dialog no longer shows an inappropriate input cursor. #5749
Error messages arising from launching Merge via the Explorer Compare with Araxis Merge command are now more informative. #5792
Spurious console warnings are no longer emitted when integrating Merge with Git under the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) on more recent Windows versions. #5788
A problem has been fixed with the conversion of synchronization link colour options when loading or saving a legacy options file. #5825
Syntax highlighting colours are now correctly restored when loading a saved comparison. #5859

Download

Version	Build date
2019.5254	12 November 2019

Merge 2019.5187 for Windows 11 June 2019

This release provides a number of minor enhancements and fixes several defects. Please read the notes below for a complete list of changes.

This is no longer the current release. All users are encouraged to upgrade to the most recent release.

System requirements

Warning Merge versions 2019.5174 and later require a 64-bit version of Windows. We apologize for any inconvenience that this may cause. Customers who wish to use Merge on 32-bit Windows may, of course, continue indefinitely to use Merge 2018.5059 or earlier.

This release is tested and supported on the following platforms:

Windows 10 May 2019 Update (64-bit)
Windows 10 October 2018 Update (64-bit)
Windows 8.1 (64-bit)
Windows 7 SP1 (64-bit)

The following platforms are also supported and expected to work, but not routinely tested:

Windows Server 2019
Windows Server 2016
Windows Server 2012 R2
Windows Server 2012

Enhancements

Multiple folders may now be selected and opened from open folder dialogs. #5601
A single file may now be opened from comparison history lists by holding Ctrl and double-clicking it. As before, double-clicking a row in a history list without holding Ctrl loads all the files in that row. #5692
Very large files load into text comparisons significantly more quickly than before. #5694
The integration instructions for Git Extensions, SmartGit, and TortoiseGit have been updated. #5486

Defects fixed

The Versions button is no longer sometimes inappropriately disabled when Git revisions are available. #5689
Pressing Ctrl+Backspace in a file or folder entry field once again deletes the word preceding the input caret. #5693
The Japanese localization has been brought up-to-date. #5700
Japanese characters in print header and footer edit fields now appear correctly. #5701
Merge no longer crashes when saving the text of a file whose content has been filtered with one of the supplied text-content filters. #5703

Download

Version	Build date
2019.5187	31 May 2019

Merge 2019.5174 for Windows 1 May 2019

This major new release introduces an optional dark theme, support for Windows user-interface scale factors up to 400%, and automatic synchronization links for recognized semantic elements (e.g. function and class definitions) in certain types of files. It also features numerous other enhancements and fixes. Please read the release notes for a complete list of changes.

This is no longer the current release. All users are encouraged to upgrade to the most recent release.

System requirements

Warning Merge now requires a 64-bit version of Windows. We apologize for any inconvenience that this may cause. Customers who wish to use Merge on 32-bit Windows may, of course, continue to use Merge 2018.5059 or earlier indefinitely.

This release is tested and supported on the following platforms:

Windows 10 May 2019 Update (64-bit)
Windows 10 October 2018 Update (64-bit)
Windows 8.1 (64-bit)
Windows 7 SP1 (64-bit)

The following platforms are also supported and expected to work, but not routinely tested:

Windows Server 2019
Windows Server 2016
Windows Server 2012 R2
Windows Server 2012

Enhancements

Windows 10 dark mode is now supported on Windows 10 October 2018 Update (build 1809) and later with an optional dark theme for the Merge user interface. This is in addition to the pre-existing light theme. Please see the User-interface theme topic for details and limitations. Note too that some light-theme icons and bitmaps may have minor visual changes as a result of this work. #1041#5618#5565#5587#5670#5647#5648#5649#5650#5651
All standard Windows 10 user-interface scale factors (100%, 125%, 150%, 175%, 200%, 225%, 250%, 300%, 350%) are now supported, plus 400% for good measure. Previously, the Merge user interface only scaled well up to 200%. Merge should now therefore work better with very high DPI monitors and for users who have a visual impairment. #1041
A new Automatically link recognized semantic elements (functions, classes, etc.) option creates synchronization links between recognized semantic elements (e.g. function and class definitions) in certain types of files. This can improve the quality of comparison results for supported files. Automatically added synchronization links are coloured grey, rather than the usual blue, thus distinguishing them from manually added links. Please see the related legal notice. #5573
Comparison history lists (opened using the Show history button) have changed from a pane-specific list of previously loaded files to a unified list showing all the files involved in each prior comparison. This enhancement brings Merge for Windows into line with Merge for macOS. #5662
The Versions button no longer opens a separate dialog, but instead displays versions in way similar to the comparison history list opened by the Show history button. This brings Merge for Windows into line with Merge for macOS. #5675
The included Oracle Java Runtime Environment has been replaced with portions of the Java SE Runtime Environment (JRE) from the Oracle OpenJDK Version 12. Optional JRE files not required by Merge file-type filters are no longer included with Merge, resulting in significantly smaller Merge installer downloads. Please see the revised legal notice. #1949#5392#5515
Support for running Merge on 32-bit versions of Windows has been removed. We apologize for any inconvenience that this may cause. This change was necessitated by the switch to a modern Java SE Runtime Environment (see above), and also enables various optimizations. Customers who require Merge on 32-bit Windows may, of course, continue to use earlier versions of Merge indefinitely. #5420
A new option, Options…▸Folder Comparisons▸Follow (non-recursive) links has been added. When checked, Merge folder comparisons follow file-system links to other folders. #5534
The Use high-contrast marks in overview strips option has been replaced by the ability to configure overview strip colours. This change is related to the introduction of the dark user-interface theme. #5660
Comparison entry-field autocompletion lists have been improved: file or folder icons are shown next to completion entries and folder comparison auto-completion lists show only folders. In addition, Ctrl+A works consistently to select all the text in a comparison entry field. #5544
The storage of Merge options has been completely overhauled: #5566#5563
- Merge options are now saved by default as a JSON file. (The previous format continues to be supported for interoperability with earlier versions of Merge.)
- Merge theme settings (i.e. colours and fonts) can now be saved and loaded separately from other options.
- Separate colour and font options are stored for light and dark themes.
- Complex (array and map) options in the registry are stored in JSON.
- Registry colour options use the HTML #RRGGBB string format, although the older REG_DWORD format is also supported.
  
  Due to these changes, scripts and programs that use the Automation API to read or change Merge options should be reviewed for compatibility with this version of Merge. In particular, please see the revised ConfigLong Enumeration and ConfigString Enumeration topics.
A new Force equal character spacing option addresses certain problems with incorrect tab alignment. For further information, please see Display. #5589
Folder comparisons are now able to pair filenames that appear the same but have differing Unicode representations. Exact Unicode code point matches are preferred to normalized matches. #5610
Dark mode support has necessitated the reworking of the open and save dialogs for file comparisons. #5678
On Windows 7, light grey replaces Windows 7 light blue for tabs and panel backgrounds. This is a side-effect of the new support for a dark theme. #5593
The possibilities for long-running file input/output operations to block the user interface have been significantly reduced. #5632
When comparing text files for patching, if a patch from a file containing multiple patches has previously been opened, a new Open patch file… toolbar menu Select patch… item can be used to select a different patch without having to open the patch file again. #5664
Reports generated using the .NET assembly now include all the summary sections of reports generated via the Merge user interface or Automation API. #5474
Source code for the araxissvnmerge utility is now included in the C++ Automation API examples. #5674
The Merge installer has been upgraded to use the WiX toolset v4. #5607
The Merge major version has been updated to 2019, to reflect the year of release. Copyright notices have also been updated accordingly. #5606

Defects fixed

The colours used for change highlighting in three-way text comparisons are now indicative relative to the common ancestor. #5554
Folder comparisons are now able to recurse into a local Microsoft OneDrive directory. #5666
Next/previous bookmark/conflict/edit navigation now centres on the target line, rather than merely scrolling it to be visible. #5579
Using Ctrl+Page Up in the left panel of the text comparison of a split-view folder comparison to navigate to a prior file that ends with an inserted block of lines now works correctly. #5572
Connections to Subversion servers have been serialized, greatly reducing the possibility of folder comparisons failing due to a Subversion server dropping multiple concurrent connections. #5634
File icons are no longer sometimes missing in folder comparisons that access a Subversion server. #5635
Runs of three or fewer unchanged bytes in a binary comparison are no longer coalesced into a surrounding change. #5585
The first change is now shown when a new three-way binary comparison is performed. #5460
Files are now only passed through the relevant filter program if the comparison is of the configured type. For example, if a file type is configured to pass files matching the pattern *.doc through the doc2TextFilter.cmd filter for text comparisons, .doc files will no longer be passed though the filter when opened in a binary comparison. #683
The file comparison of a split-view folder comparison now always compares the files relating to the currently selected row in the folder comparison. Previously, there were certain scenarios where it was possible for the file comparison to become stale. #5453
Split-view folder comparisons launched for folders containing a single file now work correctly. #5478
The Git file-system plugin is now able to supply revision lists for files even with recent versions of Git. #5525
Changes in character layout have been made to reduce the problem of characters within a text comparison line moving slightly as text is selected. #5620
HTML reports are generated in the configured Merge user-interface language. In the previous release, they were always generated in English. #5612
Merge now attempts to show in-panel error messages in the configured Merge user-interface language. Previously, Merge would use the Windows language setting, which could result in a mismatch between the Merge user-interface language and in-panel error messages shown by Merge. #5490
The spin control for the Dim resolved text by option is once again positioned within the relevant edit field and sized correctly. #5622
Editing within three-way comparisons containing synchronization links is now more robust. #5553
Minor corrections have been made to various user interface labels and messages. #5663#5619
Items for newly opened comparisons in the tab-strip drop-down menu and window list dialog now always match tab labels. #5592
Items in the context menu for the Merge taskbar icon have been localized into Japanese. #5645
Two dialogs with long messages now have their text appropriately line-wrapped. #5591
The FTP documentation has been corrected. #5595
Potential (though unlikely) problems with simultaneous access to Merge options from multiple threads have been fixed. #5566#5564

Download

Version	Build date
2019.5174	30 April 2019

2018 releases

Merge 2018.5059 for Windows 11 September 2018

This major new release introduces a new comparison type for viewing and applying patch files. It also features numerous other enhancements, including optional word-based comparison and highlighting. Multiple defects are also fixed. Please read the release notes carefully for a complete list of changes.

This is no longer the current release. All users are encouraged to upgrade to the most recent release.

System requirements

Warning This is the final version of Merge with support for 32-bit versions of Windows. Future releases of Merge will be 64-bit only. We apologize for any inconvenience that this may cause. Customers who require Merge on 32-bit Windows may, of course, continue to use this or earlier versions of Merge indefinitely.

This release is tested and supported on the following platforms:

Windows 10 April 2018 Update (32-bit and 64-bit)
Windows 8.1 (32-bit and 64-bit)
Windows 7 SP1 (32-bit and 64-bit)

The following platforms are also supported and expected to work, but not routinely tested:

Windows Server 2016
Windows Server 2012 R2
Windows Server 2012

Enhancements

A new comparison type offers a flexible toolkit for viewing and applying patch files. For screenshots and comprehensive documentation, please see Comparing Text Files for Patching. #5404#5492
Text comparisons have a new Unified diff ribbon button to create and preview a unified diff for the comparison. For more information, see Comparing Text Files (or Typed/Pasted Text). #5439#5487
Lines may now optionally be compared and highlighted based on words, rather than characters. #3273#5483
Syntax highlighting support for Scala (.scala) files has been added. #1944
Folder comparisons have a new option, Apply filters when copying the contents of folders. This determines whether active filters affect the files within folders that are copied between columns of a folder comparison. For more information, see Folder Comparisons. #2772
Merge now defaults to the UTF-8 character encoding (without BOM). #2936
Detection of resource encodings for .RC files via #pragma codepage directives is now automatically disabled for resource files that begin with a Unicode byte-order mark (BOM). #5434
Context menu items, window captions, and buttons have been converted to sentence (rather than title) capitalization. #5423
The registration dialog has been reviewed for GDPR-compliance and updated. Personal information is no longer required to activate Merge for Windows on a computer. The registration dialog itself explains how any personal data that is provided will be used. Finally, the dialog no longer has an option to give Araxis permission to email users about product updates, since the built-in update-notification mechanism obviates the need to send update emails. #5426
Merge no longer sends to Araxis information about locale, operating system version, screen size, and Internet Explorer version. #5426
To avoid complicating GDPR compliance, Merge no longer gathers crash reports. Neither does Merge therefore offer to send crash reports to Araxis. #5428
Image and binary comparisons now display panel titles (when appropriate) in place of filename entry fields. Panel titles for these types of comparison thus now work in the same way as they do for text comparisons. #5441
Merging buttons are no longer displayed when their actions would modify a read-only file and the editing of read-only files has not been enabled. #5442
Informational messages in file panels are shown for significantly longer before they disappear than in previous releases. #5445
Merge now tries much harder to show meaningful information in tab labels. The relevant full paths or titles are shown in tab-label tooltips, even if extremely long. #5484
Long-running file comparisons performed during a folder comparison now stop immediately if the folder comparison is cancelled. #5466
Folder comparison performance has been further enhanced. #5443
The wording and capitalization of file type names shown on the File Types options page have been made more consistent. #5390
The lists of pre-canned file types in various file dialogs have been modernized. #5425
The operation of the FilterFileType Object API is now far more consistent with that of the RegularExpression Object. We apologize for any inconvenience that this backwards-incompatible API change may cause. #5447
Saved comparisons opened via the Automation API no longer prompt the user whether to use embedded saved options. #5469
The generation of line endings when saving files is more efficient. #5448
Merge no longer tries to upgrade settings from Merge 6.5 or earlier. #5485
The Boost library used by Merge has been updated to version 1.66. #5440

Defects fixed

Folder comparisons are now able to copy files into the root directory of a drive volume. #5488
The Merge installer and uninstaller no longer use the Windows Restart Manager. This avoids a problem with the Windows 10 April 2018 Update where the Windows Desktop fails to restart following installation or uninstallation. #5455#5407
The first change is now shown when a new three-way file comparison is performed. #5460
It is easier to grab the resize handle between the upper and lower portions of a split-view folder-comparison-with-file-comparison at 200% UI-scaling. #5444
The panel resize-thumb is no longer incorrectly positioned after switching a file comparison from horizontal to vertical layout. #5438
Unified-diff file-comparison reports no longer emit content lines for comparisons of identical (unchanged) files. #5446
A rare situation where line-equality checking could behave incorrectly with the Treat consecutive whitespace as a single space option enabled has been corrected. #5450
A defect with inline comparisons has been resolved that could theoretically occur in certain situations involving zero-length lines. #5477
Registration information transmitted securely to Araxis is now properly URL-encoded. #5431
Merge no longer sends redundant placeholder registration information to Araxis. #5432
In the Japanese localization of the Merge user interface, the label of the 完全なフォルダー階層を比較する(C) option is no longer clipped at 200% UI-scaling. #5472
The copyright notice in the Japanese localization of the About Araxis Merge dialog has been corrected. #5491

Download

Version	Build date
2018.5059	11 September 2018

Merge 2018.5004 for Windows 22 May 2018

This release introduces support for the Windows 10 April 2018 Update. It also features various API and localization enhancements, and resolves a defect with the command-line utilities. Please read the release notes carefully for a complete list of changes.

This is no longer the current release. All users are encouraged to upgrade to the most recent release.

System requirements

Warning Araxis intends to drop support for 32-bit versions of Windows in a future version of Merge. This would mean that new versions of Merge would run only on 64-bit versions of Windows. Please contact Araxis if this change would be disruptive to you or your organization.

This release is tested and supported on the following platforms:

Windows 10 April 2018 Update (32-bit and 64-bit)
Windows 8.1 (32-bit and 64-bit)
Windows 7 SP1 (32-bit and 64-bit)

The following platforms are also supported and expected to work, but not routinely tested:

Windows Server 2016
Windows Server 2012 R2
Windows Server 2012

Enhancements

Merge is now supported on the Windows 10 April 2018 Update (32-bit and 64-bit). #5384
Support for custom in-process, DLL-based file-type filters has been added. A DLL-based filter may be implemented either as a COM object, or as an exported function. In-process file-type filters can improve comparison performance relative to file-type filters implemented as out-of-process scripts or executables. Please see the Edit File Type topic for implementation guidance. An example implementation of both types of DLL-based filter can be found in the AutomationSamples/Cpp/win32/ROT13Filter subfolder of the Araxis Merge installation folder. #497
The Automation API now supports the creation and modification of entries on the File Types options page. Please see the FilterFileTypes Object for further information. #1129
The Automation API supporting the creation and modification of the information configured on the Line Expressions options page has been documented. For further details, please see the RegularExpressions Object. (A JScript example script, MiscTextExpressions.js, is provided in the AutomationSamples/JScript subfolder of the Araxis Merge installation folder.) #5389
The C++ Automation samples (located in the AutomationSamples/Cpp/win32 subfolder of the Araxis Merge installation directory) have been updated to build with Visual Studio 2017. #244
The descriptions of the default line-pairing rules have been localized. #506
The various error messages that can appear within comparison panes for problems relating to file-type filter programs have been improved and localized. #5375

Defects fixed

The command-line utilities compare.exe and consolecompare.exe no longer sometimes fail to compare larger files when using the /merge, /closeIfNoChanges, or /testConflicts options. #387

Download

Version	Build date
2018.5004	23 April 2018

Merge 2018.4988 for Windows 13 March 2018

This is a major new release featuring significant enhancements such as optional vertical padding in text comparisons, greatly improved line-pairing within blocks of changed text, and support for line-pairing rules. This release also fixes several defects, as well as providing various other enhancements. Please read the release notes carefully for a complete list of changes.

This is no longer the current release. All users are encouraged to upgrade to the most recent release.

System requirements

This release is tested and supported on the following platforms:

Windows 10 Fall Creators Update (32-bit and 64-bit)
Windows 8.1 (32-bit and 64-bit)
Windows 7 SP1 (32-bit and 64-bit)

The following platforms are also supported and expected to work, but not routinely tested:

Windows Server 2016
Windows Server 2012 R2
Windows Server 2012

Enhancements

A new option adds vertical padding to text comparisons. When enabled, every related block of changed or unchanged text always remains vertically aligned, regardless of scrolling. For more information (including a screenshot of this option in effect), see Comparing Text Files (or Typed/Pasted Text). I15095
The pairing of lines within blocks of changed text is now both configurable and much more intelligent. This improves the highlighting of comparison results within blocks of changed text in a wide range of scenarios. For full details, please read the Line Pairing topic. I15107I15150I15159I15161
Support for line-pairing rules has been added. Line-pairing rules enable Merge to pair corresponding lines in a block of changed text based on particular portions of a line matched by a given regular expression. Judicious use of line-pairing rules can provide excellent results for certain comparisons (e.g. those of localization files in different languages) that previously provided unhelpful results. For further information, see the Line Pairing and Edit Line-Pairing Rule topics. I15107
Line-pairing within change-blocks is tuneable, both for performance and for choosing a balance between highlighting a pair of lines as a change rather than as a removal and an insertion. For more information, please see Advanced Line-Pairing Options. I15107
A new Intelligently split blocks of changed text based on matched line pairs option has been added. When checked, Merge will endeavour to split multiline blocks of changed text into smaller blocks of inserted, removed, and changed text. This splitting is performed intelligently, based on any corresponding pairs of lines that Merge is able to match within the original block of changed text. This option can be very useful in understanding precisely how the compared files are related, and it can also make it easier to propagate individual changes from one file to another. For more information, please see Line Pairing. I15107
A new checkbox, Show detailed (rather than simple) inline changes within paired lines, is present on the Line Pairing options page. This replaces the Show simplified inline changes and Show detailed inline changes radio buttons on the Display options page in earlier versions of Merge. I15107
Following the completion of a text comparison, the status bar indicates notable options that could have significantly affected comparison results. The options potentially shown are: line-content expressions, column filters, line-pairing rules, adaptive line-pairing, and consecutive line-pairing. I15178
A progress indicator has been added to the status bar of long-running text and binary comparisons. I15164
Folder comparisons now show an icon adornment for each item that is a symbolic link to a file or folder, a shortcut to a file or folder, or a folder junction point. I15152
The context menu for both file and folder comparisons has a new item to show a file (or folder) in Windows Explorer. I15069
There is a new option on the Fonts and Colours page to disable the anti-aliasing of text in text and binary comparisons. I15094
The Merge user interface is now responsive during lengthy comparisons that have been launched using the command-line utilities. I15182
The behaviour of folder comparisons launched from the command-line utilities has changed slightly. When the /wait command-line argument is not explicitly or implicitly set, the utilities will wait for the comparison to finish before returning, rather than returning immediately after launching the comparison as before. For example, consolecompare /nowait largefolder1 largefolder2 will now wait for the comparison to finish (but not to be closed) before exiting. This change was made so that folder comparisons behave in the same way as file comparisons. 15183
The example HTML reports in the Japanese Windows documentation have been updated to use the UTF-8 character encoding. I15087
The Boost library used by Merge has been updated to version 1.65. I15179
The Libarchive library used by Merge has been updated to version 3.3.2. I15184
The Merge major version has been updated to 2018, to reflect the year of release. I15180

Defects fixed

Comparison of text files using numeric tolerance now works again. I15120
The folder comparison Retest selected feature no longer sometimes fails. I15146
Lines no longer sometimes wrap prematurely. I15154
An appropriate line-ending is now added when merging lines at the bottom of a file that does not end with a line-ending character or character pair. I15119
The processing of command-line arguments by Merge.exe has been improved to make it possible to launch a comparison of a file or folder whose name contains the string -options. Note that launching comparisons using Merge.exe is not recommended; see the Command-Line Reference for more information. I15118
The various Merge command-line utilities now offer to register Merge Automation objects when they detect that they have not already been registered. Previously, the utilities could crash in those circumstances. I15177
Certain registry keys created by the Merge installer are now placed in the correct location. I15133

Download

Version	Build date
2018.4988	9 March 2018

2017 releases

Merge 2017.4940 for Windows 16 November 2017

This release fixes several defects and provides minor enhancements. Please read the release notes carefully for a complete list of changes. This is no longer the current release. All users are encouraged to upgrade to the most recent release.

System requirements

This release is tested and supported on the following platforms:

Windows 10 Fall Creators Update (32-bit and 64-bit)
Windows 8.1 (32-bit and 64-bit)
Windows 7 SP1 (32-bit and 64-bit)

The following platforms are also supported and expected to work, but not routinely tested:

Windows Server 2016
Windows Server 2012 R2
Windows Server 2012

Enhancements

Merge now supports scrolling using a wider variety of touchpads. Specifically, support has been added for touchpads with driver software that sends WM_VSCROLL and/or WM_HSCROLL scroll bar messages. (Previously, Merge only supported touchpad scrolling for touchpads that send WM_MOUSEWHEEL and/or WM_MOUSEHWEEL messages.) I15097
The included Oracle Java Runtime Environment has been updated to version 1.8 Update 151. I15055
The information icon used by the Windows Installer setup package has been updated. I15112

Defects fixed

It is once again possible to select sub-expressions in the Options…▸Text Comparisons▸Expressions▸Edit Expression window when the Ignore sequences of characters that match the expression option is selected. I15096
The width of the line-number/byte-offset columns in text and binary comparisons (both on-screen and when printed) is now appropriate, regardless of the font being used. I15104
Binary comparisons use the appropriate, configured font for inserted, removed and modified changes. I15106
The copyright date in the footer of Japanese-language HTML reports has been updated. I15110
A crash (arising from a recent Internet Explorer update) no longer occurs following a folder comparison that uses the FTP plugin. I15111

Download

Version	Build date
2017.4940	15 November 2017

Merge 2017.4929 for Windows 18 September 2017

This release features major and minor enhancements, as well as several important fixes. Please read the release notes carefully for a complete list of changes. This is no longer the current release. All users are encouraged to upgrade to the most recent release.

System requirements

This release is tested and supported on the following platforms:

Windows 10 Creators Update (32-bit and 64-bit)
Windows 8.1 (32-bit and 64-bit)
Windows 7 SP1 (32-bit and 64-bit)

The following platforms are also supported and expected to work, but not routinely tested:

Windows Server 2016
Windows Server 2012 R2
Windows Server 2012

Enhancements

The display of binary comparisons has been substantially improved. Individual changes are now shown inline, rather than being broken-out into separate lines. Linking lines are drawn between related changes, and the change under the text cursor or mouse pointer is highlighted. For more information, please see Comparing Binary Files. I15016I15030I15040I15054
When line wrapping is enabled, lines are wrapped just before they first come into view. This makes loading of larger files much faster than before when line wrapping is enabled, and brings Merge for Windows into line with the behaviour of Merge for macOS. Because of the improved performance, character-based line wrapping is now enabled by default for new installations of Merge. I15018I15034
On machines with multicore processors and fast storage media (e.g. SSDs), folder comparisons are much quicker (more than twice as fast on our test machines). I15019
Merge now integrates with Mercurial and Git running under the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL). Note that WSL integration requires that all repositories and files accessed by Merge be stored on the Windows file system (e.g. under /mnt/c, from the perspective of WSL). I14977
For three-way text comparions, a new Mark conflicts ribbon command has been added. This will mark potential automatic-merging conflicts without first performing a merge-to-common-ancestor operation. I14898
Optional special handling for Intel Hex files has been added. I15010
The integration instructions for Git and Mercurial have been updated to specify file panel titles. I14976
The Windows dialog (opened from the tab drop-down menu when more than 20 tabs are open) makes better use of available width to display long paths. I14901
The default behaviour for clicking on a change within a scroll bar is now to move to that change/position, rather than to move upwards or downwards by a page. I15034
In binary comparisons, the offsets of existing synchronization links in binary comparisons may now be edited via the link’s context menu Edit Synchronization Link… item. I15014
Character-encoding support for file loading and saving is now more robust. I15017
Support for the following character encodings has been added: I15017
- Unicode (UTF-16LE without BOM),
- Unicode (UTF-16LE with BOM),
- Unicode (UTF-16BE without BOM),
- Unicode (UTF-16BE with BOM),
- Unicode (UTF-32LE without BOM),
- Unicode (UTF-32LE with BOM),
- Unicode (UTF-32BE without BOM),
- Unicode (UTF-32BE with BOM).
The following obsolete encodings have been removed: I15017
- Unicode (UCS-2LE without BOM),
- Unicode (UCS-2BE without BOM),
- Unicode (UCS-2LE with BOM),
- Unicode (UCS-2BE with BOM).
Merge may be installed from the command-line for all users without also installing the Araxis Snapshot Service service. For more information, see How to Install. I14954
Single quotation marks may be used when specifying titles on the command-line. I14903
Access to inline changes has been added to the .NET assembly. I14983
The .NET assembly text comparison CompressConsecutive option has been replaced by a TreatWhitespaceRunsAsSingleSpace option. This is more generally useful, and matches the equivalent option in the Merge application. I14922
The Automation API example scripts have been updated to use the new regular expression objects introduced in an earlier release. I14994
The included Oracle Java Runtime Environment has been updated to version 1.8 Update 141. I14996

Defects fixed

Comparisons with numerical data tolerance no longer ignore differences outside of the intended range in some circumstances. I14899
When recomparing a folder comparison of zip archives, Merge correctly detects any changes in the contents of the archives. I14929
When adding a synchronization link to a binary comparison, the offsets specified in the Add synchronization link dialog are properly interpreted as hexadecimal numbers. Previously, they were incorrectly parsed as decimal. I15015
.NET assembly text comparisons accept files that terminate with a \r (CR) character. I14908
.NET assembly text comparisons can compare empty files or strings without generating an error. I14907
.NET assembly text comparisons give correct results when ignoring embedded whitespace with line endings being treated as significant. I14918
.NET assembly text comparisons correctly process leading and trailing whitespace when CompressConsecutive and IgnoreEmbedded options are both set. I14921
A text comparison of two identical files will always now show some context when two identical files are compared with the Show only # lines of context around changes option checked. I15035
A new registry setting, CheckForExternallyModifiedFiles, has been added. When set to 0 (the default is 1), unwanted <file> has been modified outside of Merge. Would you like to reload it? messages are no longer shown in certain circumstances after closing the Merge application window. I14914I15034
The column headings on the Options…▸Text Comparisons▸Expressions page have been corrected. I14943
The Help button on the Options…▸Folder Comparisons page opens the correct help page. I14892

Download

Version	Build date
2017.4929	14 September 2017

Merge 2017.4842 for Windows 25 January 2017

This release features several enhancements and fixes. This is no longer the current release. All users are encouraged to upgrade to the most recent release.

System requirements

This release is tested and supported on the following platforms:

Windows 10 Anniversary Update (32-bit and 64-bit)
Windows 8.1 (32-bit and 64-bit)
Windows 7 SP1 (32-bit and 64-bit)

The following platforms are also supported and expected to work, but not routinely tested:

Windows Server 2016
Windows Server 2012 R2
Windows Server 2012

Enhancements

Merge for Windows is now able to compare corresponding numeric values within text files and, if desired, treat them as identical if they are within a certain tolerance of one another. One potential use for this is when comparing the output of numerical control (NC) code files from CNC machine tools. I14849I14810
An effectively unlimited number of regular expressions may now be specified for text comparisons, removing the previous limit of 10. I14887I14844
The options dialog has been significantly re-worked to follow much more closely the general (more logical) arrangement of the Merge for macOS preferences window. This should remove a source of friction for those using Merge on both platforms. I14800
Administrator privilege is no longer required to perform per-user installations of Merge. I14837

Defects fixed

The libarchive library used by Merge has been updated to version 3.2.2. This resolves a problem in folder comparisons where top-level folders in JAR files were erroneously treated as files. I14884
A warning (and associated requirement to restart the machine following installation) encountered by some users when installing Merge on newer versions of Windows has been eliminated. I14837
The description of whitespace comparison options in HTML text comparison reports is now correct for all combinations of whitespace settings. I14652
Merge no longer crashes when swapping panes of a binary comparison that contains synchronization links. I14829
Merge correctly validates out-of-range byte offsets when adding a synchronization link to a binary comparison. I14831
Linking lines are positioned correctly around the entire change block in binary comparisons, even when using display formats other than 1-byte Integer. I14832
Merge will no longer crash when performing a binary comparison of a 1-byte file with a larger file, changing to the 2-byte Integer format, and then changing the format back to 1-byte Integer. I14833
A crash has been eliminated that could occur in certain circumstances following the moving of a comparison tab to a new window. I14851

Download

Version	Build date
2017.4842	24 January 2017

2016 releases

Merge 2016.4801 for Windows 29 September 2016

This release features several enhancements and fixes. This is no longer the current release. All users are encouraged to upgrade to the most recent release.

System requirements

This release is tested and supported on the following platforms:

Windows 10 Anniversary Update (32-bit and 64-bit)
Windows 8.1 (32-bit and 64-bit)
Windows 7 SP1 (32-bit and 64-bit)

The following platforms are also supported and expected to work, but not routinely tested:

Windows 8 (32-bit and 64-bit)
Windows Server 2012 R2
Windows Server 2012
Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1

Information As of Merge 2015.4634, Windows Vista is no longer supported. Nevertheless, this particular release of Merge is expected to function on that platform.

Enhancements

Comparison tabs can be re-ordered using drag-and-drop. I14739
Comparison tabs can be dragged-and-dropped between top-level Merge application windows. I14684
The active folder comparison filter may be changed quickly using the ribbon Options▸Filters menu. I14730
A checkbox has been added to the Choose Character Encoding dialog, to enable the chosen encoding to be applied to all open files. I14612
Text and row selections in comparisons are shown even when a window is inactive. I14611
The vertical scroll bar is always shown in folder comparisons. I14599
All URLs in Merge that reference the Araxis website have been updated to use HTTPS, rather than HTTP. This improves security and avoids unnecessary redirects. I14755I14759
The Understanding automatic merge results documentation has been re-written for both file and folder comparisons. I14663
The sshlpr.exe command (included in the Merge installation directory) has a new option, /register-objects. This registers the various automation keys in the Windows Registry using the same base data as the setup .msi package. The /register-objects option is rarely needed and should only be used at the direction of Araxis support staff. I14683

Defects fixed

In text comparisons, the positions of synchronization links are appropriately adjusted when lines are inserted/removed. I14670
Line ending characters are preserved when pasting text into a text comparison, and also when dragging-and-dropping text between panes. I14581
Line ending characters are preserved when merging buttons are used to copy content from one text comparison pane into an empty pane, and also when items on the ribbon Replace content menu are used to copy content into an empty pane. I14750
The folder comparison Include NTFS Streams option has been fixed. Enabling this option shows alternative NTFS data streams in folder comparison results. I14731
The integration documentation for SmartGit has been corrected. I14672
Documentation for the defunct Merge.exe /RegServer and /UnregServer options has been removed. I14681
The formatting of various confirmation dialogs has been improved. I14574
The libarchive library used by Merge has been updated to version 3.2.1. This addresses several security problems in earlier versions of that library. I14718
The capitalization of a word in the FAQ has been corrected. I14682

Download

Version	Build date
2016.4801	5 September 2016

Merge 2016.4761 for Windows 18 April 2016

This release features several enhancements and fixes. This is no longer the current release. All users are encouraged to upgrade to the most recent release.

System requirements

This release is tested and supported on the following platforms:

Windows 10 (32-bit and 64-bit)
Windows 8.1 (32-bit and 64-bit)
Windows 7 SP1 (32-bit and 64-bit)

The following platforms are also supported and expected to work, but not routinely tested:

Windows 8 (32-bit and 64-bit)
Windows Server 2012 R2
Windows Server 2012
Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1

Information As of Merge 2015.4634, Windows Vista is no longer supported. Nevertheless, this particular release of Merge is expected to function on that platform.

Enhancements

Information about automating installation (including the deployment of serial numbers) has been added to the installation documentation. I14621
The Boost regular expression library has been reinstated and upgraded to 1.60.0. This means that certain advanced regular expression features (e.g. look-behind capability) are now once more available. I14608
Up/down and left/right arrows have been added to vertical and horizontal scroll bars, respectively. I14615
A progress bar is now displayed while binary comparisons are being performed. I14641
The effect of the binary comparison Search size field has been scaled by a factor of 100 – a value of 500 now is equivalent to a value of 5 in the previous release. This means that binary comparisons complete faster by default, at the expense of result quality. The search size value may be increased to restore the previous, default accuracy. I14642
The colour of the scroll bar thumb has been darkened to make it more visible in comparisons with very busy overview strips. I14654

Defects fixed

Change-block colour highlighting is no longer incorrect after swapping panes two and three of a three-way text comparison, with syntax highlighting enabled, and with the Don’t show changes within lines option in effect. I14655
Folder comparison HTML reports may now be created, even when folder or file names contain characters (e.g. LF) that would be illegal in XML attributes. I14624
When changing the file loaded into a text comparison panel by manually entering a new filename, Merge will now revert to the default character encoding, unless the file has an encoding that can be detected from its content. I14590
Merge no longer crashes in certain circumstances when performing a binary comparison. I14640
The Merge command-line utilities no longer fail with filenames containing apostrophes. I14607

Download

Version	Build date
2016.4761	13 April 2016

Merge 2016.4727 for Windows 11 February 2016

This release addresses a code-signing issue, and fixes several other defects. This is no longer the current release. All users are encouraged to upgrade to the most recent release.

System requirements

This release is tested and supported on the following platforms:

Windows 10 (32-bit and 64-bit)
Windows 8.1 (32-bit and 64-bit)
Windows 7 SP1 (32-bit and 64-bit)

The following platforms are also supported and expected to work, but not routinely tested:

Windows 8 (32-bit and 64-bit)
Windows Server 2012 R2
Windows Server 2012
Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1

Information As of Merge 2015.4634, Windows Vista is no longer supported. Nevertheless, this particular release of Merge is expected to function on that platform.

Enhancements

The .NET Assembly API has a new StringComparison object to enable character-level comparison of strings. I14578

Defects fixed

Merge is now signed using an Extended Validation code-signing certificate, to guarantee the integrity and authenticity of the software. This should make it possible to download and run Merge without encountering Microsoft SmartScreen warnings from Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge, or Windows. I14576
Inappropriate horizontal scrolling using a mouse or touchpad is no longer possible in text comparisons when word-wrapping is enabled. I14591
In folder comparisons, clearing all markers correctly removes bookmark indicators from the overview strips. I14580
Merge no longer hangs in certain circumstances when saving options from the Options dialog. I14586

Download

Version	Build date
2016.4727	9 February 2016

Merge 2016.4716 for Windows 28 January 2016

This release features an assortment of enhancements and fixes. This is no longer the current release. All users are encouraged to upgrade to the most recent release.

What to do if you see a ‘signature … corrupt or invalid’ or ‘Windows has protected your PC’ warning after downloading this release

Information Araxis Merge setup files are signed with a code-signing certificate to guarantee the integrity and origin of the software. These warning messages result from Microsoft’s having deprecated the SHA-1 hashing algorithm used by the Araxis code-signing certificate. Please see below for how to proceed, depending on which message(s) you have encountered. We apologize for the inconvenience. This problem is resolved in Merge 2016.4727 for Windows.

‘The signature of … is corrupt or invalid’

If you download this release with Microsoft Edge or a recent version of Microsoft Internet Explorer, you may see a message saying, The signature of <filename> is corrupt or invalid, where <filename> is the name of file you have downloaded.

Although this message is off-putting, there is nothing actually wrong with the file. You may therefore dismiss the warning and continue to install Araxis Merge. For example, if you see this message appear after having downloaded the file with Microsoft Edge, you can begin the installation using the following steps:

When you see the warning message in the browser, click the View downloads button.
In the Past downloads list, right-click the Araxis Merge setup file that you have downloaded.
Choose ‘Run anyway.’ from the context menu that appears.

‘Windows has protected your PC’

If SmartScreen is enabled in the Windows Control Panel, Windows may display a Windows has protected your PC dialog when you run the Araxis Merge setup file that you downloaded. There is nothing wrong with the Araxis Merge file, and you may proceed with the installation. For example, to continue the installation on Windows 10:

Click the More info link in the Windows protected your PC dialog. This link can be found underneath the Windows SmartScreen prevented an unrecognized app from starting. Running this app might put your PC at risk. message.
Click the Run anyway button that appears.

System requirements

This release is tested and supported on the following platforms:

Windows 10 (32-bit and 64-bit)
Windows 8.1 (32-bit and 64-bit)
Windows 7 SP1 (32-bit and 64-bit)

The following platforms are also supported and expected to work, but not routinely tested:

Windows 8 (32-bit and 64-bit)
Windows Server 2012 R2
Windows Server 2012
Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1

Information As of Merge 2015.4634, Windows Vista is no longer supported. Nevertheless, this particular release of Merge is expected to function on that platform.

Enhancements

A new option, Options…▸Application▸Display▸Use high-contrast marks in overview strips, has been added to show overview-strip marks in more intense colours. This makes the marks easier to see. I14421
A new option, Options…▸Application▸Display▸Click within scroll bars to set position, has been added. When this option is checked, clicking above or below the thumb within a comparison’s scroll bar will jump directly to the corresponding position, and a Shift-click will jump up or down by a page. When this option is unchecked, the behaviour is swapped. I14467
A search facility has been added to folder comparisons, making it possible to find a file or folder by name. I12461
XML/XHTML reformatting has been enhanced to work with files containing unquoted attributes, even though these are not strictly valid XML. The Comparing Text Files (or Typed/Pasted Text) topic has also been updated to make it clear that the XML/XHTML reformatting commands are intended only for use on true XML/XHTML files. I14570
File comparisons can be horizontally scrolled using a suitable mouse. I14373
Instructions for integrating Merge with SmartGit/Hg have been added to the Integrating with Source Control, Configuration Management, and Other Applications topic. I13871
The IntelliJ IDEA integration instructions have been updated. I14488
The Options…▸Text Comparisons▸Editing▸Tab key inserts tab characters instead of cycling focus field has been slightly renamed to improve clarity. I14517
The major version number has been updated to 2016, reflecting the year of release. I14521

Defects fixed

Merge jumps to the first change (if any) after performing a new comparison, as it did in certain earlier releases. I14359
Merge no longer treats folders with names that end in an archive file extension as if they were archive files. I14448
The binary comparison Display as field has been widened enough to show the Hexadecimal (Big Endian) option. I14434
Spurious differences in line endings are no longer flagged in files with very long lines. I14458
The identical sections of two files in a binary comparison are now correctly identified, even when one file is the same as the other apart from one file having extra data at the end. I14550
The UNIX diff Context Report Example topic has been corrected. I14530

Download

Version	Build date
2016.4716	26 January 2016

2015 releases

Merge 2015.4664 for Windows 6 October 2015

This release features full support for Windows 10 and incorporates various other enhancements and fixes. This is no longer the current release. All users are encouraged to upgrade to the most recent release.

System requirements

This release is tested and supported on the following platforms:

Windows 10 (32-bit and 64-bit)
Windows 8.1 (32-bit and 64-bit)
Windows 7 SP1 (32-bit and 64-bit)

The following platforms are also supported and expected to work, but not routinely tested:

Windows 8 (32-bit and 64-bit)
Windows Server 2012 R2
Windows Server 2012
Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1

Information As of Merge 2015.4634, Windows Vista is no longer supported. Nevertheless, this particular release of Merge is expected to function on that platform.

Enhancements

Windows 10 is a fully tested and supported platform. I14381
Archive files (e.g. .zip, etc.) may be opened in a folder comparison using the Compare with Araxis Merge and Queue for Comparison Windows Explorer context menu. For this to work, the Process archives option must be enabled within Merge. I14365
Overview strips and markers now appear above the vertical scroll bar thumb, and thus are no longer obscured by it. I14394
This release of Merge is expected to work on Windows Vista, though Vista remains an unsupported platform. I14352
The configuration of comparison fonts and colours has been simplified. I14347
The default focus of the Save Modified Files dialog has been changed from the listbox to the Yes button. I14363
A new ReportOptions class has been added to the Merge .NET assembly to enable the fonts and colours of HTML reports to be configured. Use the Visual Studio Object Browser to view the relevant documentation for the the Merge .NET assembly. I14378
The types of URL that can be used with the Save File to URL, Open file from URL and Open Folder URL dialogs are now documented. I14353
If you wish to use the Araxis Snapshot Service to view file versions stored by Windows System Protection, please see the Windows 10 section of the Accessing Versions Stored by Windows System Protection topic. I14384
The folder comparison ribbon Re-test selected item has been renamed to Retest selected. I14361
Merge no longer uses the Boost library. I14369

Defects fixed

Merge is now able to reformat HTML-containing elements with attributes that have no value. I14367
The New Text Comparison, New Binary Comparison, New Image Comparison and New Folder Comparison items on the context menu of the Merge taskbar icon now work on Windows 10. I14382
The right-hand overview strip is appropriately updated when changing from a 3-way to 2-way binary comparison. I14429
A problem with compare.exe and truncated UNC paths in a folder comparison has been fixed. I14411
It is no longer possible to type anything but digits into a binary comparisons Search size field. I14355
The non-functional Save to URL… button has been removed from the Choose Report File dialog. I14354
Registration information is now sent directly (using HTTPS) to the relevant Araxis server, rather than first redirecting via an HTTP URL. I14356
Certain archives that can be decompressed by Winzip and 7-zip no longer fail to decompress in Merge. I14392

Download

Version	Build date
2015.4664	02 October 2015

Merge 2015.4634 for Windows 3 June 2015

This release features support for comparing the contents of a variety of archive formats (.zip, .tar, etc.). It also includes several other enhancements and bug fixes. This is no longer the current release. All users are encouraged to upgrade to the most recent release.

System requirements

This release is tested and supported on the following platforms:

Windows 10 (32-bit and 64-bit), with the known issues listed below
Windows 8.1 (32-bit and 64-bit)
Windows 7 SP1 (32-bit and 64-bit)

The following platforms are also supported and expected to work, but not routinely tested:

Windows 8 (32-bit and 64-bit)
Windows Server 2012 R2
Windows Server 2012
Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1

Information As of Merge 2015.4634, Windows Vista and the closely related Windows Server 2008 SP2 are no longer supported. Customers may, of course, continue to use an older version of Merge (2014.4565 or earlier) that works with those platforms.

Known issues with Windows 10

The New Text Comparison, New Binary Comparison, New Image Comparison and New Folder Comparison items in the menu of the Merge application taskbar icon do not function. I14382
If you wish to use the Araxis Snapshot Service to view file versions stored by Windows System Protection, please see the Windows 10 section of the Accessing Versions Stored by Windows System Protection topic.

Enhancements

The contents of a variety of archive formats (.zip, .tar, etc.) can be directly compared. See Comparing archive files as if they were folders and Files stored in an archive. I8968
Comparison overview strips have been incorporated into the background of the vertical scroll bars. Hold down Shift and click on a mark in the overview strip to jump to the associated location. I14337
In a folder comparison with file comparison view underneath, pressing Ctrl+PgDn while on the last change in the file comparison will open the folder comparison’s next row of changed files in file comparison and navigate to the first change. Likewise, pressing Ctrl+PgUp while on the first change of the file comparison will open the folder comparison’s previous row of changed files in the file comparison. I14265
The save dialog Save to URL… button has been resized/repositioned. I14336
The included Oracle Java Runtime Environment has been updated to version 1.8. I14254

Defects fixed

Installing Merge without administrator privileges no longer causes Compare.exe to fail with a Registered class not found error. I14342
In a binary comparison, the user interface no longer becomes stuck showing an error message dialog when a Search size containing non-digits is applied. I14260
Launching new comparisons from a three-way folder comparison should now operate correctly in all circumstances. I14327

Download

Version	Build date
2015.4634	27 May 2015

2014 releases

Merge 2014.4565 for Windows 2 December 2014

This release features several enhancements and bug fixes. This is no longer the current release. All users are encouraged to upgrade to the most recent release.

System requirements

This release is tested and supported on the following platforms:

Windows 8.1 (32-bit and 64-bit)
Windows 7 SP1 (32-bit and 64-bit)

The following platforms are also supported and expected to work, but not routinely tested:

Windows 8 (32-bit and 64-bit)
Windows Server 2012 R2
Windows Server 2012
Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1
Windows Vista SP2 (32-bit and 64-bit) with the Platform Update installed
Windows Server 2008 SP2 with the Platform Update installed

Information As of Merge 2014.4531, neither Windows XP nor Windows Server 2003 are supported. Customers may, of course, continue to use an older version of Merge (2013.4430 or earlier) that works with those platforms.

Information This is the last release that supports Windows Vista and the closely related Windows Server 2008 SP2.

Enhancements

The Apache Tika library used by Merge to extract text from various types of files has been updated to the latest version. This should improve the ability of Merge to extract text from previously problematic files. I13940I14098
The ability to search backwards in text comparisons has been added. I14178
If support has expired for the configured Merge serial number, the Update Available notification message will indicate if a new serial number with renewed support is required to use an available product update. I14196
Files and folders can be dragged from a folder comparison by holding down the Alt key when initiating the drag operation. (The Alt key is required so as not to affect the pre-existing drag-to-select behaviour.) I14223
Conflict, edit and bookmark markers are shown in overview strips. I14214
The 32-bit version of Merge includes the 64-bit Windows Explorer context menu extension for use on 64-bit versions of Windows. This improves the compatibility of the 32-bit version of Merge when installed on a 64-bit version of Windows. Araxis continues to recommend using the 64-bit version of Merge on 64-bit Windows. I9254
An additional Windows Registry location has been added for OEMs to specify startup options. I14226
When necessary (as determined by Araxis support), Merge can be configured to skip problematic code pages and locales during startup and when populating code page/locale lists. I14224
A new Windows Registry value, HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Araxis/Merge/7.0/TabCloseOnRight, has been added. When set to 1, tab close buttons will be located on the right side of the tab. This option is unsupported. I14225
A limited, unsupported, as-is UI with old-style menus and toolbars has been reintroduced for users who have a strong aversion to the Ribbon. Please contact Araxis for details. I14222I14209

Defects fixed

For long lines of text in a file comparison that are wrapped on to multiple display lines, line numbers are shown on the first (rather than last) displayed line of text. I14193
Filters are correctly applied to files even when filenames have been entered with trailing whitespace. I14199
It is possible to save and re-open a comparison workspace that contains a three-way folder-comparison-with-file-comparison. I14228

Download

Version	Build date
2014.4565	18 November 2014

Merge 2014.4531 for Windows 1 September 2014

This is a major new release featuring significant user interface improvements. It includes artwork for high-DPI displays and full support of Windows user interface scaling factors up to 200%. Numerous other enhancements and bug fixes are also included. This is no longer the current release. All users are encouraged to upgrade to the most recent release.

This release is free of charge to all customers with upgrade/support entitlement covering the build date, including everyone who purchased Merge within the year prior to that date.

System requirements

This release is tested and supported on the following platforms:

Windows 8.1 (32-bit and 64-bit)
Windows 7 SP1 (32-bit and 64-bit)

The following platforms are also supported and expected to work, but not routinely tested:

Windows 8 (32-bit and 64-bit)
Windows Server 2012 R2
Windows Server 2012
Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1
Windows Vista SP2 (32-bit and 64-bit) with the Platform Update installed
Windows Server 2008 SP2 with the Platform Update installed

Information As of this release, Merge no longer supports Windows XP or Windows Server 2003. Customers may, of course, continue to use an older version of Merge (2013.4430 or earlier) that works with those platforms.

Information This is likely to be the last release that supports Windows Vista and the closely related Windows Server 2008 SP2.

Enhancements

Merge fully supports Windows user interface scaling factors up to 200%, and suitable new high-resolution artwork is included. This enables Merge to be used comfortably on high-DPI displays. I11374I13881I13999I14041I14043I14044I14054I14057I14058I14061I14069I14070I14076I14091I14094I14100I14103I14106I14115I14132I14133I14136I14138I14150
The ribbon icons, other icons, merging buttons, markers and indicators have been redrawn to provide a modern uncluttered look, as well as to support high-DPI displays. I13881I13999I14019I14128
The merging buttons and the next/previous change buttons have been made visually distinct. I13881
The file comparison and folder comparison instant overviews have been redesigned and are now interactive. I14096
Merge no longer supports the obsolete Windows XP operating system. Dropping support for Windows XP has made it feasible to implement the significant UI enhancements in this release. I14157I14157I14171
The old-style menu and toolbar user interface used on Windows XP has been removed. The documentation has been streamlined accordingly, as it no longer needs to accommodate two different user interfaces. Users migrating from Windows XP are encouraged to review the Making the Most of the Ribbon topic. I14112I14096
The light blue main window background colour used on Windows 7 is more subdued. I13999
New folder comparison Two-way with file comparison and Three-way with file comparison layout options have been added. These split the display horizontally, with a file comparison shown beneath the folder comparison. Click on a row in the folder comparison to compare that row’s files in the file comparison below. (The capability to split a folder comparison was introduced experimentally in the previous release and is now mature.) I14120I14123I14125I14127
The tab strip has been completely redesigned to have minimal visual clutter and to provide more space in tabs to show the names of the files or folders being compared. I14026I14021
Clicking a comparison tab with the middle mouse button now closes the tab. I13996
Pressing Ctrl+Tab or Shift+Ctrl+Tab now cycles through tabs rather than stopping at the last tab or first tab. I14009
The maximum number of items in the tab strip drop-down comparison list menu has been increased from 10 to 20. I14024
Installation without administrator privileges is supported. I14145
The three folder comparison Copy selected ribbon sub-menus have been consolidated into a single menu. I14089
The Layout ribbon group is now the second from the left for all comparison types. This reflects its importance and facilitiates greater UI convergence with future versions of Merge for OS X. I14131
The physical size of the fonts used in comparisons remains consistent when the Windows UI scale factor is changed. (Users upgrading from an older version of Merge may need to edit and save their comparison font size options for this enhancement to take effect.) I13999I14022
The dotted rectangle indicating focus within file and folder comparison panels has been removed. Instead, the border of the focused panel turns blue. This reduces clutter and better matches the visual appearance of filename entry fields on newer versions of Windows. I14027I14108
There is no longer a 1 px wide gap around the contents of each comparison pane when using Windows themes that have a 1 px border width. I14039I14069I14106I14116
The vertical 1 px wide left and right workspace edges have been removed for a better visual appearance on modern versions of Windows, and to match the redesigned tab strip. I14045
When a single line of a text comparison contains text of different sizes, all of the text now aligns to the text baseline. I14065
Edit indicator icons are more visible when bookmark or conflict markers are present on the same lines. I11455
The appearance of the Previous change in pane and Next change in pane buttons beneath the vertical scroll bars has been improved to fit better with Windows 7 and Windows 8 visual themes. I14037
The system icon in the top left-hand corner of the application window has a border at higher Windows UI scale factors. I13687
The appearance of the overview strips has been improved, as has the wording of the associated tooltip. I14056
If a single file or folder is selected in Windows Explorer and the Compare with Araxis Merge context menu command is selected, a two-way comparison opens with the selected file or folder in both panels. This makes it easier to use Windows Explorer to compare a file or folder with an earlier version of itself using the Versions button. I13985
The default linking line colour is fractionally lighter. I14074
The default word-wrapping option is to wrap text by word. I14075
The default text comparison font is Consolas, not Courier New. I14152
The default text comparison whitespace option is to treat consecutive whitespaces as a single space, rather than to ignore all differences in whitespace. The new default is preferable as it is less likely to result in semantically meaningful changes being ignored. I14153
The Applicable Styles list on the Syntax Highlighting options page is sorted alphabetically. This better groups related styles (e.g. the various types of comments for C-like languages). I13951
The git-difftool option --dir-diff is documented in the instructions for integrating Merge with Git. This option opens a folder comparison showing all the changed files. I14034
Instructions have been provided for integrating with the Git Extensions application. I14001
Instructions have been provided for integrating with SourceGear Veracity. I13548
The folder selection dialog for folder comparisons is much more capable. (The Windows OpenFolderDialog API is used rather than the older FolderBrowserDialog.) I13961
The message that appears in a file panel when no file has been loaded is more succinct, and shows for 15 seconds rather than 10. I14016
The text comparison Replace content ribbon menu has been made more analogous to the equivalent items in Merge for OS X. I14090
The folder and text comparison context menus have been streamlined. I14093
The visual consistency of various tooltips has been marginally improved. I14055
The presentation of synchronization links has been improved. I14054
Print previews no longer use old-fashioned 3D-effect borders. I14068
The file/folder printing options header and footer edit controls have a thinner border, better suiting modern versions of Windows. I14040
The tab strip menu disclosure button hover highlighting now uses appropriate theme colours on more recent versions of Windows. I14042
HTML comparison reports now recommend viewing with a modern standards-compliant browser, instead of referencing specific browsers. I13945
The plugin for the obsolete Microsoft Visual SourceSafe version control system has been removed. I14032
When more than one serial number is available in the HKLM and HKCU Windows registry hives, Merge now selects the best one available. The order of preferred precedence is Professional > Standard > Evaluation > Invalid. This precedence remains in force even if the chosen serial number expires. Thus, for example, Merge will not begin using a Standard Edition serial number under HKCU if an expired Professional Edition serial number exists under HKLM. I14051
It is possible to select the position of new tabs via a new registry setting, HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Araxis/Merge/7.0/AddTabsToRight. When this is set to the default value of 0, new tabs are created to the left of all existing tabs in the window. When set to 1, new tabs are added to the right of all existing tabs in the window. I14031
Setting the HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Araxis/Merge/7.0/SimpleSideBySideChanges registry entry to 1 will cause Merge to perform a simple line-by-line text comparison, comparing equivalently numbered lines. Line 1 of the first file is compared with line 1 of the second file, line 2 with line 2, etc. I14004
The two test images provided in the Merge installation directory have been updated to be suitable for high-resolution displays. I14096
The major version number has been updated to 2014, reflecting the year of release. I13943

Defects fixed

When disabled, the Previous change in pane and Next change in pane buttons beneath the scroll bars are now always appropriately drawn. I14038
A trailing ellipsis has been added to the Open saved options… ribbon menu item. I14129
It is again possible to select a range of rows in a folder comparison by holding Ctrl while left-clicking and dragging the mouse. I13946
New top-level windows may be opened using the ribbon interface. I14105
The integration instructions for the Cygwin variant of Git have been modified to avoid a name clash. I14050
The Save Modified Files dialog has been given a minimum height. I14053
Saved comparisons preserve whether a comparison was three-way or two-way. I14104
The Help button of the Go To Offset dialog window now shows the correct help page. I14137
The Go to offset ribbon button is appropriately disabled when the binary comparison panel with focus does not have a loaded file. I14151
The gaps to the left and right of the status bar information icon are no longer uneven. I14154
The status bar prompt for the text comparison context menu Cut item has been corrected. I14113
Status bar prompt text has been provided for the text comparison context menu Reopen Nth File with Encoding… item. I14114

Download

Version	Build date
2014.4531	27 August 2014

2013 releases

Merge 2013.4430 for Windows 13 December 2013

This release features a range of enhancements and addresses a few defects. This is no longer the current release. All users are encouraged to upgrade to the most recent release.

System requirements

This release is tested and supported on the following platforms:

Windows 8.1 (32-bit and 64-bit)
Windows 7 SP1 (32-bit and 64-bit)
Windows XP Professional SP3 (32-bit)

The following platforms are also supported and expected to work, but not routinely tested:

Windows 8 (32-bit and 64-bit)
Windows Vista SP2 (32-bit and 64-bit)
Windows Server 2012 R2
Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1
Windows Server 2003 R2 SP2 (requires the MSXML 6 update from Microsoft)

Enhancements

Integration instructions have been provided for TortoiseGit. I13864
The documentation has been completely overhauled to make it easier to read and navigate. It now resides primarily on the Araxis website, resulting in smaller download sizes and reduced disk space requirements, as well as facilitating enhanced searching and updates in-between product releases. I13801
XML reformatting performance has been significantly improved for certain large XML files (the test case was comparing files of 280,000 lines). I13808
When byte-by-byte comparisons are performed in folder comparisons, the count of changes shown for changed file pairs is ≥1 rather than 1. I13724
The performance of detecting character encoding in Windows resource (.rc) files has been improved. I13827
For text comparisons, the comparison engine will now load and begin processing (up to) all three files concurrently to improve comparison performance on multiprocessor machines. I13829
A SaveWorkspace method has been added to the Application Automation object. I13924
Line continuation indicators (shown when line-wrapping is off and a line is too long to be displayed in its entirety) are now drawn at a lower position on the line. I13707
Default filenames are no longer assigned to file comparison panels when typing or pasting text into an empty panel. This means that a dialog will prompt for the save destination and filename if the file panel is saved. I13763I13922
The documentation for the Credentials options page has been clarified. I13879
The Configuring a Windows Paging File topic has been updated for Windows 8 and Windows 8.1. I13764
The Enabling 3 GB of memory for 32-bit Merge on 32-bit Windows topic has been updated for Windows 8 and Windows 8.1. I13765
The redundant Help button on the Print Setup dialog has been removed. I13823
The About dialog uses the new Araxis logo. I13759
The Boost library has been upgraded to v1.54.0. I13804

Defects fixed

Merge no longer crashes when a text file is dropped on to the left file panel of an image comparison. I13778
Merge no longer freezes when comparing a non-existent folder from the command line using compare.exe. I12663
Merge no longer fails in certain circumstances to show the Save Modified Files dialog on quitting. I13918

Download

Version	Build date
2013.4430	11 December 2013

Merge 2013.4377 for Windows 1 August 2013

This release features a range of enhancements and addresses several defects. This is no longer the current release. All users are encouraged to upgrade to the most recent release.

System requirements

This release is tested and supported on the following platforms:

Windows 8 (32-bit and 64-bit)
Windows 7 SP1 (32-bit and 64-bit)
Windows XP Professional SP3 (32-bit)

The following platforms are also supported and expected to work, but not routinely tested:

Windows Vista SP2 (32-bit and 64-bit)
Windows Server 2012
Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1
Windows Server 2003 R2 SP2 (requires the MSXML 6 update from Microsoft)

Enhancements

The automatic detection of character encoding in UTF-8 without a byte-order mark has has been improved. I13682
Syntax highlighting performance has been greatly improved for text files containing extremely long lines (in the MB range). I13600
Comparison performance has been improved for large text files. I13629
Folder comparison performance has been improved. I13628
The performance of pasting large amounts of text in a text comparison has been drastically improved. I13355
XML reformatting performance has been significantly improved for very large XML files. I13586
The Registration dialog now has a checkbox to set the serial number for all user accounts on the machine. Previously, this could only be done by editing the Windows registry. I13569
The Application options page now has a checkbox to enable periodic snapshots to be turned on and off more conveniently. I13571
Merge now treats Unicode character U+3000 (IDEOGRAPHIC SPACE) as whitespace for the purposes of ignoring or consolidating whitespace. I13644
The Git plugin now works with new installations of msysGit release Git-1.7.11-preview20120620 and later. I13726
The Integrating with Source Control, Configuration Management, and Other Applications topic has been updated with instructions for integrating with IntelliJ IDEA. I13664
The Integrating with Source Control, Configuration Management, and Other Applications topic has been updated for latest version of WinCVS. I13660
The folder comparison filter examples have been updated. I12368
It is now possible to print only the filename (without the path) in the page header when printing a comparison. I13626
When the AutomationIgnoreAllErrors registry key is set to 1, errors requiring manual intervention are supressed in folder comparisons launched using the Automation API. I13636
The included the Oracle Java Runtime Environment has been updated to version 1.7. I13555I13597
Minor improvements have been made to the online help. I13686I13649I13679

Defects fixed

A crash has been fixed that could sometimes occur when clicking the Show Overview button on the first launch after a clean install. I13576
A rare problem with regular expressions has been fixed that could lead to a crash when a merging button was clicked. I13591
The text baseline in the Registration dialog fields have been aligned with corresponding field labels. I13580
Horizontal scrolling in empty image and binary comparison panels has been disabled. I13584I13593
Merge now shows (via the Versions button) earlier revisions of Subversion files, even if they are from other branches. This is at the expense of showing previous revisions of deleted files. I13582
The Versions button is now enabled and works correctly for files and folders that are local working copies of Subversion repository files/folders when checked out using either the file://, http:// or https:// protocols. I13653
The icon caching thread no longer deadlocks during application shutdown. I13630
A small dark grey rectangle no longer appears in status bar of folder comparisons. I13590

Download

Version	Build date
2013.4377	23 July 2013

Merge 2013.4296 for Windows 30 January 2013

This release features minor enhancements and addresses several defects. This is no longer the current release. All users are encouraged to upgrade to the most recent release.

System requirements

This release is tested and supported on the following platforms:

Windows 8 (32-bit and 64-bit)
Windows 7 SP1 (32-bit and 64-bit)
Windows XP Professional SP3 (32-bit)

The following platforms are also supported and expected to work, but not routinely tested:

Windows Vista SP2 (32-bit and 64-bit)
Windows Server 2012
Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1
Windows Server 2003 R2 SP2 (requires the MSXML 6 update from Microsoft)

Enhancements

In the .NET assembly, it is possible to monitor the progress of comparisons using the new ProgressChanged event. For more information, see the Introduction to the .NET Assembly (Deprecated). I13543
The amount of memory that can be used by the file comparison filters for Microsoft Office documents has been increased from 256 MB to 512 MB. This allows larger Microsoft Office documents to be compared without receiving out of memory errors. Please contact Araxis for assistance if you still encounter out of memory errors when comparing large Microsoft Office documents. I13551
Minor improvements have been made to the online help. I13537I13397
The major version number has been updated to 2013, reflecting the year of release. I13540

Defects fixed

Merge no longer crashes on Windows 8 when the application is launched by opening a saved comparison file and then choosing to load options. I13547
Merge no longer crashes when opening images using the consolecompare utility with a /readonly flag. I13550
When running a filter program, Merge now closes the handle to its input file before the filter program is started. This enables third-party filters to be used even if they need to open the input file with exclusive access. I13501
Pipes may now be used within filter programs. I13506
A crash that could occur when closing the main application window has been fixed. I13509

Download

Version	Build date
2013.4296	25 January 2013

2012 releases

Merge 2012.4260 for Windows 12 November 2012

This release features full support for Windows 8, introduces a .NET assembly, and provides access to versions of files and folders stored by Windows restore points. Other minor enhancements and fixes are also included. This is no longer the current release. All users are encouraged to upgrade to the most recent release.

System requirements

This release is tested and supported on the following platforms:

Windows 8 (32-bit and 64-bit)
Windows 7 SP1 (32-bit and 64-bit)
Windows XP Professional SP3 (32-bit)

The following platforms are also supported and expected to work, but not routinely tested:

Windows Vista SP2 (32-bit and 64-bit)
Windows Server 2012
Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1
Windows Server 2003 R2 SP2 (requires the MSXML 6 update from Microsoft)

Enhancements

Merge is fully tested and supported on Windows 8. I13371
A .NET assembly is included to provide certain text comparison services conveniently to .NET applications. For more information, see the Introduction to the .NET Assembly (Deprecated). I13296I13420I13433I13409
The End-User Licence Agreement for Araxis Merge Software has been updated to add specific provision for Merge to be deployed as a component of a server application that provides services to multiple users. This may be of interest to customers using Merge in their server-based applications via the Automation API or .NET assembly. In summary, deployment as a server component requires the purchase of two Merge licences rather than the one needed for normal desktop use, though you are referred to the full EULA for the definitive terms. I13296
Access to files and folders stored by system restore points is now possible via the Versions button. A snapshot service is also provided to create additional scheduled restore points. For more information, see Accessing Versions Stored by Windows System Protection. (Note that the documentation for this feature on this website is more recent than that included with the product.) I13374I13493
Various minor improvements have been made to the documentation. I13375I13287
For the benefit of visually impaired users, appropriate system colours are used when a high contrast Windows theme is selected. It may be necessary for users to reconfigure alternative text colours within Merge when certain high contrast themes are used. I11647
When scrolling, mouse wheel acceleration is supported. I9648
More detailed error messages are shown in certain circumstances when the FTP plugin encounters problems. I13477
Serial numbers with support expiry dates after 2017 are supported. I12559

Defects fixed

The araxissvnmerge.exe command-line utility has been corrected to address problems encountered by some customers using Merge to resolve Subversion conflicts. I13293
A three-way file comparison is no longer launched from a two-way folder comparison if a three-way folder comparison had been open previously. I13256
A saved two-way comparison reopens with two comparison panes, not three. I11547
It is possible to access a Perforce server using Windows or LDAP authentication without configuring a username or password in Merge. I13408
The Automation API ComparisonResult property returns the correct result for binary comparisons where the files are identical. I13279
A change to Options…▸Application▸Show file versions from SCM systems setting is now reflected immediately when applied, rather than requiring a restart. I13353

Download

Version	Build date
2012.4260	30 October 2012

Merge 2012.4198 for Windows 29 May 2012

This release featured minor enhancements and fixes. This is no longer the current release. All users are encouraged to upgrade to the most recent release.

Information This release requires a serial number with a support expiry date of 2018-12-31 or earlier. (Serial numbers with a later support expiry date work with Merge 2012.4260 for Windows and newer.) Please therefore contact Araxis if you have a need to use this release and your serial number has a support expiry date of 2019-01-01 or later.

Enhancements

The icon on each comparison tab now turns into a close button when the mouse pointer is over the tab, as it does in the OS X version of Merge. I11689
Following a folder comparison automatic merge operation, Merge no longer gives warnings about non-text files that could not be merged if it had indicated prior to the merge that they would be skipped. I13194
File and folders are no longer added to the comparison history if they were located in the temporary files directory. I13161
Memory handling has been optimized even further. This should help with performance, especially with large comparisons. I13225
Merge is now able to access 3GB of RAM on 32-bit versions of Windows. I13221
A new FAQ has been added, How can I increase the amount of memory that Merge can use for large file and folder comparisons? I13223
Merge better handles many out-of-memory conditions. I13222I13224

Defects fixed

The … have been restored to the browse button in the Run Program dialog. I13120
In the classic toolbar-style user interface, a problem with changing filters in a folder comparison using the toolbar drop-down has been resolved. I13237
The type definition for IComparison* in the Automation API now references a valid help topic. I13206
Ctrl+Z works within comparison filename entry fields. I11451
HTML reports no longer show the number of omitted unchanged lines if the Show number of omitted unchanged lines option is unchecked. I12268
The tooltips for merging buttons now display correctly with Aero in Windows 7. I12393
If the content of the Size & Time column in a folder comparison is too wide to fit into its column, it is now shortened with an ellipsis, rather than simply being truncated in a potentially misleading way. I12914
Crash reports are generated correctly on 64-bit versions of Windows. I13213
Merge now comes to the fore when launched from Windows Explorer using the Compare with Araxis Merge context menu item on Windows 7. I13124
Merge copes gracefully when the Windows CopyFileEx function fails to copy files over a network where one of the folders is encrypted. I13116
The object returned by the Automation API TextComparison.ThreeWayMergeActions property now works correctly. I13159
Comparison tabs no longer become very narrow when content is typed directly into a text comparison. I13186
The display format for binary comparisons persists when changing one of the files being compared. I12975
In a binary comparison, it is now possible to reload a file that has been modified outside Merge. I12977

Download

Version	Build date
2012.4198	18 May 2012

Merge 2012.4162 for Windows 8 February 2012

This release featured direct access to Git and Mercurial repositories, an in-process Automation server, and several other enhancements and fixes. This is no longer the current release. All users are encouraged to upgrade to the most recent release.

Enhancements

Merge is able to access files directly from Git and Mercurial repositories. For more information, please see the integration instructions for Git and Mercurial. I13015
Merge offers an in-process Automation server. This capability will be of interest to those using Merge from server based applications such as those hosted by Internet Information Server. I13082
The folder comparison option Gather line count statistics for inserted and removed files is off by default. I11874
The Use filter program in folder comparisons option has been moved to the Folder Comparisons options page. I11875
The Additional Registration Details section of the registration dialog has been removed. I12177
The major version number has been updated to 2012, reflecting the year of release. I13040

Defects fixed

The Include only pages that contain changes option in the Print dialog now correctly omits pages that only contain lines ignored by matching by regular expressions. I13057
When unsaved changes have been made to files in a comparison, a manual recompare now prompts to save the files. I12913
In image comparisons, Ctrl+F4 will close the comparison, not the whole application. I12424
Two broken external links have been corrected in the online help. I12932I12966
An inappropriate error message pertaining to Perforce is no longer shown in certain circumstances when endeavouring to view a file in a Subversion repository. I12943
Content no longer appears more than once in the centre panel of a three-way binary file comparison. I13092

Download

Version	Build date
2012.4162	7 February 2012

2011 releases

Merge 2011.4074 for Windows 5 October 2011

This release featured significantly enhanced access to certain SCM systems, along with many other enhancements and fixes. This is no longer the current release. All users are encouraged to upgrade to the most recent release.

Enhancements

A new Versions button provides convenient access to other versions of a file or folder stored in Perforce, Subversion and Visual SourceSafe repositories. See the updated Comparing Text Files (or Typed/Pasted Text) topic for further details. I12237I12258I12261I12262I12284I12694I12705I12699I12878I12244I12877I12892I12895I12260I12271I12900
Merge now has a single options page for storing all credentials for accessing SCM and FTP servers. This replaces the ad hoc dialogs that used to pop up when Merge needed login information. I12696I12695I12700I12701I12702I12703
The command-line Compare.exe and ConsoleCompare.exe utilities now have an option to close comparisons automatically if there are no changes between the compared files. For more information, see the Command-Line Reference. I12817I12851
Ctrl+A now works to select all the text in the filename and folder name entry fields. I12078
The start-up splash screen has been removed. This should result in Merge starting more quickly. I12255
The file patterns on the File Types options page now allow a literal filename with no wildcard to be specified. I12371
An option, Include ‘Compare with Araxis Merge’ in Explorer menus, has been added to the Application options page. This provides a way to turn off Windows Explorer context menu integration. I12496
The Frequently Asked Questions list has been updated with an entry, ‘How can I stop Merge from freezing when I right-click a file or folder comparison panel?’ I12498
The error message that is shown when p4.exe is unavailable for use by the Perforce plugin is now more helpful. I12697
Instructions for integrating Merge with the Cygwin version of Mercurial are now provided. I12819
The integration instructions for Visual Studio Team Foundation have been improved. I12832
The integration instructions for Mercurial now document the reason for using the /wait argument to ConsoleCompare.exe. I12666
The Visual SourceSafe topic now includes system requirements. I12860
The SCM integration instructions no longer reference the obsolete Visual Enabler Blue product. I12210
The SCM integration instructions have been updated to replace the entries for CM Synergy and Continuus with one for IBM Rational Synergy. I12212
The instructions for integrating Merge with ClearCase have been updated to reference a customer-contributed ClearCase/Merge integration application. I12332
The URI-based file open dialog that appeared in certain situations has been removed, since it provided little benefit over simply typing a URI into a filename or folder name entry field. I12259
Merge now uses v1.45 of the Boost library. The legal notices have been updated accordingly with the new version number. I12303I12293
The trademarks section of the legal notices has been updated. I12296
The Legal Notices topic now references the Oracle JDK licence, not the Sun one. I12516
The Merge major version has been updated to 2011, and copyright dates extended accordingly. I11526

Changes

Merge no longer includes French, German and Spanish localizations. Full Japanese and English localizations continue to be provided. Customers desiring to use a French, German or Spanish localized version of Merge can continue to use the Merge 2010.3947 release. I12495

Defects fixed

The Maximize application on startup setting is no longer ignored when Merge is launched from Windows Explorer. I9141
It is now possible to choose the Hide/reveal button on the ribbon to reveal the associated drop-down menu when everything has been hidden. I12217
Very long lines of text (> 8,000 characters) no longer appear as blank lines. I12222
When performing an automatic folder merge operation that copies a file into the common ancestor where that file did not previously exist, Merge now preserves the character encoding of the copied file. I12235
Merge now displays very long lines correctly (such as those in Microsoft Developer Studio project files) when using the scroll bar thumb/scroller. I12443
It is now possible to view previous revisions of deleted files in a Subversion repository using the Subversion plugin. I12627
The filename entry field on file comparisons no longer flickers under VMware Fusion after each character is typed. I12698
The two A double-click on a folder row: fields on the Launch Behaviour options page now have correct indentation and capitalization. I12704
Synchronization links are now reset appropriately when swapping first and third files in a file comparison. I12706
The mouse is no longer inappropriately captured (resulting in unwanted selections) when a click in an inactive Merge file panel causes a message box to appear. I12818
An error message is now shown when an attempt is made to use the Perforce plugin to access a file that does not exist. I12857
In a binary comparison, after swapping an empty panel with a panel showing file content, the error message about failing to open a file is now shown in the correct (empty) panel. I12868
The Launch topic has been corrected to remove a reference to an option that no longer exists. I12209
The FolderComparisonReportDifferences.cs Automation API sample script is no longer double-spaced. I12391
Commands in the ribbon should now always be updated correctly when Merge first opens. I12413
Merge now correctly copies timestamps when transferring files from a remote FTP server. I12449
Print previews of binary comparisons now work. I12899
The links to the WinCvs website in the SCM integration instructions have been updated. I12213
The ConfigLong Enumeration topic has been updated to include the numbers associated with the clShowUnchanged constant. I12365
A localizable string used in HTML reports has been moved to MgReportLocalized.xslt from MgFileRowData.xslt. This should not affect functionality. I12265

Download

Version	Build date
2011.4074	3 October 2011

2010 releases

Merge 2010.3954 for Windows 28 October 2010

This release brought the Japanese localization of Merge 2010 up to date with the English, German, French and Spanish-language release. This is no longer the current release. All users are encouraged to upgrade to the most recent release.

Enhancements

The Japanese localization of the user interface and online-help has been brought up to date. I12215
The documentation for integrating with the Git SCM system is now more consistent between the two supported Git variants. I12161

Defects fixed

A typographical error has been fixed in the English regular expression reference help topic. I12164

Merge 2010.3947 for Windows 12 October 2010

This release of Merge features a number of significant enhancements and incorporates several bug fixes. This is no longer the current release. All users are encouraged to upgrade to the most recent release.

Enhancements

New French, German and Spanish UI localizations. The online help is available in English and, in the Japanese localization of Merge, Japanese. I11981
Custom syntax highlighting can now be defined for types of files not already recognized by Merge (Options…▸Text Comparisons▸Syntax Highlighting▸Edit Generic…). I11712I11968
The text extraction filter for Microsoft Excel spreadsheets is vastly improved. In particular, numeric cells should now have the correct number formatting applied to them. I11851I12016I11926
The PDF filter can now extract text from most Japanese-language PDFs. Other formerly problematic PDFs (such as those created by Documaker) are also much more likely to work. I10480I11246
Instructions are now provided for integrating Merge with the Subversive plugin for Eclipse. I12051
The instructions for integrating Merge with Git have been rewritten to include a new, simpler method of configuring Merge as the external comparison and merging tool. I11943
The Git, Mercurial, Subversion and TortoiseHg integration instructions have been updated and/or corrected. I11782I11702I11720I12017I12042
Instead of the (easily-missed) system tray notification icon, Merge for Windows now notifies users of important messages using a popup notification window, in a similar way to Merge for Mac OS X. I11980I12056
The serial number support expiry notification will now appear briefly whenever the application starts, until it is expressly dismissed. Previously, it appeared only once every 30 days and was therefore easy to miss. I12060
The filename of the temporary input file that is passed to an external filter program now has the same extension as the original file. This makes it easier for external filter programs to change their behaviour based on the extension of the file Merge is comparing. I11694
An option has been added for Merge to not heed #pragma code_page directives in compared text files. I11787
The Excel text filter is now able to extract text from Excel 97 files created by Vignet. I11833
The Merge for Windows application and document icons have been updated to the new Araxis product family style. I11881
A new FAQ item has been added describing various ways to speed up folder comparisons. I11842
The Java Runtime Environment (JRE) included with Merge has been updated to a more recent version. I12019
Various minor improvements have been made to the online help. I11828I11998I12067I11655

Defects fixed

In a three-way folder comparison automatic merge operation, Merge now deletes the common ancestor file if there are no changes in 1st and 2nd files and the 3rd file has been deleted. I11704
In a three-way folder comparison automatic merge operation, a folder comparison conflict is now flagged when a file in the middle panel is not present in one of the other panels and is changed in the other. I11958
The html2TextFilter file filter is now able to extract text from XHTML documents. I11832
The Select rows▸Selected changed command (Edit▸Select Changed Rows in the old-style user interface) no longer selects inserted and removed rows. I11960
A warning message is now displayed in formatted XML files where whitespace at the end of lines has been ignored. I11703
The C# and other Automation API samples included with Merge have been retested and a variety of problems addressed. I12100I12101
Outdated references to the FileComparison object in the Automation API documentation have been corrected to refer to the TextComparison object. I12084
Merge should no longer give a ‘Unable to cast COM object of type…’ error with .NET client applications using the Automation API. I12125
The documentation and the ribbon tooltip now agree concerning the keyboard shortcut for Hide Empty Folders menu item in the old-style user interface. I12063
When launching a three-way comparison managed by Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2010 from Visual Studio 2010, it is now possible re-compare the files as a different type (text, binary, image). I12114

Merge 2010.3837 for Windows 1 March 2010

This was the first Japanese localization of Merge 2010. This is no longer the current release. All users are encouraged to upgrade to the most recent release.

Enhancements

The user interface and online-help have been fully-localized into Japanese. I11670
The timestamp on HTML reports is now shown in the local timezone, not UTC. I11673

Defects fixed

A redundant Comparison statistics button has been removed from the old-style toolbar user interface. I11622

Merge 2010.3829 for Windows 25 January 2010

This was a major new release of Merge, featuring a significant user interface overhaul. The user-interface and help were available only in English. This is no longer the current release. All users are encouraged to upgrade to the most recent release.

Enhancements

New UI on modern versions of Windows. On Windows 7, and Windows Vista with the Platform Update installed, Merge now uses the native Windows Ribbon user interface pioneered by Microsoft Office 2007 and adopted by Windows 7. The ribbon generally makes it easier to discover and use Merge features than the old-style traditional menus and toolbars. For essential further information, please see Making the Most of the Ribbon. I11230I11354I11356I11359I11372I11412I11445I11473I11519I11540I11204I11362I11477I11371I11353I11241I11352
Enhanced UI on older versions of Windows. On older versions of Windows, Merge continues to provide the traditional menu and toolbar user interface. The menus and toolbars have been reworked and improved. There are now just two toolbars (rather than the previous three), and more actions are directly available from them than before. The toolbar icons have been re-drawn in a more modern style to bring them into line with the new Ribbon user interface. As well as making Merge easier to use, these changes collectively make the transition from the old-style toolbar UI to the new-style Windows Ribbon interface less severe. I11204I11358I11559I11038I11545I11546I11390I11147I8615
Streamlined setup packages. The Merge setup packages have been streamlined to avoid confusion and drop those that are no longer necessary or relevant. Only the Microsoft Software Installer .msi setup packages are now distributed. Installation instructions have been revised accordingly. I11508
New installations of Merge for Windows and Mac OS X now use similar highlight colours by default. I11465
Various incidental icons and other artwork used by Merge have been re-drawn. I11478I11495
Merge now has the ability to save a workspace consisting of multiple open file comparisons to a single file. I10335
More information is now passed to external file filter programs. For more information, see Edit File Type. I11164
Merge now passes the original filename to a third-party filter program when the file is on the local file system. I10917
The Java Runtime Environment that comes with Merge (used by Merge file filters) has been updated to avoid a benign warning given by certain third-party security screening tools. I11175
An FAQ item about .pptx files has been added. I11023
An FAQ item describing the limitations of the text extraction filters for Excel files has been written. I11099
Following customer feedback, the Ctrl+Tab and Ctrl+Shift+Tab keyboard shortcuts that cycle between tabs have been reinstated. I11077
The hint in the file history menus (that Ctrl may be held down to fill in fields on other panes) now appears for longer on new installations of Merge. I11493
The Merge major version has been updated to 2010, and copyright dates extended accordingly. I11526
The seldom-used (or noticed) context help for dialog controls has been removed. The relevant information is still provided in the help topic for each dialog page. I11564
It is no longer possible to hide the status bar, tab panel or merging buttons. These legacy options were no longer relevant for current Merge usage. I11505
It is now possible for Merge to be instructed to ignore corrupted locales on a customer’s machine. I11389

Defects fixed

The folder comparison command File▸Print Selection now works again. I11189
In the old-style toolbar UI, the Window menu now has horizontal comparison layout items when an image comparison is selected. I11199
The default width for the three-way folder comparison window Changes column header is now more appropriate on Windows 7. I11203
Double clicking on a row in a folder comparison the second or subsequent time now returns you to the file comparison tab already open for that row. I11218
The text extraction filters have been modified to head-off a potential problem. I11399
Merge no longer has a double border above the status bar on Windows 7. I11425
A problem whereby a single synchronization link could gain three (or more) heads has been resolved. I11449
Merge will no longer freeze when right-clicking on a file called by a particular customer’s custom filter program that performed its own DDE conversation. I10921
The Automation API Print method now respects the clPrintToFile option when asked to print without a print dialog being shown to the user. I11539
The Merge icon is now displayed in the Uninstall or change a program section of the control panel on Windows 7. I11558
An outdated external link in the Regular Expression Reference has been fixed. I11170
A benign error regarding OpenMP, logged in the system Event log, has been resolved. I11583
The Ctrl+Q keyboard shortcut now works. I11213
A potential crash/assertion can no longer occur when a comparison that has been opened with the Automation API closes. I11404
When running an evaluation version of Merge, the evaluation dialog will now appear even if Merge is launched from the command-line, Windows Explorer, or via the Automation API. I11171
The evaluation dialog for evaluation versions of Merge now appears on top of the main window upon application launch, not behind it. I11159
Merging inserted or removed lines at the bottom of a file is now possible using keyboard shortcuts. I11098
It is no longer possible for a two-way folder comparison with panel titles, started via the Automation API, to lose the third title when it is switched to three-way mode. I11557
A broken link within the ClearCase SCM integration instructions has been removed. I11320
A mark in the overview strip for the left file will now be shown for a deletion at the very end of that file. I11060
There should now be consistency within the Merge documentation with regard to the hyphenation of ‘command-line’. I11463
The support expiry reminder in the notification area of the Windows task bar now only appears every thirty days. I11578

2009 releases

Merge 2009.3713 for Windows 18 May 2009

This was a previous production-quality release of Merge, fully localized into Japanese, French, German and Spanish. This is no longer the current release. All users are encouraged to upgrade to the most recent release.

Defects fixed

The keyboard shortcuts topic has been amended to reflect the removal of the Ctrl+Tab and Ctrl+Shift+Tab shortcuts. These shortcuts were replaced by standard Windows alternatives in an earlier release. I11011
Merge no longer opens a new text comparison on start-up if the option to do so is unchecked. I11009
Merge will now correctly show all merging buttons when a regular expression is enabled that forces lines into the unchanged state and the option to break changes into individual lines is enabled. I11007
Merge will no longer crash when performing a merging operation on certain files when a regular expression is enabled that forces lines into the unchanged state and the option to break changes into individual lines is enabled. I11006

Merge 2009.3705 for Windows 1 May 2009

This release incorporated a number of enhancements and stability improvements. This is no longer the current release. All users are encouraged to upgrade to the most recent release.

Enhancements

A wealth of Automation API programming examples is now provided with Merge, located in the AutomationSamples directory within the Merge installation directory. Many of the examples perform valuable tasks; others will give you ideas for how you could use Merge to provide solutions for your own environment. For more information, see Introduction to the Automation API. I8714I10850I10851I10684
Integration with the Git version control system is now supported via two supplied additional command-line utilitles, araxisgitdiff and araxisgitmerge. For integration instructions, see Integrating with Source Control, Configuration Management, and Other Applications. I10774I10795I10988I10989
Instructions for integrating Merge with the Mercurial version control system are now provided in the Integrating with Source Control, Configuration Management, and Other Applications topic. I10776I10993
Instructions for integrating Merge with TortoiseHg front-end to Mercurial are now provided in the Integrating with Source Control, Configuration Management, and Other Applications topic. I10949
Instructions for integrating Merge with SourceGear Vault version control system are now provided in the Integrating with Source Control, Configuration Management, and Other Applications topic. I8667
Information on integrating with Seapine Surround SCM is now provided in the Integrating with Source Control, Configuration Management, and Other Applications topic. I10144
Instructions for integrating Merge with AccuRev are now provided in the Integrating with Source Control, Configuration Management, and Other Applications topic. I10598
The Automation API documentation now provides the numeric values for symbolic enumeration constants wherever they are relevant. I10933
The documentation for the NumberOfChanges method on the ImageComparison object now explains what is being counted. I10934
An FAQ item on how to speed up comparisons of large files has been added. I10860
The Comparing Text Files (or Typed/Pasted Text) topic has been updated to mention support for the syntax highlighting of Visual Dataflex files. I10763
It is now possible to specify explicitly a character encoding to use when comparing files with the Automation API. See the CompareAsyncWithEncoding and CompareWithEncoding methods in the TextComparison Object topic. I10910
The way that Merge handles multiple windows in tabs has been improved. I10780I10790I10848I10849I10887I10899
The Folder Comparisons page in the Options dialog has a new option, Gather line count statistics for inserted and removed files. Unchecking this option can significantly speed-up folder comparisons, at the expense of losing line count statistics for inserted and removed files. I10900I10906
The major version number of Merge has been changed to 2009, to reflect the year of release. I10711I10866
Various minor improvements to the online help have been made. I10459I10545I10654I10680I10745I10801I10836I10935I10969I10953
The Japanese-language help has been brought up to date. I10928
This release of Merge has been tested on the Windows 7 beta. Please report any problems you encounter when using Merge on pre-release versions of Windows 7. I10779
When double-clicking a word to highlight it, Merge will now include numbers in the set of characters that it considers to make up an individual word. This means, for example, that you can double-click to select a variable with a name such as ‘m_fAutoCMD12Success’. Previously, Merge would have selected only ‘m_fAutoCMD’ portion of the name. I9188

Defects fixed

A ‘side-by-side configuration incorrect’ error that occurred when Merge was launched in certain circumstances has been fixed. I10886
A crash when performing a folder comparison Merge to Common Ancestor action has been fixed. I10898
A potential cause of premature support expiry has been eliminated. I10865
Bookmarks in a folder comparison that contain carriage return characters now display correctly when Merge is runnding under VMWare. I10916
The overview strip is now correctly placed when launching Merge from compare.exe. I10508
In a folder comparison, Merge no longer inappropriately copies the contents of excluded folders. I10384
Merge now displays a friendly error message if a user tries to save a file in an unsupported format, such as a Microsoft Office document. I10630
A work-around for the merging buttons not always reverting back to their double-arrow state under VMWare has been fixed. I10913

2008 releases

Merge 2008.3626 for Windows 11 November 2008

This was a previous production-quality release of Merge 2008. This is no longer the current release. All users are encouraged to upgrade to the most recent release.

Enhancements

The Japanese user interface and online help has been updated to bring it into line with the English equivalents. I10546
Merge now supports syntax highlighting for Visual DataFlex source files. I10521
The handling of filename extensions has been improved in file save dialogs so that the filename’s extension is changed appropriately if a different file type is selected. This makes it much less likely that a file will be saved with an inappropriate extension. I9375
The Text Comparisons page in the Options dialog has been made easier to use. Specifically, individual whitespace settings are now disabled when the Ignore all differences in whitespace setting is checked. I9954
By default, filenames with the .xsl extension are included in the list of file types handled by the XML/XHTML filter. I10470
The Windows Explorer Queue for Comparison context menu item is now disabled if the Merge comparison queue has already been filled. This makes the operation of the Merge integration with Windows Explorer somewhat easier to understand. I10089
The detection of character encoding based on <?xml …> XML processing directives within files has been improved so that Merge will only use such a directive if it is the first non-whitespace content within a file. I10514
The Comparing Text Files (or Typed/Pasted Text) help topic has been updated to mention that password-protected documents can’t be processed by the text extraction filters. I10481
Merge is now able to handle the situation where an FTP server reports an incorrect error code in response to Merge attempting to create a folder that already exists. This makes Merge more robust in dealing with certain FTP servers. I10530
The performance of the filters used to extract text content from Microsoft Excel and Word documents has, potentially, been improved. I10566

Defects fixed

Merge no longer crashes if a merging button is used immediately after adding a synchronization link. I10505
HTML comparison reports now work when literal tab characters are present in regular expressions set in the Expressions page of the Options dialog. Previously, such characters were not being handled correctly, resulting in an error when HTML reports were created. I10485
The About dialog now correctly reflects any change in the product edition (Standard or Professional) after a new serial number has been entered in the Registration dialog. Previously, changing the product edition in this way was only reflected in the About dialog once it had been closed and re-opened. I10088

Merge 2008.3581 for Windows 4 September 2008

This was a previous production-quality release of Merge 2008. This is no longer the current release. All users are encouraged to upgrade to the most recent release.

Enhancements

Although it is useful for Merge to be able to extract and compare the text from proprietary formats such as Microsoft Word, using these text extraction filters when comparing files in a folder comparison can significantly slow down the comparison. A new setting, Use filter programs in folder comparisons has therefore been added to the File Comparisons▸File Types page of the Options dialog. I10449
The information regarding FTP in the FAQ has been improved. I10428

Defects fixed

A problem has been fixed that sometimes caused the text extraction filter for Microsoft Word documents to fail with the error code 0x80004005. I10438
The Microsoft Excel .xlsx text extraction filter has been fixed so that it can handle certain spreadsheets that it previously could not read. I10443

Merge 2008.3569 for Windows 13 August 2008

This was a previous production-quality release of Merge 2008 for 32-bit platforms. This is no longer the current release. All users are encouraged to upgrade to the most recent release.

Enhancements

Merge now supports file filters to extract the content from from certain common types of files when they are loaded. This means, for example, that you can drag and drop a pair of Microsoft Word documents on to a Merge text comparison window and have the text comparison automatically extract and compare the text from those documents. For more information, please see Comparing Text Files (or Typed/Pasted Text). I10155
The ability to format the display of XML and XHTML files (without changing the underlying text) in text comparisons has been added. This enables some XML files to be compared more easily. Please see Comparing Text Files (or Typed/Pasted Text) for more information. I8754I10279
Support for integration with a future release of Ketura has been added. I10337

Defects fixed

Descriptions of the Search size and other controls for binary comparisons have been added to the online help. I10232
Merge now identifies CR line endings (Mac Classic) and LF line endings (Unix and Modern Mac) as different (unless the option to ignore line ending differences is in effect). I10259
Performing a Merge operation immediately after deleting an unchanged line no longer causes problems. I10266
Merge now reports an error when attempting to reload an externally modified file that can no longer be read. I10065
Merge no longer crashes when a folder comparison is performed when there are no folder comparison filter schemes. I10099
When invoking Merge using the Automation API or command-line, Merge now uses the correct tab titles even when a file comparison completes before the main Merge window appears. I10345
The Automation API ThreeWayMerge method is now documented for the TextComparison Object. I9657
The spelling of ‘Comment’ has been corrected in the syntax highlighting drop-down for C-like languages. I9688
File items provided by the AllChange VFS plugin are no longer inappropriately filtered out. I10127
The English version of Merge no longer terminates silently when running under the French version of Windows Vista. I10236

Merge 2008.3492 for Windows 11 April 2008

This was a previous production-quality release of Merge 2008. This is no longer the current release. All users are encouraged to upgrade to the most recent release.

Enhancements

Merge now comes with utilities for integrating with the Subversion command-line. Instructions are available in the Integrating with Source Control, Configuration Management, and Other Applications topic. I9528I9303
The Subversion VFS plugin has been enhanced to support all relevant svn protocols, not just svn. I9596I9503
The Integrating with Source Control, Configuration Management, and Other Applications topic now contains instructions on using Merge with the latest versions of Perforce P4V, as well as older versions. I9940
The Integrating with Source Control, Configuration Management, and Other Applications topic has been updated with full instructions for integrating Merge with Subversion. I9291I9487
Instructions for integrating Merge with Subclipse have been added to the Integrating with Source Control, Configuration Management, and Other Applications topic. TortoiseSVN integration instructions have also been revised. I9464
The Integrating with Source Control, Configuration Management, and Other Applications topic now contains information on integrating with ‘The Operations Pack (TOP) for HP NonStop’. I9299
NumberOfChanges, NumberOfBytes, ChangeStartByte, ChangeLength and ChangeType Automation API properties/methods have been added for binary comparisons. I9978
The NumberOfChanges Automation API property has been added for image comparisons. I9760
Merge will now display a system tray icon every 30 days once support/updates entitlement has expired. I9950
Merge is now tested and supported with Vista SP1 and Windows XP Professional SP3. I10044
Merge now uses somewhat less memory when creating HTML comparison reports. This should mean that it is possible to create reports for larger files than before. This has resulted in changes to the names of the elements in XML comparison reports. I10042
The major version number has been changed to 2008, reflecting the year in which this version of Merge was released. Non-English language help may still refer to Merge 2007 at this time. I9731
Merge no longer attempts to merge binary and image files in automatic folder merging operations. I9682I9737
The format of XML file comparison reports has been documented in the Creating a File Comparison Report topic. I9320
An FAQ has been added regarding certain applications that hijack the F7 shortcut key used by Merge. I9271
The documentation now has more information regarding line endings when lines are copied from one file to another. I9634

Defects fixed

The Subversion VFS plugin now works with folders as well as files. I9452
Merge integration with Explorer now works correctly on French-language versions of Windows. I9630
Footers are no longer printed when the corresponding option is unchecked. I9463
When running a number of asynchronous comparisons at once, the Automation API comparison complete event is now sent properly. I9726
It is now possible to copy files from one folder to another even if Merge does not have full read/write access to the entire path. I9820
Merge image comparisons now return correct results when called from the Automation API. I9879
The keyboard shortcut for Mark Resolved Ctrl+K has been documented. I8848
Information on the HideEmptyFolders method of the FolderComparison object has been added to the documentation. I9190
The help for the Reset Options to Default Values button has been updated to say that this also clears the history list. I9247
With regard to changing highlighting colours, the syntax highlighting section of the Comparing Text Files (or Typed/Pasted Text) topic has been updated to refer to the appropriate options page, not the highlight.styles file. I9293
The syntax highlighting help now mentions that Pascal/Delphi are supported languages. I9321
The Queue for Comparison item in the Explorer menu has been documented. I9472
Various other corrections have been made to the online help. I9588I9618I8718I9155I9212I9322I9585
The Please email me about significant new product releases option in the registration dialog is now checked by default for clean installations of Merge, and a bug fixed whereby this field always reported unchecked to Araxis has been fixed. I9847

2007 releases

Merge 2007.3350 for Windows 29 November 2007

This was a production-quality release of Merge 2007. This is no longer the current release. All users are encouraged to upgrade to the most recent release.

Defects fixed

The End page field in the print dialog now works. Previously, Merge would would print through to the last page, regardless of this setting. I9672

Merge 2007.3323 for Windows 17 October 2007

This was a production-quality release of Merge 2007.

Enhancements

The Merge user interface and online help has been translated into German, French and Spanish (English and Japanese were already supported by previous Merge 2007 releases). The user-interface language can be selected from the Display options page. I8906I9474I9499
It is now possible to launch an automatic 3-way folder merge using the compare command-line utility. I9352
A new option, Scan contents of excluded files, has been added to the Folder Comparisons options page. When unchecked, this can significantly improve the speed of filtered folder comparisons. I9405
Syntax highlighting for SQL files will now highlight @@version and @@error as identifiers. In addition, SQL keywords containing @ characters are now supported in the highlight.styles file (used to customize syntax highlighting). I9488

Defects fixed

HTML file comparison reports where one file is missing are now shown correctly when viewed with the Safari web browser. I8817I9489
Selected items in HTML folder comparison reports are now highlighted properly when viewed with the Safari web browser. I9384I9491
Minor problems with the appearance of the online help on systems with Internet Explorer 7 have been addressed.
Automation errors no longer occur when large numbers of text comparisons are open simultaneously. I9363
A crash that occurred when syntax highlighting certain Ruby files has been fixed. I9462I9461
Merge will no longer crash if an HTML/XML file contains characters with a code higher than 127. This problem was only noted on internal, debug builds of Merge, and might not have affected release builds. I9498
An Automation error that would sometimes occur when large numbers of text comparisons were opened in quick succession has been fixed. I9476

Merge 2007.3277 for Windows 8 August 2007

This was a production-quality release of Merge 2007.

Enhancements

Merge is now able to browse Subversion repositories directly. For more information, see Subversion File-System Plugin. I9017.
The ability to reset all Merge options to their defaults has been added. Details are available at Maintenance. I8673
The x86 and x64 versions of Merge have now been combined into a single ISO CDROM image. Previously, there were separate images for the 32 and 64-bit versions. I8777
Changing file comparison options when there are several large folder comparisons open is now faster, as Merge will now only refresh open comparisons that are affected by the changed options. I9193
A new page has been added to the Options dialog to enable syntax highlighting colours to be chosen. Previously, syntax highlighting colours could only be changed by editing the highlight.styles file. I9195
Folder comparison filters have been substantially enhanced to make them much more flexible and easier to understand. For details, see Folder Comparison Filters. I9209
The file extensions of saved comparisons and saved options have been changed to .cmp7 and .mop7, respectively. This avoids a problem with shortcuts to saved comparison and saved option files, caused by Windows Explorer becoming confused and treating them as MS-DOS .com command executable files. I9235
A link to the main help on syntax highlighting has been added to the help for the Fonts and Colours option page. I8961

Defects fixed

In binary comparisons, the display of the byte-offset of the caret position has been made wider to avoid clipping problems. I9189
The operation of the Break changes into individual lines option has been improved. I9213
Merge no longer relies on setup-time registration for plugins. This should eliminate the ‘There is no file-system plugin registered to handle the URL: 0x88040154’ error that a few users were seeing with Merge running on Windows Vista. I9186
Synchronization links that have crossed now stay red when only one link is visible on the screen. I8632
Backslash characters may now be used in the footers and headers for printing. I8952
The Linking lines panel width entry field has been widened to allow it to display three digits. I8956
Ctrl+F4 now works when the input focus is not on the main window in the image and binary comparisons. I9053
Long titles are now contracted more appropriately when Merge is invoked with compare.exe. I9054
Syntax highlighting is no longer lost when a file is changed outside of Merge and subsequently reloaded. I9224
Merge is now able to detect the correct character encoding from an XML file that has additional attributes (in addition to encoding) in the xml processing directive. I9233
A crash has been fixed that occurred when performing a file comparison with an empty third file with syntax highlighting enabled. I9241
Syntax highlighting for Pascal files now works. I9275
Files matching the binary/image type filters now show a ‘1’ in the change column of a folder comparison when they differ. I9281

Merge 2007.3241 for Windows 10 May 2007

This was a production-quality release of Merge 2007.

Changes

The Integrating with Source Control, Configuration Management, and Other Applications topic has been updated with instructions for performing various Perforce actions from directly within Merge using P4EXP. The instructions for using Merge with Perforce P4V have also been updated to reflect changes in P4V. I9127I8982
Information about FinalBuilder has been added to the Integrating with Source Control, Configuration Management, and Other Applications topic. I8974
It is now possible to load image files for an image comparison from an FTP server. I9026
Merge no longer crashes occasionally when comparing large files. I9036
Folder comparison performance has been improved. I9037
Merge no longer crashes when certain compute-intensive regular expressions are used. I9049
Merge now uses the operating-system configured short date format for the About, Registration and Evaluation dialog windows. This solves a problem where the serial number’s support expiry date was being obscured by an adjacent button when certain verbose long date formats were configured in the host operating system. I9052
Syntax highlighting now works for file comparisons opened from a saved comparison. I8967
Duplicate Next/Previous Change commands in the toolbar customization window lists have been removed. I8978
The Readme.txt file within the Merge CDROM ISO image no longer refers to Merge v6.5. I8977
The Merge documentation table of contents now includes entries for the ImageComparison Object and BinaryComparison Object objects. I8979
An obsolete warning concerning Adobe PDF Writer has been removed from the FAQ. I9033

Merge 2007.3225 for Windows 10 April 2007

This was the first current production-quality release of Merge 2007. It is recommended that all users of this release upgrade to the current production-quality Merge 2007 release, available on the main Download Araxis Merge page.

Enhancements

A 64-bit version of Merge 2007 is now available, in addition to the 32-bit version. The 64-bit version of Merge is able to make use of more than 2 GB of RAM, enabling comparisons of very large files. The 64-bit version of Merge has been tested on 64-bit Windows Vista, although it is also expected to work on 64-bit Windows XP. I8918I8860
Merge now checks the Araxis website on startup to see whether a newer version is available. If one is, then the Merge application icon is displayed in the notification area of the Windows taskbar. I8882
A ViewType property has been added to the FolderComparison Automation API object. I8858
The Automation API has undergone substantial changes to enable image and binary comparisons to be opened using it. This also enables the command-line tools to open a comparison of the correct type. Anyone making use of the Automation API is directed to the Introduction to the Automation API and other API documentation for details of the modified API. I8898
The folder comparison statistics window, and statistics information in reports, have been updated to include additional information. Clearer explanations are also provided when information is unavailable because of the selected options. I8929
The errors shown in the file copy errors and warnings list of a folder comparison have been improved. I8853
The visual presentation of the online help has been updated. I8897
The Replace XXX items in the Edit menu are named more appropriately for three-way file comparisons. I8865

Defects fixed

Various improvements and corrections have been made to the online help. I8866I8821I8856I8909I8839I8851I8902I8930I8934I8940I8949
Folder comparisons should now be able to create folder hierarchies on a remote VSFTP server accessed using the FTP plugin. I8892
File or folder comparison windows opened via Windows Explorer are no longer closed prematurely. I8920
The Compare with Araxis Merge Explorer context menu item now works on machines that have had (or have) Merge v6.5 installed on them. I8894
It is now possible to cancel a folder comparison file copy operation using the Cancel button on the progress dialog. I8893
Merge no longer crashes when opening saved comparisons under 64-bit Windows Vista. I8859
The merging button tooltips have been improved. I8852
The Edit▸Select… dialog now allows selection of removed files and folders in the left pane of a folder comparison. I8874
The height of the Display and Format drop-down list boxes in a binary comparison window have been increased to show all options without the necessity of a scroll bar. I8877
The filename field in Open Comparison and Open Options dialogs is no longer pre-populated inappropriately. I8850
Backslashes in HTML report bookmark comments now correctly appear as yen characters for Japanese-language HTML reports. I8884
The splash window is no longer hidden by the Merge application window when Merge is starting. I8896
Merge will now always open a three-way comparison when a comparison is invoked by selecting three folders and choosing Compare with Araxis Merge from the Explorer context menu. I8935

Merge 2007.3178 for Windows 12 February 2007

This was the preview of Merge 2007. All users of this release should now upgrade to the current production-quality Merge release.

Known issues

Our testing has uncovered a few problems when running Merge on 64-bit Windows Vista. Merge on 32-bit Vista is not affected.

There are some intermittent problems with the self-extracting setup. For the time being, it is recommended that you use the Compact MSI setup on 64-bit Vista.
There are some issues with opening saved file comparisons by double-clicking them. As a work-around, open saved comparisons using the File▸Open Saved Comparison… menu item.
Crash reporting does not always succeed.

Enhancements

Merge now supports image comparison to compare various types of image file and see precisely which pixels have been modified.
New binary comparison support makes it possible to compare binary (non text) files at the byte level. Merge can interpret and display the bytes that make up the files in various ways to give, for example, a hexadecimal, decimal or floating-point view of the file data.
Text file comparisons now provide syntax highlighting for a wide range of different file types.
Comparisons of certain large and/or complex files are significantly faster, in some cases by an order of magnitude or more.
HTML comparison reports now include any bookmark comments that have been added to a file or folder comparison. For information about creating bookmarks and comments, see the Bookmarks and comments section in the Comparing Text Files (or Typed/Pasted Text) and Comparing Folders topics.
HTML reports have been modified to reflect any visibility options that have been chosen for the relevant folder comparisons. For example, if Hide Unchanged Rows is selected on the View menu, the HTML report of this comparison will also not show the unchanged rows. This was not the case in v6.5.
The ability to sort by the changes column in folder comparisons (in addition to the other columns) has been added.
Support for additional character encodings has been introduced, including several more Unicode variants and Japanese 932 (Shift_JIS).
When launching file comparisons from a folder comparison, Merge now tells you when it has reached the configured limit of opened file comparisons.
New high-resolution icons for Windows Vista have been introduced for the Merge application, saved comparisons and saved options. The lower resolution icons used by older versions of Windows have been updated to match.
Colour highlighting in three-way folder comparisons has been re-worked to be more intuitive.
Integration with Windows Explorer has been improved with a new Queue for Comparison menu item on the Windows Explorer context menu for files and folders. This enables files and folders in different locations to be chosen and compared using Windows Explorer.
There is a new option Break changes into individual lines to split change blocks into individual lines (View▸Options…▸Text Comparisons▸Display).
There is a new option Treat consecutive whitespace as a single character to cause Merge to match runs of whitespace (View▸Options…▸Text Comparisons).
The layout of the Options dialog has been altered to better group various options and make them easier to find.
The About Araxis Merge dialog has been re-designed to present information in a clearer manner. A button has been added to the dialog to enable the serial number to be copied to the clipboard.
The Registration dialog has been re-designed to be clearer and to give feedback about the serial number that the user is entering.
The evaluation dialog that appears on the evaluation version of Merge when it first starts is now modeless, and will disappear after a set amount of time. This makes it easier to test scripts and applications that control Merge using the Automation API when only the evaluation version of Merge is available.
Merge now uses the Microsoft MSXML 6 library, instead of the (somewhat elderly) MSXML 4 library.
Two new Automation properties, AllUnresolvedConflicts and UnresolvedConflicts have been added to the TextComparison object. These enable access to the number of unresolved conflicts in a file comparison for all files, and for a specific file, respectively.
It is now possible to save and load comparison files via the Automation API.
Automation clients should use the name Merge70 to reference Merge 2007. Merge v6.5 is still referenced with the name Merge65. Please see Introduction to the Automation API for more information.
As of this release, Araxis is switching to an incremental release model. This means we will be rolling out new functionality in smaller ongoing releases, rather than making infrequent big-bang releases. (In practice, this has been our de facto policy with Merge v6.5, and significant new features have been introduced during the life of Merge v6.5.) To facilitate the new policy, and to make the cost of staying up-to-date with Merge predictable, we have introduced a new support model. For more information, see Feature Summary and Differences Between Editions.
The major version number of Merge (‘2007’ in the current preview) now indicates the year in which that version of Merge was released. Merge 2007 itself represents a major new release with significant new functionality compared to Merge v6.5. However, future major version number increments will simply reflect evolutionary development over time.
A problem has been fixed where, for a few customers, Merge would sometimes hang when the user right-clicked on a folder comparison while the comparison was underway.
To enable Merge to support 64-bit processor architectures, saved comparisons created with Merge v6.5 cannot be opened with Merge 2007 and later, and vice versa. This change was made reluctantly, and we apologise for any inconvenience that it causes. Note, however, that it is possible for Merge v6.5 and Merge 2007 to be installed side-by-side (and Merge 2007 serial numbers also allow use of Merge v6.5), so most Merge 2007 users who have saved comparisons created with Merge v6.5 will still be able access them using Merge v6.5.
Many other improvements and bug fixes.

v6.5 (2003–2006) releases

Merge v6.5.2318 for Windows 20 December 2006

This was a production-quality release of Merge v6.5. Araxis recommends that all users upgrade to the latest release.

Enhancements

Windows Vista is now a supported platform.
Printer initialization is now delayed until Merge needs to print something. This improves startup performance in cases where the default printer is unavailable or located on a slow network.
Automatic encoding detection for XML text files has been made more flexible.
HTML/XML reports generated using the Japanese 932 code page now specify ‘shift_jis’ as their character encoding. This enables common web browsers to display the reports correctly.

Defects fixed

Merge now advertises DPI-awareness on Windows Vista to prevent automatic user interface scaling and related problems.
An initial keyboard focus problem in open and save windows has been fixed for Vista.
An unneeded error message, which could appear when cancelling the deletion of files/folders in the folder comparison window on Vista, has been removed.
An intermittent crash caused by regular expressions forcing lines into the unchanged state has been fixed.
Linking lines (and the corresponding indicators in overview strips) are now correctly suppressed when all the lines within a change block have been forced into the unchanged state by regular expressions.
HTML reports generated using certain code pages (such as Japanese 932) no longer contain spurious ‘?’ characters. As part of this fix, the Microsoft MSXML4 package is now required, and is now included in the setups based on Windows Installer. Please contact Araxis if you encounter any problems with these setups. Note that the NSIS installer does not include the Microsoft MSXML4 redistributable.

Merge v6.5.2300 for Windows 1 September 2006

Enhancements

In a folder comparison, it is now possible to filter files and folders based on their location in the folder hierarchies. A filter pattern that contains a path separator character will be matched against the fully-qualified path to the file or folder being filtered. A pattern without a path separator will be matched against only the name of the file or folder, as in previous versions of Merge. For more information, see Filters.
Each file panel in a text comparison window has its own memory of the last folder that was browsed by its Open File… dialog.
The FileComparison Automation API object has a new property called AutoSaveOnClose. When set to True, modified files are automatically saved when a file comparison is closed. The prompt to save modified files will not then appear. This feature can sometimes be useful when integrating Merge with other applications.
The Run… command in folder comparison context menus will no longer disappear when multiple files are chosen from several different sub-folders.

Defects fixed

Cyrillic filenames differing only in character-case will now be placed on the same results row.

Merge v6.5.2262 for Windows 30 May 2006

Enhancements

The Japanese online help has been updated.

Merge v6.5.2260 for Windows 22 May 2006

Enhancements

Comparisons between large files should be somewhat faster.

Defects fixed

A timing-related bug that could occasionally cause Merge to crash or behave strangely when performing a Redo been fixed.
Merge will now start when configured by the dcomcnfg utility to provide automation services under a different user identity.
A bug has been fixed that could occasionally cause a word or character-wrapped line to display an unnecessary gap below itself.

Merge v6.5.2241 for Windows 30 March 2006

Warning Please note that as of this build, Merge will no longer run on Windows 95, 98, or Me.

Enhancements

Instructions for configuring Visual SourceSafe 2005 to use Merge for comparing and merging files have been added to the Integrating with Source Control, Configuration Management, and Other Applications help topic.
A context (right-click) menu is now associated with merging buttons in the file comparison window. This menu contains some additional merging commands.
The Open Comparison command is now available as a button in the toolbar customization window.
Merge can now cope with multiple code pages within resource (.rc) files.
The Selection and Visibility Filter folder comparison dialogs can now use the resolved state of files as an input.
Merge will now activate properly when file/folder comparisons are launched using the command-line tools (compare.exe, araxisp4diff.exe, etc).
A Run… command has been added to folder comparison context menus.
A new Plugins options page enables proxy server settings to be configured for the FTP plugin, and for its connection type to be set to Active or Passive.
Automatic detection of file encodings can be enabled/disabled on the All Comparisons options page.
‘.’ and ‘..’ can now be used as input paths in the folder comparison window.
The Previous/Next Change commands should now work more intuitively in the folder comparison window.

Defects fixed

A folder comparison retest bug has been fixed. This could occasionally cause items to disappear from the results list if the sort order was set to something other than the default.
The default position of the online help window should now be more suitable for systems with multiple monitors.
Find Previous could sometimes fail to find text located at the end of a line.
Large line numbers could sometimes appear truncated in HTML file comparison reports.
Commented-out #pragma codepage(…) directives in resource files are now ignored.
Clashing keyboard accelerators for Mark Resolved and Retest Selected commands have been fixed.
The folder comparison window’s ComparisonComplete event should now work.
Merge will no longer occasionally hang while performing a three-way merge in a file comparison window.
Two broken links to third-party websites have been fixed in the online help.
The Windows Installer setup packages now complete the InstallLocation registry key correctly.
Comparisons launched via the Automation API could cause Merge to hang if the update checking window was open. The automatic update checking feature has been removed from Merge.
The crash report window should now be readable on American versions of Windows.
Recent changes made by Perforce to the Perforce client have required the Perforce integration utilities to be renamed (p4diff.exe has been renamed to araxisp4diff.exe, etc).
XML and HTML files that use a UTF-16 encoding are now loaded correctly.

Merge v6.5.2172 for Windows 23 August 2005

Warning This is the final version of Merge that supports Windows 95, 98 and Me. Unless you are using one of these legacy operating systems, it is recommended that you use the latest version of Merge available.

Enhancements

The character encoding for HTML and XML reports can now be set to something other than UTF-8. The Automation API has also been updated to enable the encoding for reports to be controlled.

Defects fixed

An out of memory error when using synchronization links has been fixed.
The authentication window for the VSS/FTP/P4 plugins should now use the correct font.
A bug with the treatment of EUC-JP encoded files has been fixed.

Merge v6.5.2157 for Windows 19 July 2005

Enhancements

The Filters options page has been updated to enable include/exclude patterns to be combined into named filter sets.

Defects fixed

If a file or folder whose name contains an expandable environment variable name is encountered during a folder comparison, its name is no longer expanded.
Merge no longer insists that the last line in a file has a line-ending character sequence.
This build contains fixes for all reproducible crash reports.

Merge v6.5.2105 for Windows 4 April 2005

Enhancements

The separate plugin setup packages in previous builds are now included in the main setup package. We recommend that the Add or Remove Programs utility in the Control Panel is used uninstall any old plugins before installing this build.

Defects fixed

Several bugs relating to the generation of very large HTML/XML comparison reports have been fixed.

Merge v6.5.2069 for Windows 23 February 2005

Defects fixed

A regular expression bug introduced in build 2064 has been fixed.
The Japanese online help’s table of contents and index should display correctly again.

Merge v6.5.2064 for Windows 21 February 2005

Enhancements

HTML file and folder comparison reports can be saved with an .mht extension to create a single-file archive viewable in Internet Explorer.
Merge will check for, and use, character encoding directives located at the top of XML and HTML files.
Automatic three-way merging is now available for folder comparisons. Please see the online help for more information.

Defects fixed

A bug that could sometimes prevent French HTML reports from being created correctly has been fixed.
Some missing whitespace in non-English HTML reports has been re-added.
Some reported bugs encountered while retesting folders within the folder comparison window have been fixed.
The folder comparison window should now use less memory when comparing very large folder hierarchies.
A URI parsing bug in the FTP plugin has been fixed.
A rare divide-by-zero bug in the file comparison window has been fixed.
Merge will now use considerably less memory while creating file and folder comparison reports.

Merge v6.5.1952 for Windows 24 November 2004

Enhancements

This build removes the .NET dependency from the recommended and compact MSI setup packages. The two pre-built .NET interop DLLs in the idl sample source code directory have been removed. The makefile in that directory can be used to re-create them, if required.

Merge v6.5.1948 for Windows 21 November 2004

Defects fixed

Launching a file comparison from the folder comparison window with the Automatically close if either file could not be found option enabled could occasionally cause Merge to crash.
Deleting an inserted or removed file or folder from the folder comparison window could cause Merge to consume 100% CPU and to not update the display correctly.
Interval specifications in regular expressions were not correctly applied.
An error reporting bug in the VSS plugin meant that some errors were not reported correctly.
An incorrect count of omitted rows could occasionally appear at the top of HTML file comparison reports.

Merge v6.5.1941 for Windows 15 November 2004

Enhancements

Column headers in the folder comparison window can clicked on to sort in ascending/descending order by name or last modified time.
File and folder comparisons can be loaded from/saved to a file.
Merge’s options can now be loaded from/saved to a file.
The text associated with a bookmark can now be edited. Right-click on a bookmark for a context menu.
Sample Automation API source code is available under the Merge installation folder.
The Windows Explorer Compare with Araxis Merge menu-item can now be disabled in the Merge Options dialog.
The command-line tools provided with Merge now support plugin URIs.
Blocks of inserted and removed lines now have merging buttons.
Commas and/or semi-colons can now be included within file/folder filters by placing them within quotes. For example, ";;*.txt";",,*.txt",*.obj.

Defects fixed

Page-at-a-time mouse wheel scrolling is now supported.
The ability to perform a retest operation while a folder comparison is in progress has been re-enabled.
Various reported bugs in the FTP and VSS plugins have been fixed.
File comparison HTML reports should now wrap long words correctly.
Several retesting and display bugs in the folder comparison window have been fixed.
Some situations in which whitespace was omitted in HTML reports have been fixed.
Detailed inline comparisons will now honour the whitespace ignoring options correctly.
HTML/XML reports now use forward-slash instead of back-slash as a path separator.

Merge v6.5.1787 for Windows 8 June 2004

Defects fixed

A bug that prevented Merge from starting on Windows NT has been fixed.
All reported FTP plugin problems with certain FTP servers have been fixed.
A potential bug in the VSS plugin’s error reporting has been fixed.

Merge v6.5.1781 for Windows 2 June 2004

Enhancements

A plugin that enables Merge to access the contents of a Visual SourceSafe database is now available.
A plugin that enables Merge to access files and folders via FTP is now available.

Defects fixed

Several folder comparison bugs have been fixed in this build.

Merge v6.5.1661 for Windows 29 February 2004

Enhancements

This build includes an optional downloadable plugin to enable read-only access to files and folders within a Perforce depot.

Defects fixed

Fixed a slow-down bug on some Windows 2000 installations.
Folder comparison reports no longer include hidden files.
File comparison editing performance should be slightly improved.
Folder comparison performance in large folder hierarchies should be improved.
A bug in the display of simplified inline comparisons should now be fixed.

Merge v6.5.1624 for Windows 16 December 2003

Enhancements

French, German, and Spanish report stylesheets have been tidied up.
French online help is now included.
Japanese localization is now included.
A registry key NoGdiPlus can be set to 1 (REG_DWORD) to disable the use of GDI+ within Merge. This should work-around an odd problem on some machines that have the TaskSwitcher PowerToy installed.
Comparison performance for very large files should be improved.
Responsiveness of the folder comparison window when comparing folders across slow network connections should be improved.

Defects fixed

A bug in simplified inline comparisons has been fixed.
Some problems with line-ending characters in file comparison reports have been fixed.
A bug with text wrapping in file comparison HTML reports has been fixed.
The transparency effect for merging buttons has been removed to solve some compatiblilty problems with some graphics cards.
A missing description for a folder comparison report option has been added.
Tab expansion in file comparison reports should now work.
Horizontal navigation within very long non-wrapped lines should work better now.
The Folder Comparison window’s Window menu has regained its keyboard accelerator.

Merge v6.5.1524 for Windows 17 September 2003

Enhancements

An option to disable the iteration of NTFS streams has been added to the Options dialog.

Defects fixed

An undersized drop-down for setting the default character encoding in the Options dialog has been made larger.
Some file saving and copying problems on Windows 9X platforms have been fixed.

Merge v6.5.1498 for Windows 31 August 2003

Enhancements

F4 can be used (and Alt+↓) to display history lists for file/folder entry fields.

Defects fixed

Ctrl+F should work again in folder comparison windows.
Several Windows 2000 compatibility bugs have been fixed.
A crash that could sometimes occur when using Window▸Close All when some of the open windows were created by Automation clients has been fixed.

Merge v6.5.1491 for Windows 21 August 2003

This is the first release of Merge v6.5.

Changes

It is now possible to create a report in HTML (example), HTML slideshow, XML or UNIX diff format for file comparisons. HTML reports are particularly useful for archiving and distribution. See Creating a File Comparison Report.
Reports may also be created in HTML or XML format for folder comparisons (example). A folder comparison report can, optionally, include file comparison reports for some or all of the files involved in the folder comparison. Thus it is possible, in one operation, to generate a report that is a complete record of all the differences in all of the files involved in a folder comparison. This is especially useful in code review and code audit situations. See Creating a Folder Comparison Report.
Merge v6.5 supports English, German, French, International Spanish and Chinese (Traditional and Simplified) as user interface languages; translation of the online help to German, French and International Spanish is underway. Merge tries to choose a suitable user interface language based on the Regional Settings of the host operating system. It is also possible manually to specify the user interface language on the Application page of the Options dialog.
Merge now provides a Virtual File System (VFS) API. All access to the file system (for example, by file and folder comparisons) within Merge takes place using the VFS API. Thus, third-parties are now able to write plug-ins that enable Merge directly to browse, for example, configuration management or version control repositories, FTP sites and web sites. This means that SCM vendors can now extend their integration with Merge such that Merge can compare and merge source code branches directly within the SCM repository.
Support for the Win32 file system within Merge is implemented using the new VFS API, and full source code to this implementation is provided as an example.
It is now possible for users to add synchronization links to tell Merge to re-synchronize the comparison at particular points. This is particularly useful in some complex comparison scenarios.
Various enhancements have been made to the Automation API.

Application level changes

Windows XP theming is now fully supported.
Toolbar icons have been updated to be more in keeping with Windows XP. Some icons have been redesigned to more clearly indicate their purpose.
More features are now available from toolbar buttons.
Buttons on the toolbars have been re-arranged in a more logical manner.
Toolbars can now be customized.
There is an option not to show the splash screen when Merge starts.
Various defects have been fixed. Where appropriate, these fixes have also been applied to recent builds of Merge v6.0.

File comparison improvements

For file comparisons, there is now an option automatically to reload files modified outside of Merge.
The default character encoding used by Merge can now be specified. Previously, the system encoding was used by default.
The command-line compare utility can now be used to perform an automatic merge when a three-way file comparison is launched.
The default list of regular expressions now includes a filter for CVS style comments.
File access related error messages are now shown directly in a file comparison pane, instead of in a separate error dialog. This is particularly helpful when multiple file comparisons are launched from a folder comparison.
The status bar now shows the code page of the file in the currently selected file comparison pane.
File comparison panes now support optional line-wrapping.
Specific columns or column ranges can be ignored when comparing files.
Sequences of characters matching specified regular expressions can now be ignored when comparing files.
There is a new option in file comparisons to show only a few lines of context instead of large blocks of unchanged text.
The EUC-JP character encoding is now supported.
Selected lines can now be marked as being resolved. They are then shown dimmed in the same way as resolved text following an automatic merge.
It is now possible to replace text found as a result of a Find operation.
Replace can operate within the current selection instead of the entire document.
Merging buttons are have been made semi-transparent on certain platforms, enabling any text behind them to be perceived.
File comparison linking lines are now drawn using anti-aliasing on Windows platforms that support GDI+. This improves their visual appearance.
There is a new toolbar button to save all modified files.

Folder comparison improvements

Folder comparisons are now shown within the main application window (instead of a separate window) and participate in the tab strip, if shown.

Improvements common to file and folder comparisons

Various commonly used file and folder comparison options are now directly available from a menu associated with the Options toolbar button.
The Windows Explorer context menu now appears as an item in file and folder comparison context menus.
There are new toolbar buttons for jumping to the next and previous changes. The double-arrow scroll bar buttons, which jump to the previous and next change within a specific file, are retained.
A window showing comparison statistics for file and folder comparisons is now available.
The default header and footer for printing has been improved. The presentation of printed pages has been enhanced.

Other changes

New style, 53-character, serial numbers have been introduced. We strongly recommend that you copy and paste serial numbers whenever you need to enter them. This is much less error prone than trying to type them in manually.
A serial number is now required to use the Evaluation version of Merge. Evaluation serial numbers are available free of charge from the Araxis website.
Merge requires certain information about the user to be provided when it is first run (including the user’s name and email address). This information is provided to Araxis if you are connected to the Internet when you fill it in. Therefore, as long as you have Internet access when you install Merge, it is no longer necessary separately to register Merge on the Araxis website.
The information sent to Araxis during Merge update checks has been modified.
The Professional, Standard and Evaluation versions of Merge are now supported by a single executable. Previously, each variant used a separate executable.
Merge v6.5 has a new splash screen.