X-Ways
·.·. Computer forensics software made in Germany .·.·
   
 

Comparison of WinHex License Types and Related Products

  License type/program
Features WinHex
Eval.
WinHex
Personal
WinHex
Prof.
WinHex
Specialist
WinHex
Lab Ed.
X-Ways
Imager
X-Ways
Inv. CTR
X-Ways
Investigator
X-Ways
Forensics
Usage in business & organizations permitted ^
Write disk sectors, edit RAM, save large files         ✓*
Hexadecimal editor       ✓*
Simultaneously displayed character sets 1 1 2 3 4   3 3 5
WinHex Scripts           *
Specialist menu       (✓) (✓)   (✓) (✓)
Highlighting of slack space and free space         (✓) (✓)
Internal definition of time zones        
Fast hashing algorithms      
Multiple threads for logical searches and RVS             3 3 16
Availability of a 64-bit edition    
Internal RAID 0/5/5EE/6 reconstruction          
Windows dynamic disks, LVM2, Apple partitioning        
Understands FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, TFAT, NTFS    
Understands exFAT, Ext2/3/4, CDFS, UDF          
APFS, Btrfs, QNX, XFS, HFS, HFS+/HFSJ/HFSX, ReiserFS, Reiser4, UFS            
XPRESS WofCompressed files, incompressible files with active deduplication in Windows Server            
Manual ZLIB, LZFSE, and ZSTD compression and decompression; manual NTFS, XPRESS, and LZVN decompression              
Memory dumps of various older Windows versions                
Disk imaging (raw/dd) and disk cloning      
Ability to create skeleton and cleansed images                
Creation of evidence file containers          
Ability to open and interpret evidence file containers (✓)° (✓)° (✓)°  
Disk image interpretation (raw/DD, VMDK, VHD, VDI)       (✓)²  
Creation of .e01 images/evidence files              
Interpretation for .e01 images/evidence files           (✓)² (✓)
Mount file systems as a drive letters ° ° ° °      
Detection and deactivation of HPAs and DCOs            
Regular X-Tensions         ✓¹      
Disk I/O X-Tensions         (✓)  
Viewer X-Tensions            
Image I/O API            
Separate modes for disk/partition/volume and a file selected therein          
Viewer component, gallery, preview mode            
Internal picture viewing library            
Registry hive viewer and registry report output                
Cases, case reports, multi-user collaboration            
Advanced keyword search and search hit lists            
Populating an event list / chronological time line                
Tagging, categorizing and commenting on files            
More columns and options in the directory browser       (✓) (✓)  
Using hash databases              
Creating hash databases                
H U N D R E D S  of additional features             (✓) (✓)
other functions (examples, old page) (✓)      

^ only for evaluation purposes or to review evidence file containers containing no more than 1000 objects
° only evidence file containers
* if you run X-Ways Forensics as WinHex
† you need to create a case first and add the disk/image, but you cannot save and re-open that case
¹ XWF_GetRasterImage, PDF conversion, and OCR functionality not usable, and maybe more, refer to API documentation
² useful just to see partitions and to copy sectors of an image back to a storage device

Personal licenses for WinHex are available at a reduced price for non-commercial purposes only, in a non-business, non-institutional, and non-government environment. Professional licenses for WinHex allow usage of the software in any environment (at home, in a company, in an organization, or in public administration).

Upgrade Chart

You can upgrade existing perpetual licenses of certain types to a superior license type. Offers for that are usually available when you query your license status. The following types of upgrades are generally possible:

From → To WinHex
prof.
Investi-
gator
Forensics
(perpetual)
WinHex personal  
WinHex professional    
WinHex specialist (perpetual)    
Investigator CTR  
Investigator    
Imager (perpetual)