WinMerge

Technically it works but Beyond Compare is better. Winmerge is free, but it hasn't been updated in ages. Beyond Compare has been under constant development, and it is apparent. Beyond Compare is very polished, and easy to use. Most things it does correctly right out of the box, though it's still worth looking at the menus to figure out what it's doing and not doing.

Winmerge, on the other hand, does things wrong. Once you dig through all the menus and options, you can set it up to do what you want, and it'll do a good job of it, but it's clunky and harder to see the useful information. Beyond Compare is so much better, I'd skip Winmerge even though it's free.

Beyond Compare is not free, but it has a fully-functional 30 day trial, so just use that if you only need it temporarily. If you need it longer, it's worth buying. It's really incredible.

abandoned, and doesn't even compare big files, so the next time it says your folders are completely identical, DO NOT believe it.

Uninstall, and look for something that is trustable, and not abandoned in a horribly buggy state.

Not impressed with WinMerge. It has problems with refreshing the view, displays pathnames in separate directory/filename columns making it very difficult to read especially in tree mode, doesn't respect the option to ignore CR/LF differences, and various other faults.

I think the best stand-alone compare tool for Windows. Never found another so good.

Great program. I dont care for the default coloring of changed/deleted stuff. I could change it but its just not worth the hassle, I have too many copies of this on other computers to bother.

Doesn't seem to support 3-way file comparison, like Meld and Kiff3.

I've used this tool previously and it is indeed a fantastic tool.