PocketSoft's RTPatch is almost the PC standard for binary file delta (difference) patching; but it's commercial, and not cheap. They've been around since the early 90's.

Blink Inc's Delta Patch is another commercial one I've heard of, but not used, and I'm not familiar with its pricing.

Don't know of any free ones... 😒

look at the homepage of kippesoep (shdon.com)
he has a bin patch program

Thanks, Qbix.

I would also appreciate any suggestions. I had the same experience as Addict when I put together the Descent V. 1.5 sound fix and the MS SideWinder 3D Pro drivers for Win9x available elsewhere on this board. My patch program requirements were virtually identical to Addict's, but in both cases I ended up using Open Watcom to write custom C programs to do my patching.

I think part of the reason that not too many patch tools exist is because there is likely to be a knee-jerk reaction on the part of many commercial software developers that anyone wanting to make such a patch is necessarily doing something morally wrong, violating a EULA, etc. I would not be surprised if some of the more draconian software publishers/developers went out of their way to stamp out widely available free patch tools if they can.

I like xdelta.

Thanks everyone! I was beginnig to think i'm too stoopid to find anything with Google (; . I've stumbled across RTPatch, too, but it's not a feasible option, because it's incredible expensive. There's another program, Visual Patch from Indigo Rose, maybe i'll check that one out (even though it's quite expensive, too).

I've also found xdelta, but after fiddling around with it for a bit i'm still not sure it does what i need. I'll look into it some more. xdelta has a strange command line syntax, too - i've read the docs and help file several times, and still didn't understand how to simply create a delta file. I'm quite familiar with command line utils in Windows and Linux, and i hope i'm not a complete idiot when it comes to the command line, so i think it's a bad sign when i can't figure out how to use a tools most basic functions. In the end, it was a user comment on xdelta's website that showed me how to create a delta file.

kippesoep's tools looks very promising, i'll have a closer look at it, too. Could use a small readme, though - but it seems to be quite straightforward in terms of usage.

If anyone has additional info, keep it coming!

The one that I used to make my KQ7 updater was RLN PatchMaker at http://www.act-consult.com/PatchMaker/