There is a file on my computer, in "My documents" folder called "wstg". It has no extension and is 285 MBytes.

Is there a way I can look at the beginning of the file to determine what application may open it, so I can find out what the hel_l it is?

If I try Notepad or Wordpad, they want to load the whole file before showing me the beginning. So I want a utility that can just dump the beginning - preferably in hex.

I've tried using common utilities, like Media Player to open it, but they don't recognise it.

Can anyone suggest a way of examining the beginning of the file?

My guess is, it's a pdf file

I tried a google on wstg and half the replies are about a pdf file

There is a file on my computer, in "My documents" folder called "wstg". It has no extension and is 285 MBytes.

Is there a way I can look at the beginning of the file to determine what application may open it, so I can find out what the hel_l it is?

If I try Notepad or Wordpad, they want to load the whole file before showing me the beginning. So I want a utility that can just dump the beginning - preferably in hex.

I've tried using common utilities, like Media Player to open it, but they don't recognise it.

Can anyone suggest a way of examining the beginning of the file?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Open it with 'word pad' and read the ASCII header if there is one. But yep google is the answer ..

My guess is,  it's a pdf file

I tried a google on wstg and half the replies are about a pdf file

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

'Fraid not - neither Acrobat V7 nor V6 can open it.

Maybe I'll try Word Pad and wait... and wait...

Isn't there a utility just for dumping the very beginning of a file?

My guess is,  it's a pdf file

I tried a google on wstg and half the replies are about a pdf file

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

'Fraid not - neither Acrobat V7 nor V6 can open it.

Maybe I'll try Word Pad and wait... and wait...

Isn't there a utility just for dumping the very beginning of a file?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yep on *Nix and the PC use an app called "LESS" or "MORE" will dump the first 25 lines of your request from command line.

In CMD on your wintel box just use "type filename.xxx" or simply use wordpad or note pad.

As KuBand said, just open a DOS Window and type "more filename.xxx". I do this often to read the headers since most of the filetype ID is in ASCII. Don't use "type filename.xxx" because it will just list 285MB of data fast missing the header entirely unless you are really quick with ctrlS, ctrlQ.

An alternative is to change the filename extension to .doc and let MS word open it up.

Edited November 8, 200520 yr by tywais

I have a little programme called FileView that does just that.

PM me with your e-mail and I will send it to you.

It is only 212K

Thanks for the help guys - I'd forgotten about "more" .

When I used it, absolutely nothing was visible in my Dos window so I'm thinking it's empty. To prove the point, I zipped it up and the whole 285 Meg zipped up to 284K!

And I've just zipped up the zip file, and it went down to 2K!!!

OK, I just zipped the zipped zip file, and it's down to 1K. Point proved

Just for completeness... thanks to Astral here: http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?sh...ndpost&p=541530 , I downloaded TrackerV3 which has a file viewer built in.

This viewer instantly read the beginning and end of the file. It also has an "Extract text" function which took about 10 seconds to work. And all that it found was "Hello World" at the very end of the file! Now, where have I seen that before? I think Kernighan and Ritchie have got a lot to answer for.