MD5 is or message digest 5, is a cryptographic algorithm to generate the hash value (say of a file). It generates a 16 byte or 128 bit value. Often it is used to check the integrity of downloads. Once you download a file, how sure are you that what you have downloaded is what the file is supposed to be.
For instance, let us say you are downloading Ubuntu. At the page you can see the file and know what is the md5. Once your download completes, you should get some utility to check the md5. If the strings match, you are sure that you downloaded what you want. This is useful in cases where there are mirror sites, that allow for download files in local regions. From the main site you get the MD5 checksum (string), and once you have downloaded the file, you run a local MD5 generation program on the downloaded file and compare.
So how do we generate MD5. There are plenty of utilities available. There is one from Microsoft itself. You can download it from this KB Article. Download and run the file. Instructions are here.
Run the program to calculate the checksum, like this.
The md5 of the downloaded file, calculated by fciv utility from Microsoft. The original value of iso I got from the web site.
That guarantees that I got the file right.
Sources.
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