WinOLS files and project database
Looking for WinOLS files for a specific car? Upload the read from its control unit and we match it against our database of ready-made WinOLS projects — the original read plus tuned versions, checksums corrected, delivered as an .ols file that opens straight in WinOLS. Named map definitions are included only where available for that ECU software. Further down: what a project file holds, where DAMOS fits in, and when you need a WinOLS licence at all.
- Ready-made WinOLS projects, matched to your read
- Delivered as an .ols file, checksum-corrected
- Take the full project or only the versions you need
- Works with reads from KESS3, Autotuner and MMS Flex
The WinOLS file database
Most people looking for WinOLS files want the same thing: a project for their exact control unit, with ready tuned versions. That is what the database is. Upload the read from your ECU and it is matched against the WinOLS projects we hold; when there is a match you see the versions available and choose what to take.
Take the whole project or only the versions you actually need. Either way it arrives as a WinOLS .ols file that opens directly in your installation, with the checksums corrected. Projects are €69.95; a plain tuning file, if you do not need the project behind it, is €49.95.
- Full project — everything held for that control unit
- Parted project — only the versions you select
- Delivered as .ols, checksum-corrected
Which control units the database covers
The project database covers the control units that make up the bulk of the European parc, across both petrol and diesel. If your read comes from one of these families, there is a high chance we already hold matching projects for it.
- Bosch EDC15, EDC16, EDC17 (including C74 and C76)
- Bosch ME7, MED9, MED17, MEVD17
- Bosch MG1 and MD1 (MG1CS001, MG1CS003, MG1CS011, MG1CS111 and related)
- Siemens/Continental SID, SIMOS, MSD and PCR families
- Delphi DCM, Marelli MJD and IAW, Denso, Temic/ZF transmission units
What WinOLS is
WinOLS is Windows software from EVC electronic, written specifically to modify the memory contents of engine and transmission control units. It takes a raw read from an ECU — a file that is otherwise an undifferentiated block of bytes — and helps you find the calibration tables inside it, which you can then name, view as 2D or 3D surfaces, and change.
That is the whole job in one sentence, and it is why the software is central to file tuning. An ECU read contains no labels. Boost targets, injection quantity, torque limiters and the throttle map are all in there, but nothing marks where one ends and the next begins. WinOLS is the tool that turns that block into something a human can work on: its automatic map search locates candidate tables and lists them, and its editor is where the actual calibration work happens.
It is not a reading or flashing tool. WinOLS never touches the vehicle. You read the ECU with a hardware tool — KESS3, Autotuner, MMS Flex or similar — edit the file in WinOLS, and write it back with the same hardware.
What a WinOLS project actually contains
A project file is not a copy of the binary. EVC describe it as holding all the information obtained in the course of processing a given controller, and that is the useful distinction: the original read, any maps that have been located and named, their axis definitions, and the notes attached along the way. Details such as the customer name, the vehicle registration and image files can be stored alongside it.
Changes are kept as versions rather than as overwrites. Up to 200 versions of one original file can live in a single project, each one commentable, with the original preserved throughout — which is what makes it possible to keep a Stage 1, a Stage 2 and a DPF-off variant of the same file side by side and compare them, instead of maintaining three unrelated binaries and hoping you remember which is which.
This is why a project is worth more than a finished .bin. The binary is the answer; the project is the working-out. A project keeps every version side by side with the original. Where map definitions are included, maps open already named; where they are not, you work with the versions and the changed areas.
DAMOS and A2L files
DAMOS and A2L are manufacturer calibration-description files. They do not contain a tune — they describe the ECU software: where each map sits in memory, what its axes mean, what units the values carry and what function the table belongs to. Feed one into WinOLS and the guesswork disappears: instead of a list of candidate tables, you get named, documented maps.
WinOLS reads them through EVC's DAMOS/A2L import plugin, which handles the .a2l, .asap2, .dam and .damos extensions. Availability is the catch — these are development files, they exist for some ECU software versions and not others, and a matching one for your exact file may simply not be obtainable.
A project that includes map definitions can serve as a practical substitute — but not every project in our database includes them.
Checksum correction, and why it decides whether a file flashes
An ECU verifies its own memory. Change a value in a calibration table and the stored checksum no longer matches the data, and the control unit responds by refusing the write or throwing a fault — regardless of whether the calibration itself was any good. Correcting checksums is therefore not a finishing touch; it is the difference between a file that flashes first time and one that does not.
WinOLS handles this through checksum plugins, one per ECU family, which recognise the applicable module and re-correct after each change. EVC ship modules across the Bosch EDC16, EDC17, MED17 and ME7 families, Siemens/Continental, Delphi, Denso, Marelli and a range of transmission controllers.
Every project and every tuning file StageGen returns is checksum-corrected before you receive it. You do not need the matching plugin licensed on your own installation for our output to write cleanly.
Do you need a WinOLS licence?
To open and edit a project yourself, yes. WinOLS is commercial software from EVC, sold as a workstation licence, with newer features released as premium features renewed annually — the base software keeps running when a premium period lapses. WinOLS 5 runs on Windows 10 and 11 (x64) and Windows 11 on ARM.
To buy a finished tuning file, no. That is the honest split, and it is worth being clear about: if you want to do your own calibration work, you need the licence, the hardware and the time to learn the software. If you want a file for a specific vehicle, you do not — upload your read to the tuning service and download a checksum-corrected result.
A project sits between the two. It is for someone who does own WinOLS and wants ready tuned versions to compare and build on, rather than starting from a bare read every time.
Getting the file into WinOLS in the first place
WinOLS imports binary files and Intel or Motorola hex files. A master read is one of those already, so it opens directly — .bin, .ori, .mpc and the other common master formats.
A read from a slave tool is not. Slave devices hand you an encrypted container that no editor will open, by design: that restriction is what separates a slave licence from a master one.
Frequently asked questions
Related
- DAMOS files What a DAMOS or A2L file describes, why a matching one is so hard to find, and what a ready-made project offers instead.
- Tuning files The finished calibration rather than the project behind it — Stage 1 to Stage 3 and individual options, from €49.95.
- File services Every individual service — Stage maps, deletes and drivability options.