They are different.
There is no plugin (e.g. 7zip) for them, and anyway the plugins are disabled.
Result: two panes with just one line (line 1) empty, no dialog messages (they are NOT disabled) and the status bar that, in the lower left of the screen, says "No differences found".
That's completely wrong (except that, of course, two empty files are equals

The "Compare as" list box has everything disabled. The toolbar is that of "text files".
No problem with other kind of files (at least so far).
(N.B. XP 32; later I'll test Win10)