Differences

This shows you the differences between two versions of the page.

--- microsoft_windows:cleantemp [2022/05/07 21:18] – rodolico
+++ microsoft_windows:cleantemp [2022/11/14 03:15] (current) – rodolico
@@ Line 11: / Line 11: @@
 This will show  you how much disk space is used a part of the system, then the second command will allow you to delete it. //You must make sure no one is logged into the server// before running this.
+===== Code =====
 <code powershell>
 # This gets the space used for each item, in gigabytes
+# You can copy/paste this first block directly into PowerShell
 # first, the system temporary directory, which never gets cleaned out by anything.
-"System Temp {0:N2} GB" -f ((Get-ChildItem -force -recurse C:\Windows\Temp | measure length -s).sum / 1Gb)
+"System Temp {0:N2} GB" -f ((Get-ChildItem -force -recurse C:\Windows\Temp | Where-Object{$_.CreationTime –lt (Get-Date).AddDays(-30)} | measure length -s).sum / 1Gb)
 # Now, all users individual temp directories
 "Users Temp {0:N2} GB" -f ((Get-ChildItem -force -recurse C:\Users\*\AppData\Local\Temp | measure length -s).sum / 1Gb)
@@ Line 22: / Line 24: @@
 # Finally, Mozilla Firefox's cache
 "Mozilla Cache {0:N2} GB" -f ((Get-ChildItem -force -recurse "C:\Users\*\AppData\Local\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\*\cache2" | measure length -s).sum / 1Gb)
+</code>
-# the following actually does the deletion. However, the -WhatIf says "show me what you'd do", so
+Do not blindly paste the following lines in. Make sure you know what will happen.
-# you must remove that before it will actually clean up.
+The following actually does the deletion. However, the -WhatIf says "show me what you'd do", so you must remove //-WhatIf// that before it will actually clean up.
+Note, we are only removing files which were created over 30 days ago.
+<code powershell>
 Get-ChildItem –Path  “C:\Windows\Temp” –Recurse | Where-Object{$_.CreationTime –lt (Get-Date).AddDays(-30)} | Remove-Item -WhatIf
 Get-ChildItem -Path "C:\Users\*\AppData\Local\Temp" -Recurse | Remove-Item -Recurse -WhatIf
@@ Line 31: / Line 38: @@
 Get-ChildItem -Path "C:\Users\*\AppData\Local\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\*\cache2" -Recurse | Remove-Item -Recurse -WhatIf
 </code>
+===== Procedure =====
 Strongly recommend doing the following, in order
@@ Line 37: / Line 46: @@
     - Open PowerShell as an administrator
     - Do not run any other programs
-    - Run as many/few of the above commands as desired
+    - Run as many/few of the above commands as desired. **Note**: This can take several minutes on a bloated system.
+      - Run the commands that only check on space first. You can then see if you want to concentrate on any particular areas. Just copy the first block of code and paste it into PowerShell
+      - Choose the commands to run from the second group. These are the actual cleanup script
+        - Run with the -WhatIf first, if desired. That will show you what will happen
+        - Run the same command again, but without the -WhatIf
+          - Uparror
+          - Erase the word -WhatIf, including the minus sign
+          - Press the Enter key
     - Reboot Server
   - Check your disk space
 The reason we reboot the server before this procedure is to keep to a minimum which programs/services are running. After you have done this, you reboot to give everything a chance to wake up. You are deleting all files in your temp directory also, and there may be services that need to be restarted so they can realize they need new temp files.
+===== What is going on =====
+==== C:\Windows\Temp ====
+This is the system wide temp directory, which is never cleaned out. Since many of these files are necessary, we only look for the ones over 30 days old; anything within the past month is assumed to be in use.
+==== Users Temp ====
+Each individual user has their own temp directory, but the procedure for cleaning it out is somewhat obscure for a normal user. In this case, we assume the user is logged out (thus, not using their temp directory), so we just remove everything from it. When the user next logs in, any temp files they need will be recreated.
+==== Web Browser Caches ====
+All web browsers I know of cache a lot of (all of?) the pages they download off the Internet. While you can set each browser up to keep only a limited amount of information in their cache, it is easier to just clean up after the users.
+Chrome keeps every single bit of Javascript it ever runs into, and appears to never clean that out, so we remove that also. Note: A user who visits very Javascript intensive sites (like Nextcloud or Google) will have a slightly longer startup time after you do this as all Javascript must be downloaded again.
 ===== Links =====
   * https://www.howtogeek.com/131881/how-to-delete-files-older-than-x-days-on-windows/
   * http://woshub.com/powershell-get-folder-sizes/