Hi folks,
who of you uses the cleanup actions or even created their own? How complex are they? How difficult would it be for you if they got replaced? I suppose I would provide some rather trivial migration path, but I’m curious. Surprise me … 
// Oliver
replaced … not removed, right? 🙂
So I wrote, right? 😉
Well….nope, never have, mostly, I just go searching for any giant files I have that I may have forgotten about.
to be honest, I’m not trusting this feature
since I’m not completely sure what it does, I dont use this feature (and properply wont do so)
I would like to use some actions but haven’t figured out how to do so without causing problems. I would love to have an action that would scan a directory and delete a specific file type – say .mp3 or .avi – as this would automate a lot of my cleaning up.
Any ideas?
@Shie: yes, with the current cleanup actions this is rather crude. This is why I want to replace them. Current idea is to use Lua for that purpose (I’m already embedding it in other code parts of WDS in a local branch).
@Uwe: you define the cleanup action, so it’s expected you know what you’re doing 😉
Please!!, some examples of the cleanups commands
Then, more people would use it 😉
That’s a tough one. Examples I can possibly promise, perhaps we can also have something like a little databases of scripts. But obviously there is no way to tailor it to your needs and the database of such scripts is a tricky thing for several reasons. Thanks for the input.
To be honest, i wanted to add some conversion options to convert uncompressed filetypes on our network to more disk friendly ones..
i.e.
.bmp > .jpg
.wav > .mp3
.avi > .whatever
I figure i’d need to find some nice commandline converters.. but this is what i hoped to achieve! 🙂
I see. Thanks for the input. I can already tell you that we won’t include such converters in WDS, but we’ll try to make it possible to call them. For MP3, for example, I think that the LAME codec comes with a command line tool. But more appropriate would be .bmp to .png and .wav to .flac, because the source formats are lossless for an automated process the target formats should be.
Hi
I have never used the cleanup functions in Windows. I like to do it manual myself. I came across your great little program the other day and it is great and a big help when I need to do some cleanup on my systemdrive 😎
i recently added a “remove svn folders” to my windows explorer, which removes recursivly all .svn folders residing in the selected folder. – that would be a nice thing.
if youre changing that feature, please implement a way to provide windirstat with a return value (e.g. a list of filesystem objects) – if you do, then the first thing ill create would be a duplicate checker.
select a file in windirstat, then pass it to my search/compare application and highlight the return values within windirstat (with an appropriate coloring scheme, as i would return a (filename + similarity combination) .
If you have the time, please add the possibility to create a text/html report via command line.
I agree with Helt, I’d like to be able to do some automated dupe checking and have options to relocate (delete, rename & perhaps other options) the dupes.
I also concur with many of the other posts re the cleanup function; I tend to use your toot to search and destroy. Automation is great except when it isn’t!
Cheers,
Chris
I think I once wanted to use it combined with optipng to shrink png files in a bunch of folders. I had a few problems, including that I couldn’t get it to run on more than once file at once (a batch process, as it were).
I mainly use WinDirStat for mapping capabilities. It’s a great overall strategic mapping and planning tool for use when nuking excessive stuff. I also use it to get an overview of how to re-allocate and re-purpose drives.
I would never use (and properly so) any converter capability, especially ones that convert to a lossy format. Please do not go bloating this program with such items. Conversion stuff is best left to existing applications that specialize in such operations. There’s a reason why there’s lossless and lossy filetypes – and going back and forth among them is to be done carefully, especially if you work with media files of any sort. And to automate any of this stuff is just asking for disaster.
I also would never use any cleanup routines or scripts or anything. This activity, like file conversion, is best left to other programs that specialize in such operations. CCleaner is what I use, it’s established, it works, it’s highly customizable without learning a script language, and it’s in use on over 500million PC’s world-wide. So for cleanup ops I’d highly recommend that one. You could call CCleaner right from WinDirStat and run it in a silent command-line mode. Think of it as one big extension module. Now you get the best cleaning from the best mapping program! Amazing! eh?
A duplicate search function would be a natural extension of what most folks use WinDirStat for anyways. It would be a great thing to have duplicates flash on the treemap. While there are plenty of duplicate search & destroy programs out there already – I feel that WinDirStat could get some added value here.
And speaking of flashing stuff, what about when clicking on a file – have the outline box flash on the treemap? This would make it immensely easier to find those microscopic files in a sea of monsters.
Well, that’s about all I gotta say, just, please don’t go bloating this program up with non-related features. I understand your desire to branch out (no pun intended) the program’s functionality, but some things are perfect the way they are, and this is one of them.
Keith, you probably misunderstood. First of all, optipng is not lossy, since it (by brute force) tries to shrink PNG files further.
Secondly, it’s more important whether we could simply abandon the current cleanup actions in favor of a more powerful option. And strictly speaking that more powerful option doesn’t have to be used for “writing” at all, it would just allow more control. And though you have a point with “bloat” in a sense, I think it’s still fine to add features that make the tool more versatile, just not to the core program.
But let me go through your points one by one:
I mainly use WinDirStat for mapping capabilities. It?s a great overall strategic mapping and planning tool for use when nuking excessive stuff. I also use it to get an overview of how to re-allocate and re-purpose drives.
Cool. That’s the kind of feedback I’d like to have much more. We get the occasional grateful mails or very specific feature requests that do not always make sense to a broad set of people, but this feedback about usage makes it easier to see what to focus on.
I would never use (and properly so) any converter capability, especially ones that convert to a lossy format. Please do not go bloating this program with such items.
Optipng is an external program. The point would not be to incorporate its code into WDS – that’d be silly. Rather a more powerful scripting facility than is currently built in, would allow more versatile use, including customization of some aspects of the program for uses that you or I cannot even think of right now.
Conversion stuff is best left to existing applications that specialize in such operations. There?s a reason why there?s lossless and lossy filetypes ? and going back and forth among them is to be done carefully, especially if you work with media files of any sort. And to automate any of this stuff is just asking for disaster.
Not with optipng, though.
I also would never use any cleanup routines or scripts or anything. This activity, like file conversion, is best left to other programs that specialize in such operations. CCleaner is what I use, it?s established, it works, it?s highly customizable without learning a script language, and it?s in use on over 500million PC?s world-wide. So for cleanup ops I?d highly recommend that one. You could call CCleaner right from WinDirStat and run it in a silent command-line mode. Think of it as one big extension module. Now you get the best cleaning from the best mapping program! Amazing! eh?
Well, CCleaner has a different license etc. Also it doesn’t really do the per-file thing but rather has particular locations it checks and cleans. WDS doesn’t have this idea of the system. For WDS it’s all files and folders.
A duplicate search function would be a natural extension of what most folks use WinDirStat for anyways.
In a sense it would be, but again the actual implementation details should be flexible (i.e. scripted).
It would be a great thing to have duplicates flash on the treemap.
… alright, you have a point, but perhaps that should be something you have to activate willingly and then deactivate again when you want to …
Eeek
While there are plenty of duplicate search & destroy programs out there already ? I feel that WinDirStat could get some added value here.
Well, I was involved in one of them (DFHL), but they all have their caveats. I’ll rather let the user decide (thus the scripting).
And speaking of flashing stuff, what about when clicking on a file ? have the outline box flash on the treemap? This would make it immensely easier to find those microscopic files in a sea of monsters.
Nice idea. Could you please add this to the feature request tracker on SF.net, so I won’t forget it?
Well, that?s about all I gotta say, just, please don?t go bloating this program up with non-related features. I understand your desire to branch out (no pun intended) the program?s functionality, but some things are perfect the way they are, and this is one of them.
You misapprehend the question in my original post. This is not at all about bloating the core program but rather making it versatile so that users are empowered to implement things themselves that I didn’t anticipate when I was working on it. I think this is what makes great programs – extensibility.
It would be great to have a tool to trigger actions on files with several criteria/filters.
e.g.
– convert doc to docx and similar for other old office formats
– trigger acrobat to shrink pdfs and/or OCR them
– delete junk, e.g. ~*.tmp, thumbs.db, etc.
A log of actions/results/errors would be great for debugging purposes.
This should all be scheduled with a Scheduled Task and some easy indicator of success/failure would be great, e.g. green – all ok, yellow – comments, red – error happened.
I am using WDS mainly to check folder sizes – straight ahead on one server disk. My users are mostly non-computer literates. For duplicates search I use NoClone, and some batch scripts for deleting the garbage. Other conversions irregularly manual activated for large files.
Thx for WDS!
I tend to use WDS as a monitoring tool for verifying secondary folder/file backups and total disk usage. One thing that might be nice from a cleanup perspective is if there is a way to run WDS in batch on a scheduler and have the output added to a text log report over time (really only need, # of folders, # of files, total size). My folders and subfolders tend to be large (subfolders = 45GB consistently-55GB on occasion and never gets smaller, only larger). Even in WDS, the running time is significant. So it would be nice to quickly verify directory stats quickly in the AM without having to always run WDS over and over. My cleanup routine right now is based on batch ‘rd’ing directories based on date and time. So from a cleanup perspective, there’s a job determining exactly which folders are “good” to begin with )ie, resulting from a clean backup), how many of them to “RD” (almost always in batch and usually based on a rough percentage of available disk, good backup folders,). I have a batch system already logging and pulling stuff from the backup routine but it’s kludgy and rather manual. Something nicer out of WDS would be cool.
Hi. Thanks for the nifty program.
You wanted examples of use, well:
I have to back up a back up of back up HD.
I had hundreds of files in duplicates, sometimes threefold in different backups at different times.
So, I used WDS for 2 things, basically:
-detecting the huge folders to focus exploration
-to define a threshold on which folders I would backup as they were, without further clean up.
One feature I think would be easy, since you already have the filesystem loaded, is to do “Search files” through filename/ext. I would use the explorer search, and it?s oh so annoying, and i thought what a pity it was that fast, discrete WDS didn?t allow me to.
Another simple feature would be to export to html or CSV a list of CANDIDATES of duplicates. You can do this only by exporting the path+name of the files with exactly the same size (no need to do comparisons). You define a threshold size to consider the files (so you dont export cookies, for ex.) The user would be responsible for checking the pertinent files for deletion. This feature would benefit as well in your already holding the filesystem’s files attributes etc.
(You have halted development for WDS, but anyhow, these are quick improvements for this or other follow-up. Hope it helps)
Thanks for asking! And of course many thanks for WDS itself 😀
I constantly run into space usage issues with my Windows folder on my %systemdrive%. An example here: http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/645/spacetakenbywindowsfold.png
I believe, legitimate cleaning of leftover installers by Windows Update & redundant backups of patches can be a good use case for many folks.
Just stumbled across this while searching for something else, but I thought I should mention that I used a cleanup action to compress all the files in a folder. I could have done it manually if I had been able to open the Properties for all the in a folder at once. (I don’t know if that’s a reasonable feature request.)
Just stumbled across this while searching for something else, but I thought I should mention that I used a cleanup action to compress all the files in a folder. I could have done it manually if I had been able to open the Properties for all the <Files> in a folder at once. (I don?t know if that?s a reasonable feature request.)
Neil, you can usually do it from the folder properties, if you mean the built-in compression. The built-in compression is merely an attribute that you set or unset as far as I know. Everything else happens transparently through the file system driver. What did you run to compress them?
The Windows Service pack cleanup commands:
Vista SP1:
vsp1cln.exe
Vista SP2:
compcln.exe
Windows 7 and later:
dism /online /cleanup-image /spsuperseded /hidesp
or
dism /image:D: /cleanup-image /spsuperseded /hidesp
(for an inactive system)
I am currently trying to use the clean up actions to remove empty folders within a directory. This is proving difficult as I am not entirely sure if WDS can use all command line commands. Another thing I would like to be able to do is select a group of folders and move their contents into another, single folder.
@Mark D, you can use any set of command line commands if write them in batch file
Personally I think if you want to add to the program that is great but please do not remove this option if you want to make it less obvious just add an option to get to it like an advanced user control panel. This feature makes Windirstat very powerful to say the least. I am just now starting to use this feature and have great plans for it. if you would like i will make some examples and when I finnish each one and test it as much as possible I could offer it up for your review. The command line is still more robust than the windows gui there are tons of non gui apps out there converters included. I am getting ready to test passing information from windirstat to microsoft rich tools RichCopy 4.0, I have been wanting to do this for a while those too programs together would be awesome. Some of the options I will be adding to my version will be to use windirstat to ftp data, copy data from one drive to another based on user input from cmd prompt. create directory tree files. limitless, that is what this feature offers.
Please leave cleanup actions. That said, I wouldn’t mind also being able to execute some Lua.