Mass deletion of certain files types

Anti

Guys,

Quick question ! We have a cluster here in work which hosts every dub users home dir. This is starting to fill up with music, movies and other non work related junk which we would like to be removed. Especially as its growing so much we are having to use extra 400gb backup tapes on daily ( incrimental jobs ) and end of week/month jobs.

I have been using treesize pro to monitor the ammounts of file types and where they all sit, and i must say its a great tool. But id like the ability to be able to wipe all of the mp3's , avi's etc etc off it in one go. I know i can do this by logging into each users home dir, and all the shared locations, but this would take alot of time. Also i know a batch file can be written for this, but its not something i have much experience doing. Especially not for something with a few TB worth of data.

What i would like to know is, shall i just have a batch file made up to clear the data ( which we have backed up, so nothing to bad if it goes tits up ). Or is there a program i can use to tie in with my _sad account that will allow me delete from there ?

Or if anyone has any other and better ideas it woul dbe great to hear.

Cheers !

ntlbell

Anti wrote: »

Also i know a batch file can be written for this, but its not something i have much experience doing. Especially not for something with a few TB worth of data.

It sounds like a perfect time to give it a bash.

But for the future you should try prevention instead of looking for a cure use FSMC to stop users from harvesting such file types as .mp3 in their home directories in the first place.

Capt'n Midnight

in windows Xp / 2003

at the command prompt use
del *.mp3 /s

del /? will list other options like delete read only files


many antivirus packages allow you to block file types - add *.mp3 to the list

EL_Loco

give them some notice too. they might be browned off they've to remove them but will appreciate the fact you gave them some heads up. Don't just wipe them.

Point them in the direction of portable drives, and let them take off their stuff. After that wipe and introduce the filtering for media files.

let em know monday, wipe on friday.

peace and harmony ensues.

Capt'n Midnight

EL_Loco wrote: »

give them some notice too. they might be browned off they've to remove them but will appreciate the fact you gave them some heads up. Don't just wipe them.

Point them in the direction of portable drives, and let them take off their stuff. After that wipe and introduce the filtering for media files.

let em know monday, wipe on friday.

peace and harmony ensues.

you don't need to warn them if it's already part of IT policy
in fact in most organisations it's technically a disciplinary issue

maximum fines are in the order of €127,000 so unless your users are prepared to assign their mortgagues over ....

The song "Happy Birthday" still makes the copyright holders $2 million a year.

zod

are you using win2k3 for the cluster ? .. R2 allows you too set a filter on the file types that are allowed to be saved to a volume. Its called file screening.

Its configurable by file extension so you can set the action .. like
1. do not allow the save .. send an email to the user and admins
2. Allow the user to save .. send an email
etc

You can set it so that it only affect files saved from now on ..

more info here : http://www.microsoft.com/technet/technetmag/issues/2006/05/GetControl/default.aspx

WRT to MP3s etc .. use explorer to search small parts of your file tree for a specific file extension .. select the search results and press delete.