Automatically remove large files from hard drive

[Ernesto4]

Hi,
I am using Windows Vista. I had already installed Windows XP in the primary drive. Now when I press delete to a file it takes a long time to display the confirmation message box. How can i make it to delete that file directly so that I can free up some space on my hard drive. Is there a way by which I can search automatically for the large size unusable files in Windows. And why does the system goes to standby again and again. This takes up a long time to start. Thanks in advance.

[Glenny]

The best way to make room on your hard disk is to delete large files that you no longer use. With the advanced search function of Windows Vista, you can quickly locate large files. But there is a simple way to remove all the not needed file from your system. That is by running disk cleanup from your computer. It is located in the start menu > accessories > programs.

[JonathanD]

Here is a simple way by which you can search for extra large files. That can be done by Advance search-click the Start button and then click Computer. Press the F3 key. The search is displayed. Click on the arrow to the right of the Advanced Search feature. Scroll Size (KB) and select the option above. Enter in the field near the minimum size (in KB) that the files should have, 100000 for files with a size greater than 100 MB. Then finally, click on the Search button.

[Macarenas]

You can also do one thing to get better result. In the search box, click the Tools button and then click Search Search Options. Check Include compressed files (ZIP, CAB ...) and click OK. To delete a file, click it and press the Delete key. Confirm the update by the trash Yes. This will remove all the files from your computer.

[ThoMas321]

When you delete a file or folder in Windows Vista, a dialog box asking you to confirm. You must answer Yes to the file or folder is placed in the trash. To save time, you can skip this confirmation step. To stop that right click on the Recycle Bin icon on the desktop and select Properties command. In the window that opens, uncheck Display delete confirmation. Click OK. Now when you delete a file, it no longer asks for confirmation. The file is put directly into the trash. You can always recover on error.

[ZeDaX]

When you no longer your computer for several minutes, you can pause. To reactivate it, then you just press a key on your keyboard. To avoid accidental alarms, you can disable the wake on keyboard. To do that run Control Panel > Hardware and Sound > Keyboard > Hardware tab > Properties button > Power Management. In that uncheck the Allow this device to wake the computer. Then press OK twice. Now, to put on the PC after a suspend, you just press the button briefly to start your computer.

[ranjankumar09]

For deleting files, a manual interactive approach is always recommeneded. However, if you must do this automatically, the following script will delete files based on specified criteria - top folder, size, last access time.

# Script DeleteLargeFiles.txt
# Input arguments
var str topfolder, accesstime
var int size


# Collect a list of files in $topfolder,
#    - whose accesstime is earlier than $accesstime, and
#    - whose size is greater than $size.
var str list, file
lf -r -n "*" $topfolder (($ftype=="f") AND ($fsize > $size) AND ($fatime < $accesstime)) > $list
while ($list <> "")
do
    # Get the next file to delete.
    lex "1" $list > $file
    # Delete file.
    echo -e "DEBUG: Deleting file " $file
    # system del ("\""+$file+"\"")        UNCOMMENT THIS LINE.
done

This is a biterscripting script. Save the script in file C:/Scripts/DeleteLargeFiles.txt, then call the script as follows.

script "C:/Scripts/DeleteLargeFiles.txt" topfolder("C:/test") size(1024*1024) accesstime("20090101")

The above script call will delete files under C:/test that exceed size of 1M Bytes which have not been accessed since Jan 1, 2009.

Please test the script well before using on real files (in a test C:/test directory). As you may notice, I have commented out the line that deletes the found files (system del). Uncomment that line after you are sure that the script is finding the correct files.

You can pass values of your choice to input arguments topfolder(), size() and accesstime().