Remote disk cleanup
Whilst looking for a solution to help a client clean some disk space up on there machine I noticed that the c:windowsInstaller folder was using up about 3.5Gb. After a little Google-ing to see if I could remove this folder or clean it up in some I discovered the Windows Cleanup Utility and a little tool that can be used from the command line (my kind of tool).
Initially started working on the command line to run this on a remote machine using PSExec, but decided there must be an easier way. Back to Google for PSExec GUI, and came up with a tool from PenguinByte.
Using a combination of the tools it’s possible to remotely free up disk space on a remote machine.
The end result was I could run on all the remote machines on the network the command, freeing up disk space with ease and saving future headaches of a bloating Windows XP install
The tools I used are
- Psexec – part of Microsoft Sysinternals. PSExec allows the running of commands on a remote machine.
- MSIzap – part of the Windows Installer CleanUp Utility. MsiZap is run with the ‘G!’ argument that means it’ll remove any orphaned files from whatever machine it is being run on without prompt.
- EZ-execute – From PenguinByte.com. Provides a simple GUI interface to make using psexec easier.
The EZ-Execute GUI interface is pretty straightforward to understand. My only problem with it is, when it puts the command together and executes it, there isn’t a pause at the end. So if the dos box just flashes up and disappears again, you’ve no way of knowing if worked or not, and if not, why not.
Other then that, its helped me loads already.
