automatic folder content deletion

[rossy t]

hi all, on a windows 2003 file server we have a temporary folder that staff place files in to share whilst working. we are looking for a solution that either once a week scans the folder or permanently monitors the folder and deletes content placed in there (date modified) over one month old, a simple task. the only additional feature we require is certain subfolders are not to be indexed/deleted if the contents of said folder have not been modified in that one month period. eg we have a "scans" folder that the photocopiers scan PDFs to, and if these folders get deleted then the photocopier can't scan.

simple right?

i have of course searched around and tried a few programs but the ones i found were buggy. google results are going on about writing VB scripts and batch files (i have no idea how to do this). i am picturing a wonderful freeware 746kb application that sits in the system tray written by some college student in 1997, that is the dream.

thanks.

 

[AMMUT]

Windows Server comes with a utility called ForFiles that can be used for this purpose. It might not be installed on Windows Server 2003 by default but you can grab it from Microsoft.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc753551(v=ws.10).aspx

Sample command:

forfiles /p "C:\myDir" /s /m *.* /d <number of days> /c "cmd /c del @path"

To not search sub directories you could remove the "/s" from the command.