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#1
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File cleanup of .txt files
I have a 4 YO HP desktop that has just had a reinstall over the
old version of Windows 10 Pro that kept personal files and apps. It has never had a clean install since new. I lost a .txt file on my desktop and went looking for it. When I ran Search Everything looking for *.txt on my C: drive I was shocked to see that I have over nineteen thousand *.txt files on my machine. Many, perhaps thousands of these files are log files from the Windows Solitaire app that I play almost every day. These files date back to 2014 or 2015. Can I get rid of these files? While I like keeping the record of the history of my play in Klondike, I can live without them. Thanks in advance for any help. |
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#2
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File cleanup of .txt files
Kirk Bubul wrote:
I have a 4 YO HP desktop that has just had a reinstall over the old version of Windows 10 Pro that kept personal files and apps. It has never had a clean install since new. I lost a .txt file on my desktop and went looking for it. When I ran Search Everything looking for *.txt on my C: drive I was shocked to see that I have over nineteen thousand *.txt files on my machine. Many, perhaps thousands of these files are log files from the Windows Solitaire app that I play almost every day. These files date back to 2014 or 2015. Can I get rid of these files? While I like keeping the record of the history of my play in Klondike, I can live without them. Thanks in advance for any help. So why can't you sort the .txt files that Everything found and then select the ones you want to delete with a date range? Use Ctrl+A to select all files or select one file and use Shift+Click on another file to select the files within that range, and then press the Del key. You use the same key or mouse shortcuts in Everything that you use in Windows/File Explorer. Everything may hang (become unresponsive) when you select thousands of files despite it using a database to record the filenames. You might want to try FileLocator Lite whose first search is slow (but subsequent search are fast due to the caching in the first search) and selecting thousands of files to right-click (to get the context menu to select Del) doesn't hang it indefinitely. With thousands of files to delete, you may want to first disable the Recycle Bin; else, you will end up moving thousands of files into the Recycle Bin instead of actually deleting them. You could use robocopy in a command shell to move all *.txt files into a temporary folder, zip up the folder (to have the .zip around in case you find later that you were overly aggressive in moving/deleting the files), and then delete the temporary folder. Run "robocopy /?" to see the arguments and all the switches you can specify. |
#3
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File cleanup of .txt files
On 1/1/19 3:13 PM, VanguardLH wrote:
Kirk Bubul wrote: I have a 4 YO HP desktop that has just had a reinstall over the old version of Windows 10 Pro that kept personal files and apps. It has never had a clean install since new. I lost a .txt file on my desktop and went looking for it. When I ran Search Everything looking for *.txt on my C: drive I was shocked to see that I have over nineteen thousand *.txt files on my machine. Many, perhaps thousands of these files are log files from the Windows Solitaire app that I play almost every day. These files date back to 2014 or 2015. Can I get rid of these files? While I like keeping the record of the history of my play in Klondike, I can live without them. Thanks in advance for any help. So why can't you sort the .txt files that Everything found and then select the ones you want to delete with a date range? Use Ctrl+A to select all files or select one file and use Shift+Click on another file to select the files within that range, and then press the Del key. You use the same key or mouse shortcuts in Everything that you use in Windows/File Explorer. Everything may hang (become unresponsive) when you select thousands of files despite it using a database to record the filenames. You might want to try FileLocator Lite whose first search is slow (but subsequent search are fast due to the caching in the first search) and selecting thousands of files to right-click (to get the context menu to select Del) doesn't hang it indefinitely. With thousands of files to delete, you may want to first disable the Recycle Bin; else, you will end up moving thousands of files into the Recycle Bin instead of actually deleting them. You could use robocopy in a command shell to move all *.txt files into a temporary folder, zip up the folder (to have the .zip around in case you find later that you were overly aggressive in moving/deleting the files), and then delete the temporary folder. Run "robocopy /?" to see the arguments and all the switches you can specify. or move them to the trash. you can then restore. |
#4
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File cleanup of .txt files
Big Al wrote:
On 1/1/19 3:13 PM, VanguardLH wrote: Kirk Bubul wrote: I have a 4 YO HP desktop that has just had a reinstall over the old version of Windows 10 Pro that kept personal files and apps. It has never had a clean install since new. I lost a .txt file on my desktop and went looking for it. When I ran Search Everything looking for *.txt on my C: drive I was shocked to see that I have over nineteen thousand *.txt files on my machine. Many, perhaps thousands of these files are log files from the Windows Solitaire app that I play almost every day. These files date back to 2014 or 2015. Can I get rid of these files? While I like keeping the record of the history of my play in Klondike, I can live without them. Thanks in advance for any help. So why can't you sort the .txt files that Everything found and then select the ones you want to delete with a date range? Use Ctrl+A to select all files or select one file and use Shift+Click on another file to select the files within that range, and then press the Del key. You use the same key or mouse shortcuts in Everything that you use in Windows/File Explorer. Everything may hang (become unresponsive) when you select thousands of files despite it using a database to record the filenames. You might want to try FileLocator Lite whose first search is slow (but subsequent search are fast due to the caching in the first search) and selecting thousands of files to right-click (to get the context menu to select Del) doesn't hang it indefinitely. With thousands of files to delete, you may want to first disable the Recycle Bin; else, you will end up moving thousands of files into the Recycle Bin instead of actually deleting them. You could use robocopy in a command shell to move all *.txt files into a temporary folder, zip up the folder (to have the .zip around in case you find later that you were overly aggressive in moving/deleting the files), and then delete the temporary folder. Run "robocopy /?" to see the arguments and all the switches you can specify. or move them to the trash. you can then restore. With thousands of files to delete, one of my suggestions was to *disable* the Recycle Bin; else, every delete will actually perform a move which takes longer to update the file table than simply marking the first cluster as unallocated. If the OP disables the Recycle Bin to speed up the delete process, there is no "trash" to keep old copies of the pseudo-deleted files. With moving the files into the Recycle Bin, the "delete" of 19,000 files could take hours depending on the hardware the OP has in his computer during which the OS becomes very slow or even unresponsive. |
#5
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File cleanup of .txt files
On 1/1/2019 3:34 PM, VanguardLH wrote:
Big Al wrote: On 1/1/19 3:13 PM, VanguardLH wrote: Kirk Bubul wrote: I have a 4 YO HP desktop that has just had a reinstall over the old version of Windows 10 Pro that kept personal files and apps. It has never had a clean install since new. I lost a .txt file on my desktop and went looking for it. When I ran Search Everything looking for *.txt on my C: drive I was shocked to see that I have over nineteen thousand *.txt files on my machine. Many, perhaps thousands of these files are log files from the Windows Solitaire app that I play almost every day. These files date back to 2014 or 2015. Can I get rid of these files? While I like keeping the record of the history of my play in Klondike, I can live without them. Thanks in advance for any help. So why can't you sort the .txt files that Everything found and then select the ones you want to delete with a date range? Use Ctrl+A to select all files or select one file and use Shift+Click on another file to select the files within that range, and then press the Del key. You use the same key or mouse shortcuts in Everything that you use in Windows/File Explorer. Everything may hang (become unresponsive) when you select thousands of files despite it using a database to record the filenames. You might want to try FileLocator Lite whose first search is slow (but subsequent search are fast due to the caching in the first search) and selecting thousands of files to right-click (to get the context menu to select Del) doesn't hang it indefinitely. With thousands of files to delete, you may want to first disable the Recycle Bin; else, you will end up moving thousands of files into the Recycle Bin instead of actually deleting them. You could use robocopy in a command shell to move all *.txt files into a temporary folder, zip up the folder (to have the .zip around in case you find later that you were overly aggressive in moving/deleting the files), and then delete the temporary folder. Run "robocopy /?" to see the arguments and all the switches you can specify. or move them to the trash. you can then restore. With thousands of files to delete, one of my suggestions was to *disable* the Recycle Bin; else, every delete will actually perform a move which takes longer to update the file table than simply marking the first cluster as unallocated. If the OP disables the Recycle Bin to speed up the delete process, there is no "trash" to keep old copies of the pseudo-deleted files. With moving the files into the Recycle Bin, the "delete" of 19,000 files could take hours depending on the hardware the OP has in his computer during which the OS becomes very slow or even unresponsive. use "FORFILES" in a Batch file -- Zaidy036 |
#6
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File cleanup of .txt files
Zaidy036 wrote:
On 1/1/2019 3:34 PM, VanguardLH wrote: Big Al wrote: On 1/1/19 3:13 PM, VanguardLH wrote: Kirk Bubul wrote: I have a 4 YO HP desktop that has just had a reinstall over the old version of Windows 10 Pro that kept personal files and apps. It has never had a clean install since new. I lost a .txt file on my desktop and went looking for it. When I ran Search Everything looking for *.txt on my C: drive I was shocked to see that I have over nineteen thousand *.txt files on my machine. Many, perhaps thousands of these files are log files from the Windows Solitaire app that I play almost every day. These files date back to 2014 or 2015. Can I get rid of these files? While I like keeping the record of the history of my play in Klondike, I can live without them. Thanks in advance for any help. So why can't you sort the .txt files that Everything found and then select the ones you want to delete with a date range? Use Ctrl+A to select all files or select one file and use Shift+Click on another file to select the files within that range, and then press the Del key. You use the same key or mouse shortcuts in Everything that you use in Windows/File Explorer. Everything may hang (become unresponsive) when you select thousands of files despite it using a database to record the filenames. You might want to try FileLocator Lite whose first search is slow (but subsequent search are fast due to the caching in the first search) and selecting thousands of files to right-click (to get the context menu to select Del) doesn't hang it indefinitely. With thousands of files to delete, you may want to first disable the Recycle Bin; else, you will end up moving thousands of files into the Recycle Bin instead of actually deleting them. You could use robocopy in a command shell to move all *.txt files into a temporary folder, zip up the folder (to have the .zip around in case you find later that you were overly aggressive in moving/deleting the files), and then delete the temporary folder. Run "robocopy /?" to see the arguments and all the switches you can specify. or move them to the trash. you can then restore. With thousands of files to delete, one of my suggestions was to *disable* the Recycle Bin; else, every delete will actually perform a move which takes longer to update the file table than simply marking the first cluster as unallocated. If the OP disables the Recycle Bin to speed up the delete process, there is no "trash" to keep old copies of the pseudo-deleted files. With moving the files into the Recycle Bin, the "delete" of 19,000 files could take hours depending on the hardware the OP has in his computer during which the OS becomes very slow or even unresponsive. use "FORFILES" in a Batch file That would eliminate the moving of "deleted" files into the Recycle Bin. However, I would test a bit to see if I could follow the command with a " nul" to eliminate wasting time to display the stdout of each cmd executed by forfiles. |
#7
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File cleanup of .txt files
On Tue, 1 Jan 2019 14:34:52 -0600, VanguardLH
wrote: Big Al wrote: On 1/1/19 3:13 PM, VanguardLH wrote: Kirk Bubul wrote: I have a 4 YO HP desktop that has just had a reinstall over the old version of Windows 10 Pro that kept personal files and apps. It has never had a clean install since new. I lost a .txt file on my desktop and went looking for it. When I ran Search Everything looking for *.txt on my C: drive I was shocked to see that I have over nineteen thousand *.txt files on my machine. Many, perhaps thousands of these files are log files from the Windows Solitaire app that I play almost every day. These files date back to 2014 or 2015. Can I get rid of these files? While I like keeping the record of the history of my play in Klondike, I can live without them. Thanks in advance for any help. So why can't you sort the .txt files that Everything found and then select the ones you want to delete with a date range? Use Ctrl+A to select all files or select one file and use Shift+Click on another file to select the files within that range, and then press the Del key. You use the same key or mouse shortcuts in Everything that you use in Windows/File Explorer. Everything may hang (become unresponsive) when you select thousands of files despite it using a database to record the filenames. You might want to try FileLocator Lite whose first search is slow (but subsequent search are fast due to the caching in the first search) and selecting thousands of files to right-click (to get the context menu to select Del) doesn't hang it indefinitely. With thousands of files to delete, you may want to first disable the Recycle Bin; else, you will end up moving thousands of files into the Recycle Bin instead of actually deleting them. You could use robocopy in a command shell to move all *.txt files into a temporary folder, zip up the folder (to have the .zip around in case you find later that you were overly aggressive in moving/deleting the files), and then delete the temporary folder. Run "robocopy /?" to see the arguments and all the switches you can specify. or move them to the trash. you can then restore. With thousands of files to delete, one of my suggestions was to *disable* the Recycle Bin; else, every delete will actually perform a move which takes longer to update the file table than simply marking the first cluster as unallocated. If the OP disables the Recycle Bin to speed up the delete process, there is no "trash" to keep old copies of the pseudo-deleted files. With moving the files into the Recycle Bin, the "delete" of 19,000 files could take hours depending on the hardware the OP has in his computer during which the OS becomes very slow or even unresponsive. Emboldened by your answer, I searched again. Turns out that all of the 19,608 log*.txt files except 409 of them were related to the solitaire game. I finally did the deletions by month. The results for 2017 show that by month the least number of log*.txt files I had was 374 and the largest number was 689. The only other numerous log.txt files are for an HP\TAInstaller. There are 398 of them which I am leaving alone. I've played Klondike solitaire, and it still remembers the total number of games that I've played, so I didn't make that go away. Thanks again for your help. |
#8
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File cleanup of .txt files
On 01/01/2019 23:00, Kirk Bubul wrote:
Emboldened by your answer, I searched again. Turns out that all of the 19,608 log*.txt There is no such thing as log*.txt. It is either *.log or *.txt. How old are you? You must be nearing the end of your life considering you have started clearing your mess before you die. -- With over 950 million devices now running Windows 10, customer satisfaction is higher than any previous version of windows. |
#9
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File cleanup of .txt files
In alt.comp.os.windows-10, on Tue, 01 Jan 2019 13:59:19 -0600, Kirk
Bubul wrote: I have a 4 YO HP desktop that has just had a reinstall over the old version of Windows 10 Pro that kept personal files and apps. It has never had a clean install since new. I lost a .txt file on my desktop and went looking for it. When I ran Search Everything looking for *.txt on my C: drive I was shocked to see that I have over nineteen thousand *.txt files on my machine. Many, perhaps thousands of these files are log files from the Windows Solitaire app that I play almost every day. These files date back to 2014 or 2015. Can I get rid of these files? While I like keeping the record of No, you shouldn't get rid of these files. Starting in 2019, you'll be expected to file annual reports on how much Solitaire you play. The US governement will use this data to create standards, to compare Federal employee Solitaire use with that by non-employees. The law specifies that employees may play Solitaire no more than 120% of what non-employees do. If you remove your files you will be in violation of the reporting law, subject to a fine and up to 30-days imprisonment for willful violation. That's for a first offense. the history of my play in Klondike, I can live without them. Thanks in advance for any help. |
#10
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File cleanup of .txt files
In alt.comp.os.windows-10, on Tue, 01 Jan 2019 13:59:19 -0600, Kirk
Bubul wrote: I have a 4 YO HP desktop that has just had a reinstall over the old version of Windows 10 Pro that kept personal files and apps. It has never had a clean install since new. I lost a .txt file on my desktop and went looking for it. When I ran Search Everything looking for *.txt on my C: drive I was shocked to see that I have over nineteen thousand *.txt files on What's a typical file name? I want to see if I have these files. my machine. Many, perhaps thousands of these files are log files from the Windows Solitaire app that I play almost every day. These files date back to 2014 or 2015. Can I get rid of these files? While I like keeping the record of the history of my play in Klondike, I can live without them. Thanks in advance for any help. |
#11
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File cleanup of .txt files
On Wed, 02 Jan 2019 05:41:45 -0500, micky
wrote: What's a typical file name? I want to see if I have these files. The solitaire files start with log_201*.txt Each of these files is done by year and month and points to a very long path that has Solitaire mentioned in it. Because I have deleted all of them I am not certain of the exact form of the file names but think that it's (for example): log_2018April*.txt and so on for each year and month. I started by looking for all my *.txt files in Search Everything from voidtools.com. I refined my search when I realized that there were thousands of those Solitaire logs. |
#12
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File cleanup of .txt files
On Wed, 2 Jan 2019 00:24:40 +0000, ? Good Guy ?
wrote: On 01/01/2019 23:00, Kirk Bubul wrote: Emboldened by your answer, I searched again. Turns out that all of the 19,608 log*.txt There is no such thing as log*.txt. It is either *.log or *.txt. How old are you? You must be nearing the end of your life considering you have started clearing your mess before you die. INCORRECT A search of my C: drive of log*.txt shows 94 files ... all starting with "log" and suffix of ".txt" |
#13
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File cleanup of .txt files
On Wed, 02 Jan 2019 23:04:42 +1030, Gary Dingle
wrote: On Wed, 2 Jan 2019 00:24:40 +0000, ? Good Guy ? wrote: On 01/01/2019 23:00, Kirk Bubul wrote: Emboldened by your answer, I searched again. Turns out that all of the 19,608 log*.txt There is no such thing as log*.txt. It is either *.log or *.txt. How old are you? You must be nearing the end of your life considering you have started clearing your mess before you die. INCORRECT A search of my C: drive of log*.txt shows 94 files ... all starting with "log" and suffix of ".txt" After my clearing out of all the Solitaire log*.txt files, asking Everything Search to find all the log*.txt files leaves me with 409 such files, almost all of which are left by HP\TAInstaller, whatever that is. I have 2,474 *.log files I plonked Good Guy a long time ago. I didn't see his dig. |
#14
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File cleanup of .txt files
On 2019-01-01 19:24, 😉 Good Guy 😉 wrote:
On 01/01/2019 23:00, Kirk Bubul wrote: Emboldened by your answer, I searched again. Turns out that all of the 19,608 log*.txt There is no such thing as log*.txt. False. I currently show 219 files starting with 'log' and ending with '.txt' on this Windows 10 system. It is either *.log or *.txt. You really should perform a search of your boot volume prior to making such claims. How old are you?Â* You must be nearing the end of your life considering you have started clearing your mess before you die. Most interesting. I have now revised my opinion. You're not an idiot, or at least not merely an idiot. You're a troll. -- With over 950 million devices now running Windows 10, customer satisfaction is higher than any previous version of windows. Make that an idiot fanboi troll. |
#15
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File cleanup of .txt files
On 1/1/2019 4:37 PM, Zaidy036 wrote:
On 1/1/2019 3:34 PM, VanguardLH wrote: Big Al wrote: On 1/1/19 3:13 PM, VanguardLH wrote: Kirk Bubul wrote: I have a 4 YO HP desktop that has just had a reinstall over the old version of Windows 10 Pro that kept personal files and apps. It has never had a clean install since new. I lost a .txt file on my desktop and went looking for it.Â* When I ran Search Everything looking for *.txtÂ* on my C: drive I was shocked to see that I have over nineteen thousand *.txt files on my machine.Â* Many, perhaps thousands of these files are log files from the Windows Solitaire app that I play almost every day. These files date back to 2014 or 2015. Can I get rid of these files?Â* While I like keeping the record of the history of my play in Klondike, I can live without them. Thanks in advance for any help. So why can't you sort the .txt files that Everything found and then select the ones you want to delete with a date range?Â* Use Ctrl+A to select all files or select one file and use Shift+Click on another file to select the files within that range, and then press the Del key.Â* You use the same key or mouse shortcuts in Everything that you use in Windows/File Explorer. Everything may hang (become unresponsive) when you select thousands of files despite it using a database to record the filenames.Â* You might want to try FileLocator Lite whose first search is slow (but subsequent search are fast due to the caching in the first search) and selecting thousands of files to right-click (to get the context menu to select Del) doesn't hang it indefinitely.Â* With thousands of files to delete, you may want to first disable the Recycle Bin; else, you will end up moving thousands of files into the Recycle Bin instead of actually deleting them. You could use robocopy in a command shell to move all *.txt files into a temporary folder, zip up the folder (to have the .zip around in case you find later that you were overly aggressive in moving/deleting the files), and then delete the temporary folder.Â* Run "robocopy /?" to see the arguments and all the switches you can specify. or move them to the trash. you can then restore. With thousands of files to delete, one of my suggestions was to *disable* the Recycle Bin; else, every delete will actually perform a move which takes longer to update the file table than simply marking the first cluster as unallocated.Â* If the OP disables the Recycle Bin to speed up the delete process, there is no "trash" to keep old copies of the pseudo-deleted files.Â* With moving the files into the Recycle Bin, the "delete" of 19,000 files could take hours depending on the hardware the OP has in his computer during which the OS becomes very slow or even unresponsive. use "FORFILES" in a Batch file Here is part of a batch I use: :: Reduce C:\Windows\Temp Files and Folders :: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- :: Remove files LAST ACCESSed OLDER than AGE SET _SRC=C:\Windows\Temp & SET AGE=120 FORFILES /P %_SRC% /S /C "CMD /C DEL /Q @path" /D -%AGE% NUL 2&1 :: Remove empty folders FOR /f "delims=" %%i in ('DIR %_SRC% /AD /S /B ^| SORT /R') DO RD "%%i" NUL 2&1 -- Zaidy036 |
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