Best Way to Automate Disk Cleanup through GPP??

[bts]

Hello all,

I am currently testing some GPP's to delete the Temp and Temp IE folder contents for a group of computers before pushing this out to the rest of the users.

I am also testing a 3rd GPP to regularly run Disk Defrag at a set time each evening for the same group.


Were I am struggling, though is using disk cleanup. I had manually went to groups of PC's in the past and ran
cleanmgr.exe /sageset:n . When I run this it gives me the option to delete or ignore certain items in the disk cleanup menu. When I select the ones I want and save- it saves those choices to the registry for that workstation. Then I run a batch file in task manager to regularly run cleanmgr ince a week.

I would REALLY love to be able to automate disk cleanup through a GPP. What's holding up my progress is getting the "sageset" settings in each workstations' registry. I have researched and found some scripts that don't seem to work the way I would like them to that will write to the changes to the registry. I have also seen others suggest exporting the registry keys to each workstation.

My questions would be:

1) Is Disk Cleanup a waste of time with GPP becasue I can automate Temp IE and Temp file deletion?

2) Are there other things I can use in GPP /GPO that would emulate disk cleanup?

3) What is the most efficient process for cleaning up workstations? Am I on the right track?

I would truly appreciate any and all feedback on this subject. I haven't found a lot on this subject and how it related to Group Policy,

Sincerely,
Brian

[jeff_longley]

just my 2pence (cos I'm over the other side of the pond).....

1) Diskcleanup? Really? with Hard drives the same most modern machines have, disk cleanup is the last thing I'd be worrying about. Delete Temp files and dont worry.

2) If you really want to, why not just use the GPP's to schedule the cleanmgr.exe /sageset:n task?

3) Personally (and depending on the number of workstations you've got and the licensing in place) I'd go with pushing out a clean image with something like MDT. We go from blank drive to fully deployed machine in less than 45 mins. In some instances, it's easy to redeploy than patch!

[bts]

Hi Jeff,

I appreciate your response

1) I guess I am not aware that disk cleanup isn't as much as help as it used to be. We are trying all we can to keep older PC's clean and defragged so I was looking for a way to keep these workstations running as efficiently aas possible. I still see it's available for Windows 7 so I may need to do more research.

2) I was going to use GPP to schedule cleanmgr.exe /sageset:n as a task. But, the default settings for cleanmgr.exe are not what we want. what we have had to do manually to workstations for example is 1) run "cleanmgr.exe /sageset:99" the options box comes up to choose what settings you want to keep then click OK. It saves your settings. Then we use task manger to run "cleanmgr.exe /sagerun:99" which executes disk cleanup. It works great if you have the time to manually set this up on every PC. What I have been looking for is a script to deploy through GP for each PC that automate adjusting the "cleanmgr.exe sageset:n" settings and then use GPP to schedule the "cleanmgr.exe sagerun/n".

3) I'll check out MDT for future deploys- I am sure that will help for new PC's - we could deploy an image with those options for disk maintenance


Any other input or suggestions would be appreciated

thank you,
Brian

[jeff_longley]

MDT would help with your maintainance issues too; We're at a point where we can deploy a fresh clean OS within 45 minutes. How long does it take to run a clean up and defrag versus 45 minutes to go to clean install? Just a thought! :-)

[bts]

Thanks Jeff- I'll definitely look into MDT and see how we can streamline the process.

Sincerely,
Brian