When started the program will list the local and network drives as well as options for domains and remote machines known to the computer with a default option of prompting before deleting files.
The image shows the various components of the DelOld 2003 application and below each section is described.
Section 1 - The main folder explorer pane
Double clicking on a drive will expand the base level folders, double clicking on a folder will then shown its sub-directories. This also applies to the domain areas, double clicking a domain will list the computers in the domain, double clicking a computer will list all the shares on that machine (even the hidden shares).
Section 2 - The jump to interface
You can type a direct path in this area, e.g. d:\temp\ or select a remote machine by entering \\<host name> or \\<IP address>. You can also combine, e.g. \\200.200.200.1\d$\temp. Click "Go" or press the return key.
Section 3 - The included folders
Drag folders from the main folder pane into this window to have them checked by the process.
Section 4 - The excluded folders
Drag folders which should not be checked (you cannot drag a root drive or share to this window). If in included folder d:\temp was included and in excluded d:\temp\sub1 was selected then the content of sub1 and its sub-directories would not be checked.
Section 5 - Log file options
If a file and path is included then all actions will be written to the entered file. Selecting the "Append" will write to the end of an existing file if found otherwise if the file exists its content will be overwritten.
You can drag a folder from the main explorer interface into the log text box and it will automatically select a file in that folder of the format delold-<day>-<month>-<year>.log, e.g. D:\logs\delold-22-02-2003.log (if the path d:\logs\ had been dragged) although you can change this to any name you require.
Section 6 - Included file types
Include File type is where you define the specification for files to match that should be deleted. *.* or * will apply to every file. You can be more specific using the wildcard character, for example
*asp*d*.ex* - would find any files with some text, then asp, some more text, then d, some more text then anything with .ex more text extension.
You are not limited to a single use of wildcard and can use as many as you want in any position.
You can also use the ? mark character which means at that position the character may be anything, for example setting the file type to as??.exe would allow and files starting with as, then any two characters ending with .exe.
The types are changed by clicking the "Modify" button and then either selected from the selected types or entering a new criteria in the text box and clicking the "-->" arrow. Click OK when all selections are made.
Section 7 - Excluded file types
This is the same as included file types but files meeting these criteria will not be deleted, for example if in included you had *.* but in excluded *.exe was selected all files except executables would be checked.
Section 8 - Date and time options
By default this is 120 days which it will delete any files matching the file type specification. Setting to 1 would delete anything over 1 day or 24 hours old, so if the current time/date was 15:30 on 15th January 2000 and you entered 1 day it would delete anything matching the file specification older than 15:30 on 14th January 2000.
The most days you can enter is 9999. This gives just over 27 years worth of possible old file deletion.
Alternatively you can click the "Set" button and actually select a date.
Section 9 - File compare option
A file has 3 dates associated with it
You can select to compare any 3 of these file dates to the date specification you enter.
Section 10 - Program options
