My handy sdelete scripts

- Script #1 : Shred Files using Send To

With this script you can easily shred any file by right-clicking on it > Send To > sdelete.bat Even if you don't have permissions on the file or if it is system or hidden file!


Requirements:

1. For each of these scripts to work properly, Sysinternals sdelete.exe must exist in your PATH (normally the C:\Windows\System32 directory, or %systemroot%\System32)
   
   You can download sdelete (in zipped form) from here if you don't have it already.



2. You should be logged on as an Administrator when trying to shred files in which you don't currently have the necessary permissions to access or delete.

Instructions:

Create a .bat file using notepad or your favorite text editor. Put the following code into it and save it in your "SendTo" folder (i.e. C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\SendTo) as sdelete.bat

ECHO Y| cacls %1 /T /C /G Administrators:F attrib -h -s -r -a %1 /S /D sdelete -p 3 -s -q %1

Now just right-click on any file you wish to shred and go Send To > sdelete.bat and it will shred it using sdelete's secure 3 pass method.

Neat trick ey? No more typing anything in from the command line! I hope someone will find this as useful as I did!! :)



- Script #1 (Updated) -

Thanks to Karlchen's batch skills, and other members suggestions, we now have a revised script that will work better at sdeleting multiple files and directories at the same time.

Follow the same instructions as above for creating and saving the batch file, but using the following code instead.

@echo off :START if "%~f1"=="" (    echo No more args given. Done.    exit /b 0 ) :WORK    ECHO Y| cacls %1 /T /C /G Administrators:F    attrib -h -s -r -a %1 /S /D    attrib -h -s -r -a %1\*.* /S /D    sdelete -p 3 -s -q %1 :NEXTARG    shift    goto START

Thanks again everyone for all of your help on improving my original script :)



- Script #2 : Context menu (right-click) to Zap Free Space

With this script you will be able to right click on any drive or partition to zap free space with sdelete!

Instructions:

Copy/paste the code from below into notepad. Save it somewhere as context_sdelete.inf then right-click on context_sdelete.inf and go Install.

; context_sdelete.inf ; Adds Zap Free Space to the right click context menu in Windows XP [version] signature="$CHICAGO$" [DefaultInstall] AddReg=AddMe [AddMe] HKCR,"Drive\Shell\Zap Free Space\command",,,"sdelete -p 3 -z %1"

Now you can right-click on a drive icon in My Computer to Zap Free Space on that drive!


Notes:

If you're having problems making the INF or BAT files, make sure Save as type: "All Files" is selected in Notepad's save dialog.

Thanks Sysinternals for this wonderful tool! :)

I hope I helped to make everyone's life a little easier, and they get good use out of my scripts. ;) Enjoy all! :D

Edited by soulstace - 16 June 2006 at 8:26pm

Really nice, but just one thing. Cacls doesn't support /Y switch. => http://www.microsoft.com/.../cacls.mspx

Workaround would be:

ECHO Y| cacls %1 /T /C /G Administrators:F

But no guarantee that it works.


Edited by GreenHornet - 27 May 2006 at 7:27am

Check this! I updated it with a FOR loop. Now you can select and shred multiple files and/or directories at once!

EDITED - Check the original post for final script.

Edited by soulstace - 16 June 2006 at 7:08pm

Thank you, thank you very much.

Edited by soulstace - 16 June 2006 at 8:28pm

I use Win2K