So, I am constantly looking for ways of automating tasks. Too many admins do not take advantage of scripting and scheduled tasks/cron. Just this last week, I was implementing a new print server. Besides just building up the new server, I wanted to actually offer the users something new and useful.
I’ve been wanting to setup a network pdf printer for quite some time. I have played around with setting up a network PDF printer using cups. However, we seem to be so MS centric these days that I decided to use PDFCreator‘s print server. It was really a piece of cake. Just install the server portion, setup the service, create a share and watch the PDF’s spool.
I quickly found that the folder where PDF’s were written to, was quickly filling with PDF’s as users were not removing them. So, the solution was to write a little vbscript to purge any files older than an hour. There were two things I wanted:
- I have a file named “!FILES ARE PURGED AFTER ONE HOUR!”. I did not want this file removed. It serves as a warning for uses.
- I did not want to purge the folder every hour. I wanted to remove any files that were one hour old or greater. That way, if a user creates a PDF at 2:59pm, the 3:00pm run won’t delete it. It will be deleted on or after 3:59pm.
Here is the script I came up with:
strFolder = "C:Folder"
Set objShell = CreateObject("Shell.Application")
Set objFolder = objShell.Namespace(strFolder)
Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
For Each strFileName in objFolder.Items
If len(objFSO.GetExtensionName(strFileName)) > 0 Then
Set objFile = objFSO.GetFile(strFolder & strFileName.Name)
If DateDiff("N",objFile.DateLastModified,Now()) > 59 Then
objFSO.DeleteFile(strFolder & strFileName.Name),True
End If
End If
NextThe great thing about this is that you get a free network PDF printer that can be left alone. Your boss thinks you are a genius and there is no sweat on your brow.
Cheers!
