Batch cmd to delete all files in boost_interprocess?

[Redcrown]

I've got a Windows puzzle. Adobe leaves a little junk laying around in a few folders: BigTable, boost_interprocess, Crash Dumps, and Media Cache. Long ago a wrote a simple CMD line batch file to delete all of it, because it can grow to gigabytes over time. It's been working OK for a year or more.

That batch file started failing with the latest updates to Photoshop, specifically on the boost_interprocess folder. The cmd runs OK, reports no errors, but the files are not deleted. Yet they can be deleted manually with File explorer. The batch commands (run as admin) are:

takeown /f "C:\ProgramData\boost_interprocess" /r /d y
icacls "C:\ProgramData\boost_interprocess" /grant Administrators:F /t
del /F /Q "C:\ProgramData\boost_interprocess\*.*"

I just added the takedown and icacls commands when the del cmd started failing because Google gave that hint. When I look at the properties for the boost_interprocess folder there is nothing unusual. Identical to other folders that delete OK. So, any Windows gurus that can help? Photoshop must have started making some mystery setting on the folder when it creates it.

 

[Sean Nelson]

I wonder if changing the final line to:

del /F /Q "C:\ProgramData\boost_interprocess\*"

(i.e., deleting the final ".*") might work?

 

[Billiam29]

I do not have the C:\ProgramData\boost_interprocess folder on my system. For reference, I have only Photoshop, Bridge, and the CC Desktop App installed. I looked for the folder with only the CC Desktop App running.

From what you've posted, it seems like you're making the assumption that the files within the folder cannot be deleted due to premisssions issues. Might it simply be that some running process has those files open?

The boost_interprocess folder does not appear to be specific to any particular application, software developer, or even operating system. The resulting question is therefore how are you determining the files within this folder are coming from Adobe software?

I would suggest using Sysinternals Process Explorer to see if you can determine for certain which, if any, running process may have the files open.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/process-explorer

 

[Redcrown]

Thanks All, but no joy yet. Changing the asterisks has no effect. This boost_interprocess thing is an obscure coding tool used only by equally obscure nerd developers. The developers at Topaz may be the only users. If you run Topaz products as Photoshop plugins you get this folder. The individual files are small (40 MB), so this is not a big problem. But I hate unsolved puzzles.

Again, the properties of the files and folder show no permission issues, and the del command shows no errors. But the files simply remain.

https://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_89_0/doc/html/interprocess.html

"Interprocess simplifies the use of common interprocess communication and synchronization mechanisms and offers a wide range of them: Shared memory. Memory-mapped files."

 

[Sean Nelson]

Have you tried it without the "-Q" option? I think of that as suppressing error messages (although that's not really what it's supposed to do on the DEL command).

I'm curious what would happen with PowerShell. If you open a PowerShell command window you should be able to enter the following equivalent command:

remove-item -force "C:\ProgramData\boost_interprocess\*"

 

[Redcrown]

Thanks! Powershell does the trick. I don't know much about Powershell so I asked ChatGPT to write the code. This is what I got:

powershell -NoProfile -Command "Remove-Item -Path 'C:\ProgramData\boost_interprocess\*' -Recurse -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue"

Works great, and no error if the folder is already empty. Still no idea why the simple del command won't work, but who cares.

 

[XiaoDeer]

Anyone have a similar command that will take care of removing all the junk left laying around by teenage kids?

Seriously, why can't these programs clean up their own temporary files and other junk. If the authors can't keep track of these things, what hope is there that they can free the memory and other resources they allocate?

Disk space is cheap but I find it frustrating. GBytes of crud slow down anti-virus scans, backups and other maintenance tasks. It's simply unnecessary.