Hi all,

could someone pls help with the below ( I'm using it in the root directory of the USB flash drive, and for a folder called 'USB' which has encrypted file in it )
on decryption the folder is meant to be accessible (by using CACLS), then any decrypted folders/files (excluding the encryption master file which has a +S +H attribute to it) and not ;the 'USB' folder itself are to be deleted / removed...

Below is the code ( this works fine, the moment i switch computers, even though the drive is the same 'E:\' ), it tends to delete any files in the root directory of the USB Flash Drive ( where I execute this batch file from) , also it tends to lock up the Cacls Folder 'USB' and makes it inaccessible even with CACLS COMMANDS !

any help greatly appreciated !
cheers


:: Auto deletion of decrypted files

@Echo Off

cd %cd%

cacls USB /e /c /g %Username%:f

cd USB

cls

start usbsafeguard.exe


echo To delete recently decrypted/viewed files and folders.........press any key
echo.
echo Will only delete copies of decrypted files ( not the original encrypted files)
echo.
echo.

pause

cls

:: Deletes files in USB (except ones with attrib +h +s )

del/A:-H-S USB *.*

:: Deletes/Removes folders in USB folder (but not the 'USB' folder itself)

pushd %1
del /Q *.*
for /f "Tokens=*" %%G in ('dir /B') do rd /s /q "%%G"
popd


cd..

cacls USB /e /c /d %Username%

exit


Quote from: tomcatonnet99 on March 23, 2013, 08:05:48 AM

del/A:-H-S USB *.*

:: Deletes/Removes folders in USB folder (but not the 'USB' folder itself)

pushd %1
del /q *.*
for /f "Tokens=*" %%G in ('dir /B') do rd /s /q "%%G"
popd

1) the del /A:-H-S \USB\*.*? Whats the '?' for pls? is it to determine deletion be done if \usb is not empty
( also would that matter if a folder is empty and I run the above command)

The ? suppresses the question 'Are you sure?'
It should work in an empty folder too.


2) could you pls explain how the latter half works?

pushd "\USB" || goto :EOF ......... ( what is || for )

|| is a conditional operator and here it exits the batch file if the folder doesn't exist or cannot be changed to.
It runs if the errorlevel from the preceeding command was true. && is the opposite and runs a command if the errorlevel is zero/false.


rd /s /q "\USB" 2>nul ............( what is 2> exactly)
popd

2>nul redirects a harmless error message (from the STDERROR stream) to the NUL device so it isn't displayed on the screen.

also does CACLS work exactly the same in Win7 / Win8 as I will need to use this flash drive and the above batch file in different environments

pushd "\USB" || goto :EOF
rd /s /q "\USB" 2>nul
popd

only the contents (files and folders except +h +s attrib ones ) to be deleted / removed

Another post:

This will not delete hidden files from \usb and will remove the folders and files.

Code: [Select]@echo off
del \usb\*.???
for /f "delims=" %%G in ('dir \usb /b /ad') do rd /s /q "\usb\%%G"
pause

I admit I didn't read all the posts, however I noticed the use of cacls and USB flash drives, so I think it's worth mentioning that flash drives, under normal circumstances, will use FAT32, which does not support Access Control Lists; cacls is a ACL editor, so there might be some assumptions or extra information from the ACL security info that you are trying to use that just isn't available.