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Crito's File Shredder For Windows Shredder (shred.exe) is, as the name implies, a tool for permanently destroying files. It uses a random number generator, reseeded frequently, to overwrite data on disk with random bits. It does this three times to ensure the file(s) can't be recovered using sophisticated tools such as flux analyzers. It also works from the command line. There are no command line switches however. I didn't want it to be used for malicious purposes so user interaction is required, sorry. It can't be used from within a batch file, in other words. It also won't delete entire directories, only files. The ZIP package contains all the necessary dependencies, such as common dialogs, required to run shredder. If Office 2000 is on your computer though, the dependencies are already installed, in which case you can simply extract the shred executable and copy it to any directory. Shredder does not use the registry or INI files. Which means you can move it and/or its directory around. If the setup program is used, an uninstall script is placed in the control panel's package manager (add/remove programs icon.) Creating a shortcut link to the executable on your desktop allows drag-and-drop operation from explorer. Placing a shortcut link in the sendto directory allows operation from the right click explorer menu. Since it's basically a command line app with some GUI dialogs, the number of files that can be deleted at one time is restricted to the command line's 255 character limit. The longer the paths are the fewer files it'll be able to handle. The error handling is pretty simple. When an error occurs it does nothing. One important thing to note is shredder will change the attributes of read-only, hidden and system files in order to delete them!! So be careful what you select and USE IT AT YOUR OWN RISK! |
