What Windows-related files are valueless to *nix users?

Question

I have accumulated, from my time using Windows a good quantity of held-over filesystem copies and archives of system and data drives. I am trying to distill them down to the usable parts while discarding everything that is likely to be valueless.

From watching a bunch of said files scroll by while copying, once again, from a holding drive to a work drive I think I've got a starter list of "good" and "useless" files started, but I was wondering if there is any authoritative kind of list of files (coming from a previously Windows environment) that should be discarded immediately as unuseful?

Winners: (I know this list would likely turn into a mess if any effort were made to make it comprehensive, so these aren't what I'm looking for, unless they would likely be surrounded by crap that might get them destroyed inadvertently) (edit: If the ONLY way is a super-comprehensive white-list-based method, so be it. I'd prefer if that weren't the case, but beggars can't be choosers... most of the time.)

*.tar.*, *.rar, *.zip
*.mp(e)g, *.avi, *.mkv, *.wmv, *.asf

Losers: (These are what I'm really looking for)

*.exe, *.bat, *.dll, *.com, *.lnk

I also know there will be exceptions. Like installer .exe files, used to install something in Wine. For purposes of this question, this concern isn't one. All the files in question are copies (of copies, possibly of even more copies), so the installers I really want to keep are somewhere nice, safe, and probably write-protected.

Answer 1

Only you know what you need/want to keep. However, you can, to some degree, identify Windows system files and other installed program files.

Install Windows and those programs afresh in a Virtual Machine, then make two lists of all the filenames in the VM;

1. In the VM, make the first list of the newly installed system

     dir /S /B /A-D C:\ >vmlist.1

2. In the VM, make the second list of the system after updates

     dir /S /B /A-D C:\ >vmlist.2  

3. Back in *nix, merge these two files and remove duplicate lines.

     sort -u vmlist.1 vmlist.2 >vmlist  

4. The list will now look like this (but much longer, of course):

     C:\name with 6 special chars [$.^|]
  C:\Windows\System32\asr_fmt.exe
  C:\Windows\System32\asr_ldm.exe
  C:\Windows\System32\asr_pfu.exe
    

5. Now convert the list into regex patterns suitable for grep

   sed -r 's/\\/\//g; s/[]$.^|[]/\\&/g; s/^[[:alpha:]]:/^.*/; s/$/$/' vmlist >vmlist.rex

6. The regex list will look like this.

     ^.*/name with 6 special chars \[\$\.\^\|\]$
  ^.*/Windows/System32/asr_fmt\.exe$
  ^.*/Windows/System32/asr_ldm\.exe$
  ^.*/Windows/System32/asr_pfu\.exe$

7. Make a list of files contained in the target archive directory

     find '/my/archive/dir' -type f >arclist

8. Now make a sub-list from arclisl of files which match the regex patterns.

     <arclist grep -f vmlist.rex >arcmatches  

9. arcmatches contains the matched Windows files. Check them and delete them when you are satisfied with what you see. Here is the delete (remove) command.

     <arcmatches xargs -d'\n' rm -v

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Answer 2

Probably the simplest way to weed out the trash would be by the created or last-modified date (you might need to experiment to determine which one's better) - just use the date the system was installed as a starting point.

According to Pareto principle that simple filter will probably get you 80% of the effect you are seeking.

(Of course, you may, or even should, combine this one with the black & white lists you have started to assemble.)

Answer 3

The thumbs.db file is useless on Unix-like systems, as far as I know.

It is a (probably hidden) file created to cache thumbnails of images on Windows systems. Since each image folder gets its own thumbs.db when viewing the folder's images, there might be quite a few of these things on your hard disk, depending on the number of image folders.

I do not know how each and ever *nix deals with thumbnails, but at least in my case (Ubuntu/GNOME), all thumbnails are by default kept together in one place: the .thumbnails/ folder in my home directory (and in subfolders like .thumbnails/normal and .thumbnails/large). When I migrated from Windows to Linux, I therefore got rid of all those thumbs.db files.

Answer 4

List of Windows Files those are useless for Unix

• Thumbs.db, ehthumbs.db, ehthumbs_vista.db
• *.ini example, desktop.ini
• *.dll – stands for dynamic link library. Every software uses and needs this files to run. These files can cause a lot of problems specially if you uninstall an antivirus software and then you install a different one.
• *.sys example, C:/pagefile.sys
• *.old — files with this extension are usually left behind by antivirus software specially for old definitions, etc.
• *.bak– the backup files generated by antivirus software or system software when checking the hard disk.
• Also those extensions *.tmp, *.temp, *.chk, *.gid, *.nch, *.wbk, *.fts, *.ftg, *.$$$, *.err, *.—, .~, ~., *.??$, *._, *.~mp, *._mp, *.prv, *.sik, CHKLIST.MS, *.ilk, *.aps, *.mcp, *.pch, *.$db, *.?$?, *.??~, *.?~?, *.db$, *.^, *._dd, *._detmp, 0*.nch, chklist.*, mscreate.dir, *.diz, *.syd, *.grp, *.cnt, *.~mp
• broken shortcuts- Some times when uninstalling a program with default add/remove it will leave behind shortcuts for that program.
• old minidumps- minidumps are files log by windows when the system has a blue screen.

Steps

• If already at Windows (Run defragmenting tool and cleanmgr tool). It will remove many unnecessary files.
• Remove those file not necessary at Unix.

Answer 5

C:/pagefile.sys

In the root dir of C:/, pagefile.sys should be a pretty huge file you don't need any more.

In most circumstances, the whole Windows-Dir is not useful - except with an emulator, a virtual machine.

Fonts can be an exception (*.ttf/ *.TTF at least).