DISK USAGE V1.5
Sainath Kev
MICROSOFT MVP – ENTERPRISE MOBILITY
DATED: 26/10/2015
Contents
Abstract ......................................................................................................................................................... 3
Logical Components: ..................................................................................................................................... 3
Topologies: .................................................................................................................................................... 3
Build Section: ................................................................................................................................................ 5
Installation Requirements:........................................................................................................................ 5
Installation Steps:...................................................................................................................................... 5
Tool in Action ............................................................................................................................................ 5
Abstract
This article presents DU (Disk Usage), a command line tool which reports disk space usage on Windows
Operating System. Often System Administrators have the task to report the disk usage of their
infrastructure servers, clients and POS machines and imply various methods to poll information such as
WMI, PowerShell, System Centre tools etc. DU reads the files and folder items and their relative disk size
information. Carefully used, this tool can export the information in CSV format and be automated to poll
information periodically on Wintel infrastructure. The main features of DU is that it does not require any
application code changes and can be executed on any Windows OS edition (assuming Windows XP and
above kernel code base).
Logical Components:
The following table lists the components available in a DU tool.
Component
Description
Required
DU
Disk Usage tool used to report disk usage on
Yes
Windows Operating Systems
Topologies:
The tool can be installed and executed in following scenarios.
a) Standalone Implementation:
This configuration is lean and does not contain dependencies. The tool will be installed on the
target Windows client and tool reports the disk usage. Some of the prerequisites for this
implementation would be to consider
1) The Antivirus tool installed on the client and an exclusion should be defined before
executing the executable.
2) The Account to be used for executing the tool should have Local administrator privileges.
Benefits
Limitations
Easy to set up for stand alone or fewer
clients


Cannot be used as an Enterprise solution for
executing on more than 10 systems.
No central reporting
Table 1: Stand-Alone implementation benefits and limitations
b) Automated Implementation:
This configuration assume the target infrastructure consists of System Center Configuration
Manager (SCCM) to automate the process. The process involves below high level steps
SCCM Collection
•Create a new collection
•customize the query
•Add required workstations / Windows clients
•Create an advertisement targetting the collection
SCCM
Advertisement
Create MSI
package
•Create a MSI package with the tool
•Add command line parameters
•Deploy the package to target collection
Deploy Package
•Use SSRS for reporting purpose
Report
Note 1: This implementation would recommend to test the automation process before
implementing in the production environment.
Note 2: Add Antivirus exclusion for MSI package and executables.
Build Section:
Installation Requirements:
Below are the requirements for installing the tool.
Component
Disk Usage
Download path
Permission
Antivirus Exclusion
Winzip or Winrar
Value
V1.5
https://technet.microsoft.com/enau/sysinternals/bb896651.aspx
Local Administrator
Create an AV policy to exclude executable or MSI
(for SCCM deployments)
Latest version
Note 3: Please contact SCCM Administrator for package requirements.
Installation Steps:
Below are the steps to install the tool
Action
Logon to the workstation with local
administrator privileges
Extract the tool
Launch the command line and run the tool
Artefact
Tool in Action
Below section shows the tool in action. There are several examples for the available command line
switches that user can execute in their target environment.
DU.exe Command Line Options:
Below are the command line switches available for DU.exe tool
Command
-C
-L
Description
Print output as CSV. Use –ct for tab delimiting
Specify subdirectory depth of information <default is one
level>
Do not recurse
Quiet <no banner>
Count each instance of a hardlinked file
Show size <in KB> of all subdirectories
-n
-q
-u
-v
1. DU.exe –C command
Command
DU.exe –v –c
“c:\Program
files\common files” >
c:\<yourtarget
folder>\output.csv
Screenshot
2. DU.exe –l command
One of the best command switch when used wisely provides right level of detail folder information.
Command
Screenshot
DU.exe –l 2 “c:\Program
Files”
Du.exe –l 3 “c:\Program
Files”
Will display information till 3rd level of the path provided
The above command can be used in conjunction with –ct and store it in a central share for reporting
purpose.
3. DU.exe –n command
This command cannot be executed with other combinational switches. When tried, the result would
return DU.exe syntax as shown below
Command
DU.exe –n“c:\Program
Files”
Screenshot
4. DU.exe –q command
Command
DU.exe –q“c:\Program
Files”
Screenshot
5. DU.exe –v command
This command is best used with other command line switches as seen in above examples.