“Remove files older than”

Last weekend we upgraded a server to Microsoft SQL Server 2005 x64 Standard. I#%92m working on new backup plan. In the help I find the information about “Remove files older than”, when I run the wizard I can not find the option in the dialog. How do I remove old backup logs and bakup files?

jn4u,

Did you find the solution, i get same problem, my maintenance plan does not delete backup files older than ....

Thanks

Franck.





Franck Meunier
System Admin

It looks like you have to add a "Maintenance Cleanup Task" to the plan and that should clean things up.

Did anyone get a definitive answer to this? I created a Cleanup Maintenance Plan but it does not seem to delete the actual backup files. I need to manually delete all of the .trn files every couple of days.

After I went through the maintenance plan wizard I realised I was not deleting old files. At first I tried adding a maintenance cleanup task to my plan. For whatever reason the whole plan would fail that way.

What you have to do is make a second maintenance task and have it only do the cleanup. This sucks in my opinion.

I have noticed another problem. If you try making a maintenace plan without the wizard it fails. I don't know why. My plan looked identical to the one I made with the wizard but it wouldn't work.

I'm not sure if these are bugs or design flaws.

How do you create a maintenance plan with only cleanup tasks? If I do not select a database backup I do not have the option to select delete files older than.

From the SQL Management Studio, double click the backup maintenance task you have created. In the lower left window there should be a "toolbox". From there drag a maintenance cleanup task to the main window. Double click the task to set whichever options you like. Then link the cleanup task with the backup task.

Please excuse my ignorance. I am new to sql server. I an using sql server 2000 on windows 2003. I do not know what a Sql Management Studio is. I believe the only tool I have is Enterprise Manager.
When I use the wizard for Maintenance Plans is there a way to just do cleanup tasks?

This thread is referring to sql server 2005 not sql server 2000.

In sql server 2000, just make a maintenance plan. Inside that plan is a section that says "remove files older than".

2005 SP1 will add an option to the clean up task to delete files in 1st level subfolders for those users (including me) who select the create sub-directory for each database box in the backup maintenance plan task.

Failing to include the ability to delete the backup files within the backup maintenance plan task seems like a pretty big mistake by Microsoft. It's basic functionality and was something that was available in SQL 2000. Are people finding other "missing functionality" when working with SQL 2005?

Even with sp1 and the added "first level folder checkbox", we have several SQL2005 installs that have this issue, where the cleanup tasks DO NOT WORK, either as a step in the maintainence job OR as a separate task. The job complets and shows sucessful, but it is far from it. It plane old does not work.
Hopefully, now that we are done beta testing this product for microsoft, hopefully it will be fixed at some point.
Meantime, if someone figures out a fix for this issue that does not include a separate VB script to complete, please pass it along.
Thanks.
kd