Free Space

A small interactive Windows cleanup tool written in PowerShell and shipped as a signed FreeSpace.exe. It analyzes the size of common system / user folders, cleans the ones you choose, and exposes a few built-in Windows cleanup hooks (Disk Cleanup, Recycle Bin, DISM Component Store).

The menu is bilingual: it starts in English by default, and you can switch to Tieng Viet at any time from the menu.

Features

• Folder size analysis (sortable, total at the bottom)
• Selective folder cleanup (pick one, several, or all)
• Targets common space hogs:
  • NVIDIA DXCache
  • Windows.old
  • User Temp (%TEMP%)
  • Windows Temp (%WinDir%\Temp)
  • SoftwareDistribution\Download (Windows Update cache)
  • Windows Prefetch
  • Downloads
• One-click access to:
  • cleanmgr.exe (Disk Cleanup)
  • Empty Recycle Bin
  • DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup /ResetBase
• Stops wuauserv / bits before clearing the Windows Update download cache and starts them again afterwards
• Uses takeown / icacls to remove protected Windows.old content
• English / Vietnamese language switch from the menu

Requirements

• Windows 10 / 11
• PowerShell 5.1 or newer (built into Windows)
• Administrator privileges are required for full functionality (Windows.old, Windows Temp, SoftwareDistribution\Download, Windows Prefetch, DISM). The script still runs as a normal user, but admin-only items will be skipped or fail to delete locked files.

Usage

Run the signed EXE

Download FreeSpace.exe from the Releases page and double-click it (Windows will prompt for elevation because the manifest requests admin).

Run the PowerShell script directly

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .\Cleanup-Menu.ps1

Optional parameters:

# Start in Vietnamese
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .\Cleanup-Menu.ps1 -Language vi

# Custom window title
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .\Cleanup-Menu.ps1 -Title 'My Cleanup'

Menu

1. Analyze folder sizes
2. Cleanup folder (select individual or all)
3. Open Disk Cleanup (cleanmgr)
4. Empty Recycle Bin
5. Component Store Cleanup (DISM)
6. Switch language (English / Tieng Viet)
7. Exit

For option 2, type a comma-separated list of folder numbers (e.g. 1,3,5) or A to select all. The script asks for confirmation before deleting anything.

Building from source

The build pipeline turns Cleanup-Menu.ps1 into a signed FreeSpace.exe using ps2exe.

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .\tools\build.ps1

What it does:

1. Compiles the .ps1 into an .exe with the icon, version metadata, and an embedded admin manifest (-RequireAdmin).
2. Signs the .exe with the self-signed cert whose thumbprint is in cert\.cert-thumbprint.txt (skipped if the file is missing or the cert is not in Cert:\CurrentUser\My).
3. Verifies the resulting Authenticode signature.

Edit the $Meta hashtable at the top of tools\build.ps1 to change the displayed product name, author, version, etc. The -Version parameter overrides the value in $Meta (used by CI).

To create or recreate the local signing certificate, see tools\recreate-cert.ps1.

Releases

Pushing a tag matching v* (e.g. v1.2.3) triggers .github/workflows/release.yml, which builds FreeSpace.exe on windows-latest, attaches it as a build artifact, and creates a GitHub Release with auto-generated notes.

Project layout

Cleanup-Menu.ps1            # main interactive script (bilingual)
FreeSpace.exe               # built artifact (gitignored)
favicon.ico                 # icon embedded into the EXE
tools\build.ps1             # ps2exe build + sign pipeline
tools\recreate-cert.ps1     # helper to (re)create the self-signed cert
cert\nongdandev.cer         # public cert
cert\.cert-thumbprint.txt   # local thumbprint (gitignored)
.github\workflows\release.yml # CI: tag-driven build + release

Safety notes

• The script always asks for confirmation before deleting anything.
• Downloads is included in the folder list because it is a frequent space hog, but be careful — review what is in it before cleaning.
• DISM /ResetBase permanently removes superseded Windows Update components and prevents uninstalling the updates that produced them. This is intentional and irreversible.
• Cleaning SoftwareDistribution\Download briefly stops Windows Update and BITS; they are restarted automatically afterwards.

License

No license file is included yet. Treat the code as "all rights reserved" until one is added.