Clear-OldExchangeLog (preview-only)

Synopsis

Preview experimental old Exchange log candidates. Deletion is unavailable.

Syntax

Clear-OldExchangeLog [-Days <Int16>] -WhatIf [-PassThru] [-Confirm] [<CommonParameters>]

-Days defaults to 60 and accepts positive Int16 values. Explicit -WhatIf is required; omission or -WhatIf:$false throws a terminating ExchangeCleanupPreviewOnly error before registry access. An ambient WhatIfPreference alone is not sufficient. The common -Confirm parameter does not bypass the guard. No -Force, -EnableRemoval, -AllowRemoval, or persistent activation exists in this version.

Experimental discovery scope

Read MsiInstallPath from the Exchange v15 setup registry key. Scan existing Logging, Bin\Search\Ceres\Diagnostics\ETLTraces, Bin\Search\Ceres\Diagnostics\Logs, and TransportRoles\Logs\MessageTracking roots with directory-specific filename allowlists at or before the inclusive UTC cutoff. Skip reparse points, validate paths, and exclude mailbox database and transaction-log paths returned by Exchange management discovery. If protection metadata is missing or incomplete, ProtectionStatus is Unknown; that state cannot authorize a later removal implementation. If all fixed roots are absent, discovery reports ExchangeDiscoveryUnavailable and -PassThru returns a failed result; an individual missing root is verbose-only when another approved root is available. Do not invoke IIS cleanup.

This limited preview is not a validated deletion allowlist. The supported Exchange version/build matrix and disposable-lab service-health evidence remain open. Do not use its output to implement an external deletion bypass.

Examples

Clear-OldExchangeLog -Days 60 -WhatIf
Clear-OldExchangeLog -Days 30 -WhatIf -PassThru

Output and failures

-PassThru returns a TheCleaners.CleanupResult preview for each successfully enumerated existing root. CandidatePaths contains discovered paths; DiscoveryStatus is Experimental; Status is WhatIf; all removal and reclaimed-byte counts are zero. Missing roots are reported through verbose output when another approved root is available. If all fixed roots are absent, discovery reports ExchangeDiscoveryUnavailable and returns a failed result with null candidate counts. Registry failures stop discovery; enumeration failures use the error stream and do not emit a successful empty summary. The alias Clean-ExchangeLog has the same safety boundary.

Any later removal capability belongs in a minor release after lab validation and a confirmed per-invocation authorization design. See the 1.0 plan.