Azure Windows VM Automatically Deleting Files

Question

Azure Windows VM Automatically Deleting Files

Andrew J 21

I have a new Windows 2022 VM in Azure. I have created a partition, F. I have batch files (.bat) and PowerShell (.ps1) on the root of this F partition that are used as part of Task Schedule jobs. I have noticed these batch and PowerShell files are automatically being deleted (not daily, perhaps weekly, it's a new VM so there's not much history). I understand this is expected behavior for the Temporary Storage (D) drive, but am not sure why it's happening on my own drive (F). Any ideas what's going on?

Accepted answer

0 additional answers

Your answer

Answer 1

Michael Taylor 60,161

Azure shouldn't delete files from a partition you created yourself. I wonder if something else is deleting them. This is especially true if the disk itself is still present then it definitely isn't temp storage as temp storage would be recreated from scratch including the partition and drive. The disk is created in whatever resource group you told it to create so you could verify it is still there when you see the files deleted to confirm.

Andrew J 21 Reputation points

2022-03-01T15:34:26.85+00:00

Thanks @Michael Taylor . I can confirm the resource group is still there. Another thing to note is that two folders I created on the drive are still there, so it only seems to impact those specific files. As a work-around, I have moved the files to a different partition and placed them in a subfolder (rather than leaving in root). I'm still perplexed as to why they are being deleted and will keep troubleshooting.
Michael Taylor 60,161 Reputation points

2022-03-01T16:00:49.17+00:00

Malware detection tool? Another script that cleans them up? You might consider putting Process Monitor or similar on the disk and have it running to see who might be accessing the file. Alternatively change the permissions so they are not write/deletable to prevent it.
Andrew J 21 Reputation points

2022-03-11T15:01:29.727+00:00

Some additional info- Moving the files to a different drive and sub-directory worked. They are no longer deleted. I'm still not sure what is going on but one thing that I believe could be the cause is that the TEMP and TMP system variables were changed to point to this F drive. Though Storage Sense is OFF, I wonder if Windows is doing cleanup behind the scenes. Not sure, but at least I have a work around.

Share via

Azure Windows VM Automatically Deleting Files

0 additional answers

Your answer