Microsoft Sysinternals command-line secure-deletion tool for Windows: overwrites files and cleans free disk space per the DoD 5220.22-M sanitizing standard, with special handling for NTFS compressed, encrypted, and sparse files via the defragmentation API. Written by Mark Russinovich in 1999 and still maintained.
Free download from download.sysinternals.com; also inside the free Sysinternals Suite
Launched
first_release_at
First release
Last seen alive
Checks
Mechanical checks derived from the fields above. Each row is one fact; "not yet checked" means exactly that, not a failure. There is no composite score; read them together.
Track record
about 27 years
Source published
No
Release signing
Signed
Security contact
Yes
Reproducible builds
Not yet checked
Telemetry
None
Runs elevated
Only when needed
Auto-update channel
None
Recent activity
Last seen yesterday
v1.x shipped 'with full source code' (1999 newsletter); current Microsoft-era builds are closed source
Binaries carry a Microsoft Authenticode signature
No self-updater in the zip download; the MS Store 'Sysinternals Suite' package that also carries it updates through the signed Store channel
Vulnerability reports go through the Microsoft Security Response Center like any Microsoft product
Shredding a file needs only write access to it; free-space and physical-disk cleaning need elevation
Research notes
Written by Mark Russinovich and announced in his own Systems Internals Newsletter on May 15, 1999 - among the oldest tools in the catalog, and still maintained 27 years later.
Originally distributed 'with full source code and a description of how it works' so users could verify the erasure claims; source stopped shipping under Microsoft and current builds are closed source.
Implements DoD 5220.22-M, a magnetic-media-era standard since superseded by NIST SP 800-88; like every overwrite-based eraser it cannot reliably reach data remapped by SSD wear-leveling - Microsoft's own -z option (zero free space) is documented for virtual-disk compaction, not security.
Deletes file data only: names of files already sitting in free space are not overwritten; files it deletes get their names overwritten by 26 sequential renames before deletion - both caveats are documented on the download page.
Microsoft acquired Winternals/Sysinternals on July 18, 2006 (see Sources); Russinovich joined as Technical Fellow and later became Azure CTO.
Version line: v1.x through January 2016, v2.0 in July 2016 (physical-disk cleaning, -z zeroing), 2.04 November 2020, 2.05 in 2023, 2.06 in March 2026.
Widely scripted into Windows image pipelines (packer builds, VHD compaction) where -z zeroes free space so virtual disks compress - its most common modern use is optimization, not erasure.
Earliest author promotion found: SDelete's introduction in Russinovich's own newsletter (~2700 subscribers at the time), predating social-media self-promotion entirely.
In order to fill this hole, I've written SDelete (Secure Delete). It's a command-line tool that makes it possible not only for you to securely delete standard files, but also to securely delete any previously deleted data that exists in the unallocated portions of a disk. — Problem statement
I provide SDelete with full source code and a description of how it works, so that you can see how it makes use of the defragmention API, and so that you can verify my claims that it will prevent your sensitive deleted data from being recoverable. — Trust signal