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open source • 2026 • Creator & Lead Developer

Windows 11 & WSL2 Maintenance Suite

Production-grade Windows 11 and WSL2 maintenance, storage reclamation, developer cache pruning (pnpm, docker, bun, venv), and ReFS Dev Drive optimization engine with zero external dependencies.

Source Code Live Link

Technologies & Tools

powershell wsl2 developer-tooling optimization open-source pester

The Challenge

Active software development on Windows 11 with WSL2, Docker, Node.js, and Python accumulates tens of gigabytes of untracked storage bloat each month:

  1. WSL2 VHDX Virtual Disk Ballooning: The dynamic ext4.vhdx disk allocated by WSL2 expands automatically as files are written in Ubuntu, but never releases space back to the Windows host when files are deleted.
  2. Scattered Developer Toolchain Caches: Package managers (pnpm store, npm cache, bun cache, cargo target, uv/pip cache, and orphaned Docker layers) remain partitioned across both Windows and WSL environments.
  3. Fragile Third-Party Cleaners: Common cleaning utilities bundle closed-source telemetry, require administrative elevation indiscriminately, or break developer symlinks and registry entries.

Architectural Solutions

[PowerShell Terminal CLI] ──> [Orchestrator & Permission Prober]
                                            │
         ┌──────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────┐
         ▼                                  ▼                                  ▼
[WSL2 VHDX Disk Compactor]        [Toolchain Cache Pruner]          [Hardware & Dev Drive Tuner]
 (Safely probing locks)           (pnpm, Docker, Bun, uv)           (ReFS, TRIM, Standby List)

1. Zero External Dependencies (.NET & CIM Primitives)

Engineered the entire suite in modern PowerShell using native .NET classes (System.IO, System.Diagnostics) and Windows Common Information Model (CIM/WMI) queries. The engine runs out of the box without requiring third-party package managers or compiled binary runtimes.

2. Lock-Safe WSL2 VHDX Compaction

Automated disk optimization for WSL2 virtual hard disks (ext4.vhdx). The script safely probes running processes, terminates background distros cleanly, and invokes diskpart compaction to reclaim up to 40GB+ of host NVMe storage without data corruption risk.

3. Unified Cross-Environment Toolchain Reclamation

Coordinates cache purging across both Windows and Linux boundaries:

  • Prunes global pnpm content-addressable store (pnpm store prune).
  • Removes unreferenced Docker containers, builder caches, and dangling images.
  • Cleans orphaned Python virtual environments (.venv), Rust target/ directories, and system temporary dumps.

4. Hardware Optimization & Dev Drive Alignment

Automates SSD TRIM execution, queries PnP driver health states, optimizes Windows Defender scanning policies for Microsoft Dev Drive (ReFS) partitions, and purges system standby memory lists.

5. Automated Verification with Pester

Protected by an automated Pester test suite consisting of 81 specifications verifying parameter contracts, elevation checks, dry-run safety flags, and filesystem path validation.