Maintenance Cleanup Task(s) running 'successfully' but not deleting back up files

I have a maintenance plan setup for all my user databases on a particular server, which does all the usually things at various intervals.

The 7th and final subplan is a two stage cleanup plan; firstly old full backups are deleted, then old transaction log backups are deleted. These tasks appear to run successfully - the subplan's job history reports that the plan was run on time, and runs xp_delete_file twice - but clearly files are not deleted.

The task settings are:

• Backup Files
• Search folder and delete based on extension - .bak
• Include subfolders
• Delete files older than 2 weeks

and

• Backup Files
• Search folder and delete based on extension - .trn
• Include subfolders
• Delete files older than 5 days

Any ideas?

Solution 1:

And of course, as soon as I post I figure out the answer...

There a number of people suffering similar problems (2005 as well) and solutions range from scripts to SPs and to hotfixes.

Mine was much simpler - I'd specified '.BAK' as the extension, rather than 'BAK'!

It's a bit of a 'Doh!' moments, but nevertheless, I'd have hoped that the GUI would have either handled the situation or at least complained to me about the problem.

Anyway, problem solved...