Comments for Should I use Windows File Compression?

Comment from Ramon Hernandez on 2012-02-07

2012-02-07T18:03:39Z

What can I do?? when I try to turn on my computer before I started on the screen appears";;; Btrnmgt is compressed'. I don't know how to majs my computer start or even turn it on!??? What can I do? V v

I honestly don't know. I'd have to know how the system was compressed, and then hope that that technology has some way to move beyond this point.

07-Feb-2012

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Comment from Anonymous on 2011-09-24

2011-09-25T02:15:15Z

i compressed files not knowing it would shut me out of my computer I get this on reboot ngdbr is compressed novice with computer
help please

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Comment from odyody on 2010-05-21

2010-05-21T17:19:07Z

I use this option recently on my pc , and no real effect on performance.

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Comment from Ritesh on 2010-05-09

2010-05-09T15:25:52Z

Hi,

I have run into trouble. I compressed a large amount of data on my PC, but unfortunately it crashed.

I was able to recover all the data but I am unable to read any of the file and get to see an error that it is a unrecognized format.

Its close to 3GB important data, any means I can recover it.

regards

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Comment from tom kelly on 2010-05-05

2010-05-06T02:32:19Z

Thanks, but I said the option IS unchecked--for the drive, and I apply to all the subfolders which doesn't work. That is why I said I manually click ALL files because the folder compress properties IS unchecked. But, even when I manually decompress individual files, I come back days later, and there are some compressed files, and I check folder properties which is still unchecked. The only reason I know they are compressed is the text is BLUE and uncompressed is black. Maybe THAT is wrong, and they really are uncompressed???

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Comment from SanDiegoDan on 2010-05-02

2010-05-02T16:09:40Z

I think the use of compressed files is appropriate for backups. I'm currently doing incremental backups of an internal 500GB drive with an external 500GB drive. The incremental backup runs as a scheduled task at 1AM and has run out of space on the external drive. I am not concerned about the performance once the initial backup is run.
I am just trying the compression for the first time and it's saying it will take 3 days to compress the files on my backup that I have now. If there is adequate space savings, I could put off another hard drive purchase for a year or so with minimal effort on my part.

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Comment from Mush Man on 2010-04-29

2010-04-29T09:18:23Z

Tom Kelly, to uncompress your compressed files, do the following.

1. Go to the folder or disk you want uncompressed and open its properties where you can see the checkbox for compression (your post tells me that you know where this is, so I haven't written verbose steps for this).

Note: To uncompress everything on the drive, select the desired drive.

2. Check the box and click Apply.

Note: This will NOT compress anything! Please continue.

3. Select "Apply changes to C:\ only" and press OK. (Or, in place of C:\, "this folder".)

Note: This will only compress the files directly inside the selected item. It will NOT compress any folders or any files inside folders.

4. Uncheck the box and click Apply.
5. Ensure "Apply changes to C:\, subfolders and files" is selected and press OK.
6. Wait for completion.
7. (Optional) Enjoy.

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Comment from tom kelly on 2010-04-27

2010-04-28T02:04:39Z

I don't want compressed files, and the option to compress is unchecked. But, when I go back and see old files, they are always compressed. I have even manually chose properties on idividual folders and uncompressed them and subfolders and files, only to come back and they are compressed again. Is it a poltergeist. xp pro sp3

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Comment from dasmb on 2010-04-27

2010-04-27T21:19:00Z

One thing you are neglecting with this comment is that compression is a good way to get extra SPEED out of some operations -- specifically, those that read heavily or write a lot of small files.

With our build system -- which moves about 500 meg of small files -- turning on disk compression on the build target directory increases speed about 6%, and turning on disk compression on the build source directory increases speed by a futher 13%. That's nearly 20% with a right click; and this is on an SSD!

Other operations that have seen speedups are local database operations, Firefox rendering speed and Photoshop scratch disk access.

The long and short of modern computing is that we usually have more much more idle processor time than idle IO bandwidth when performing IO operations.

Just don't compress your root directory. It'll let you -- then your machine won't boot. Spoken from XPerience.

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Comment from Richard Wright on 2010-04-20

2010-04-20T23:24:14Z

How do I DE-Compress a drive that has been compressed.

Simply uncheck the compression option at a top level folder and let it apply to all subfolders and files.

22-Apr-2010

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Comment from TSM on 2010-03-21

2010-03-21T21:36:25Z

I used windows disc tools to compressed 11GB of data and it slowed slowed my PC, defrage went from 2 minutes to 50 minutes, write from 60MB/S to 15MB/S,it was like a virus, everything took forever, I uncompressed and the speed came right back to normal, I'll never touch that again

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Comment from Mike on 2010-01-03

2010-01-04T05:29:29Z

What happens if you have already compressed the files with disk cleanup? How difficult and what problems might one encounter by uncompressing? I believe this has happened on the work computer (windows xp and disk cleanup) and I believe it has cost us a lot in speed. If I just uncheck compress files in disk cleanup could that cause problems using those files?

Unchecking compression should just work. As with all cases of "it should work" make sure you have good backups first.

05-Jan-2010

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Comment from Sue on 2009-10-27

2009-10-27T15:51:59Z

Please let me know what is the difference between disk compression and disk defragmenting.

How often should each be run(on a PC and also on a laptop)?

I am using windows XP operating system on both.

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Comment from Anais on 2009-09-18

2009-09-18T19:01:23Z

I would like to know if there is a way to defrag without compacting files. I have over 67% disk space available abd would like to avoind compression since it will needlessly slow down file access. Thanks for your help!

Defragging and compression are unrelated. If you defrag using the built-in Windows tools, it will not automatically compress.

19-Sep-2009

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Comment from Alan Borer on 2008-11-20

2008-11-20T17:02:48Z

To decompress the entire drive, should I use SAFE MODE and:-
DOS command "compact /u /s:C:\ /a /q /i"; or
Windows C:\ properties and check the box to
"Compress drive to save Disc space" and click Apply,
and then UNcheck the box and Apply then OK ?

I am using pre-installed Windows XP Home edition with SP2 + SP3, and have no installation disc.
When Disc Cleanup compressed files Windows File Protection refused to trust Windows own utility, and validated all registered dlls etc., and dumped uncompressed copies into dllcache, and gave me excessive grief, demanding that I give it the non-existent installation disc.

I assume W.F.P. will also complain about decompressing files, which is why I want to use SAFE MODE to avoid W.F.P. involvement.

C: Windows properties has the Disc Cleanup option, and it also shows
"Used Space 7,825,747,968".
Windows Explorer, selecting the entire contents of C:\ and showing all the hidden/system/etc things reports
Size : 7.38 GB (7,933,352,967 bytes)
Size on Disc: 6.49 GB (6,979,273,055 bytes)
This seems to omit
7,825,747,968 - 6,979,273,055 = 846,474,913 bytes.
About 500 Mbytes are in my daughter's profile which is hidden from me, so another 346 MBytes are other things that Windows will not let me see.

Both Windows and DOS hide 10% of all files, so I fear that both the DOS command, or selecting the entire contents Windows will show me, will only decompress the 90% I can see, and to decompress the other 10% I need to use "(C:) Properties"

I would greatly appreciate your advice upon this.

Would you please advise on the safest methods.
My greatest fear is that Windows defragmentation will blow a fuse and give me perpetual BSODs. I use Acronis Trueimage and am happy to restore upon any errors - so long as I dont have the trauma of a broken system and need to use the recovery console.

Regards
Alan Borer.

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Comment from Chris on 2008-08-25

2008-08-25T22:51:33Z

Andrew you are a lifesaver :) Thanks bro.

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Comment from NW on 2008-08-21

2008-08-22T04:06:09Z

I want to uncompress all of the files that disk cleanup compressed; how exactly can I do this for all files on my C drive - I have XP Windows operating system. Previous comments were not explicit and exacting for XP.

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Comment from Leo A. Notenboom on 2008-04-14

2008-04-14T13:07:03Z

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It depends on which files you're attempting to delete and
exactly how you're deleting them. I'd first make sure that
you empty your recyle bin (right click on it and click on
"Empty") to reclaim the space.

Leo

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Comment from mick rhodes on 2008-04-13

2008-04-13T19:03:24Z

great newsletter/website. here's my problem; removing items from drive C does not give me extra space! in fact, I LOSE space! can you please talk me thru this prob/tired paying local techs, who dont get the job done. please reply to my e-mail address. any help much appreciated. one more thing; i'm a writer, not a puter whiz, just know and use the basics. thnx

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Comment from Leo A. Notenboom on 2008-02-20

2008-02-20T17:12:27Z

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Should be in c:\windows\system32\compact.exe in Windows XP.

Leo

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Comment from sheri on 2008-02-18

2008-02-19T03:13:40Z

i am trying to uncompress my compressed old files from a disk cleanup, and used the following instructions:

You can use the 'compact' command in DOS. Open command prompt and type:
compact /u /s:C:\ /a /q /i
This will uncompress the entire C drive.

To uncompress a specific directory type:
compact /u /s:C:\[folder] /a /q /i

however, i am getting the following error:
'compact' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.

any suggestions?

- sheri

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Comment from andrew on 2008-02-07

2008-02-07T10:13:50Z

Martin-
You can use the 'compact' command in DOS. Open command prompt and type:
compact /u /s:C:\ /a /q /i
This will uncompress the entire C drive.

To uncompress a specific directory type:
compact /u /s:C:\[folder] /a /q /i

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Comment from martin b on 2007-12-05

2007-12-06T04:25:00Z

I have accidently compress alarge amount of my XP PRO NTFS drive. How do I undo the compression without going to each individual file and reseting its properties?

rgards
Martin B

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Comment from Leo A. Notenboom on 2007-08-16

2007-08-17T01:17:51Z

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You can select multiple files at once - hold down CTRL as you click on files to
add them one at a time, or hold down shift to select all files between the
first on you click on and the second. Or type CTRL+A to select all files. Then
right click on the multiple files and select properties. If you select a
folder, it'll ask if you want the change to be applied to all files in
subfolders as well.

Leo

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Comment from Peter on 2007-08-15

2007-08-15T08:54:24Z

Is there a way to uncompress all the files that you compressed in a disk clean up, without having to go through and uncheck the box in the actual files properties menu? I noticed that after compressing them in Windows XP the compressed files are now blue. I did notice that once I did it, all the files that got compressed are now in blue font, when you look at them in the folders. That freaked me out a little. However, when you right click on the file, go to properties, then go down to "advanced" in the general tab, it has a check box for compressing the file. If you uncheck it, I guess it decompresses it, because it turns back to black font. Is there a way to do this for all the files like this, without having to do them individually? Thanks for your help, dude.

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Comment from Donna Guidry on 2007-08-06

2007-08-07T03:23:29Z

Thank you, Jon, for the instructions on how to decompress all your files that windows did without your permission. I have now changed the setting to NOT allow that, but it was a nightmare trying to fix everything by hand until I saw you post. Your instructions worked, although I am obviously not as computer literate as you and it took a while for me to figure out exactly what to do for my situation. THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH, Leo and Jon!!! Donna in Texas

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Comment from salvino on 2007-05-19

2007-05-19T14:12:38Z

Your answer helped me decide not to compress the old files in disk cleanup, but I was disinclined to do so because my really quite new computer takes a very long time to measure the 'compress old files' space and then a long time to do the actual compression. Does this point to some big problem with my old files , like a corruption or something?

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Comment from valgin on 2007-05-05

2007-05-05T11:03:03Z

Good morning.
I can no longer open some of my photos ( a lot actually). I click on them and it says no view possible, even though they finish .jpg as they should. I believe I compressed these files when I did my last disk clean and therefore my current situation.
Could you tell me if I have indeed done what I think, or if not what you think, and if I have compressed all of these images, how to uncompress them.
I am on Windows XP Pro.
Thank you in advance,
Vladimir

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Comment from jon on 2007-04-15

2007-04-15T14:03:07Z

"I am using NTFS on my current PC and have file the compression tab unchecked on all my hard disk's but when i did a disk clean up, i wound up with alot of files/folders with blue names (compresed).

Now that is causing crash's and slowdowns on my computer.
my question is how to undo what windows decided to do on its self?" go to start-run-type cmd- in the command prompt type compact /u /s /a /q /i that should uncompress every file on ur disc but u have to re-compress those files u want compressed.

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Comment from Eduard on 2006-12-12

2006-12-13T01:50:33Z

Hi, recently I've tried compressing files with the already installed application on Windows (WinZip). However, on my computer, the most it compresses of anything is maybe 10 kb, which obviously is pretty useless. I've tried using some other program I downloaded but it had the same result. But, when I use another computer, it compresses up to 50% of the file's size. And I haven't been using the files you mentioned as already compressed (mp3, jpg).

The article was good. (I also wanted to know about saving file space, and this helped!)

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Comment from Sadawe on 2006-11-13

2006-11-13T10:31:00Z

I am using NTFS on my current PC and have file the compression tab unchecked on all my hard disk's but when i did a disk clean up, i wound up with alot of files/folders with blue names (compresed).

Now that is causing crash's and slowdowns on my computer.
my question is how to undo what windows decided to do on its self?

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Comment from Eli Coten on 2006-07-08

2006-07-08T23:58:19Z

I have at least one good use for NTFS compression: Virtual Machines with Virtual hard drive images. Although the more advanced virtualisation programs have "dymanically expanding" hard drive formats where the image file only takes up the amount of used space on the Hard Drive, I sometimes like to use "raw" image files so that they can be accessed by more than one program.

These raw image files take up exactly the amount of space that they need, including any free space. This means that if I have a 30Gb virtual hard drive, with only 10Gb content on it, the image file will still take up 30Gb unless I NTFS compress it (in which case it takes up a little under 10Gb).

The effect on the VM? I'm kinda unsure. I suppose using a compressed image file might slow down hard drive access a bit, but I wouldn't have thought it would be too drastic. If there is a good way to scientifically test this I'd be interested to see.

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