Compressing Old Files in Disk Cleanup

[Steph]

Running “Compress Old Files” in Disk Cleanup won’t work – the old files remain uncompressed. Is there a setting I could change that would enable this please?

Thank you.

Steph

[theseven]

Running “Compress Old Files” in Disk Cleanup won’t work – the old files remain uncompressed.

Why do you think it doesn't work?

[Steph]

hi theseven

Because using Disk Cleanup to clean up disk space shows a value for "Compress old files" which can be reduced to O kb by compressing. When I click to compress the files, the value remains the same and doesn't reduce to 0 as it usually does.

It's only a small amount of space but I was wondering why it didn't behave as normal and what I could do about it.

Steph

[Canuck]

Hi Steph, Windows compression is very minimal, no major space is gained by using it. As to why it's not working, see if these are of any help How To Use File Compression in Windows XP and How To Use File Compression in Windows XP . The second article explains how to compress a volume. You can usually tell if files have been compressed by going into a drive ( C:\Windows) and you'll see a bunch of files in blue, blue denotes 'compressed'.

[theseven]

Steph
It seems that some people had the same problem but I couldn't find any solution. Sorry, may be somebody else will be more helpful in that area.

There is a Microsoft KB article related to Disk Cleanup issue, but AFAIK it'll remove the option "Compress old files" altogether so be careful:
The Disk Cleanup tool stops responding while it is compressing old files on a Windows XP-based computer

I have to mention though that my personal opinion regarding compressing old files is almost perfectly expressed here:
Why can't I compress? - TechFuels Forum

[arraknid]

I have to agree with theseven, compressing files is a throwback to earlier Windows systems when drives were tiny, and really isn't relevant these days. Most data files we use now are already compressed... mpeg, jpg, mp3, wma/wmv, divx, etc, and won't stand any more - well not much anyway.

If the files are that old and you haven't looked at them for some time, the likelihood is they aren't required, so just delete them.

[Steph]

Hi - apologies for the delay in replying to this thread and thank you for all the helpful replies.

As the general concensus is not to compress, I'll follow advice and not bother. It's only a small amount anyway and I do have a huge amount of free space on my drive so it was more a question of curiousity as to why it had started showing and wouldn't reduce to 0 as before, although it looks as if trying to change that could cause problems, so another reason to leave well alone!

If there's no need to compress files, does that mean that when Outlook Express offers to compress emails that I shouldn't bother with that either?

@ Arraknid - you said to delete the files if they're that old but how do you know which files are being particularly identified? Are they listed somewhere?

Thanks for the help, as always.

Steph

[arraknid]

Hi Steph,

@ Arraknid - you said to delete the files if they're that old but how do you know which files are being particularly identified? Are they listed somewhere?

Disk Cleanup selects files for compression based on the time since you last accessed them. In the Disk Cleanup window, if you highlight (not select) the Compress old files entry, you'll see an Options button. Press that to open a window where you can set that time limit.

[Steph]

Aha! Thank you - it was set at 50 days so I increased it to 100 and the value went back to 0 on it's own.

Simples!

Steph