"Compress old files"

[William B. Lurie]

When I do Disk Cleanup, I see typically
over 1 GB of Old Files to Compress.
I allow it to do the cleanup, and when
it is finished, and I do it again, I find
again, 1+ GB of files to clean up.

What is it telling me?

 

[Don Phillipson]

When I do Disk Cleanup, I see typically
over 1 GB of Old Files to Compress.
I allow it to do the cleanup, and when
it is finished, and I do it again, I find
again, 1+ GB of files to clean up.

What is it telling me?

Apparently that you omitted to check
the right box when authorizing cleanup.

 

[Big_Al]

William B. Lurie said this on 1/16/2009 1:14 PM:

When I do Disk Cleanup, I see typically
over 1 GB of Old Files to Compress.
I allow it to do the cleanup, and when
it is finished, and I do it again, I find
again, 1+ GB of files to clean up.

What is it telling me?

It is telling you, if you compress the files it has determined to be old
(not used in x number of days) then you will save that much space.

You don't have to, but if you do they will be uncompressed as needed.
They will show in blue in the directory when you find them.

 

[William B. Lurie]

Apparently that you omitted to check
the right box when authorizing cleanup.

Sorry, Don. That's too simplistic an answer.
I did it twice more, observed that the box
is checked each time, results the same.

 

[William B. Lurie]

William B. Lurie said this on 1/16/2009 1:14 PM:

It is telling you, if you compress the files it has determined to be old
(not used in x number of days) then you will save that much space.

You don't have to, but if you do they will be uncompressed as needed.
They will show in blue in the directory when you find them.

Thanks, Big Al; what you said, I already understood.
My question is, why does it still show 1 GB of
files to be compressed after 3 go-arounds?

 

[JS]

Is compression enabled for the drive?

 

[JS]

I just checked two partitions that I know have
old files (but Drive Compression) is turned off.
In my case Disk Cleanup does not show any
files to be compressed so I guess you do have
drive compression turned on.

Ignore my earlier post

 

[William B. Lurie]

I just checked two partitions that I know have
old files (but Drive Compression) is turned off.
In my case Disk Cleanup does not show any
files to be compressed so I guess you do have
drive compression turned on.

Ignore my earlier post

Thanks for both messages, JS ...
But I've never heard of On/Off of disk compression.
How do I look for it?

 

[JS]

Right click on the drive letter and select 'Properties'
The box to enable is located in the bottom left of
the Properties window.

 

[Gerry]

JS

Is that a good thing to do?


--



Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[JS]

If you mean turn on drive compression....
I don't use it, but I would guess to for some users
that have data files stored on a separate drive or partition
that they don't use on a frequent basis it may be of some value.

Since one of the partitions my third drive is storage for
Image backups, for me it makes no sense to compress
what is already compressed by the image backup utility.

The other partition on drive #2 contain some databases
I developed and I don't think compressing these would
be a good idea.

Yes I do have some old photos that are a mixture
of .BMP .TIFF and Jpeg, but .TIFF and Jpeg are already
compressed.

 

[Gerry]

JS

Yes I can see it might be some use where the entire drive is an archive
but if there is a mixture of archive and current it use might not be
helpful in performance terms. What happens if the volume is full of
compressed files you could get the situation that the file will not open
because of insufficient free space.

--



Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[William B. Lurie]

Right click on the drive letter and select 'Properties'
The box to enable is located in the bottom left of
the Properties window.

Well, I have done it carefully three times.
The enabling box *is* checked. I have 740 MB of
files that it *should* be compressing, but is
not. All I can think of, is that those files
have all been used in the last one day, and so
it is not compressing them.

Any other suggestions?

 

[JS]

Check the files 'Accessed' and 'Modified' attributes.

 

[William B. Lurie]

Check the files 'Accessed' and 'Modified' attributes.

JS, that leads me into *another* area where I have not
been before. Check attributes of files? 700 MB of files?
Any specific ones, or just a random selection......and
specifically how?

 

[Gerry]

<G> I saw that one coming.


--



Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[JS]

Open Windows Explorer, select/click on the drive letter of interest.

Next (With the drive letter highlighted)
In the Windows Explorer tool bar select: 'View'
and the list of options pick 'Choose Details'.
Next check the boxes named: 'Date Modified',
'Date Created' and 'Date Accessed'.
Exit Windows Explorer and then open Windows Explorer again.

You should now see all the folders in the right hand window with
the date and timestamp information. You can also perform the
above steps on a folder by folder basis so see the same
info on a particular subfolder of subfolders.

Be aware that AV scanners commonly modify the 'Date Accessed'
date and time stamp to match the last time you ran your AV software.

 

[William B. Lurie]

Open Windows Explorer, select/click on the drive letter of interest.

Next (With the drive letter highlighted)
In the Windows Explorer tool bar select: 'View'
and the list of options pick 'Choose Details'.
Next check the boxes named: 'Date Modified',
'Date Created' and 'Date Accessed'.
Exit Windows Explorer and then open Windows Explorer again.

You should now see all the folders in the right hand window with
the date and timestamp information. You can also perform the
above steps on a folder by folder basis so see the same
info on a particular subfolder of subfolders.

Be aware that AV scanners commonly modify the 'Date Accessed'
date and time stamp to match the last time you ran your AV software.

Thanks, JS. You've opened up a whole new area for me, that
will take time to find my way around in. Some of the folders seem
to carry timestamp info when I point at them in the right hand
window, some do not. I can't keep troubling you to educate me,
and I do appreciate your doing so. Perhaps I have enough to go on,
perhaps not, but if you'd like to expand a bit more, please do so.

 

[JS]

Disk Cleanup Tool Stops Responding While Compressing Old Files
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/812248

Disk Cleanup Utility
http://www.theeldergeek.com/disk_cleanup_utility.htm
(scroll down this list of options till you reach "Compress Old Files")