Is there any way to keep disk cleanup from scanning to
compress old files?
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Copied from one of the many valued
contributors to the ms newsgroups
Thanks to them for this.....
Any time I can help you do something faster and better in Windows,
it makes my day. Today's tip is an undocumented feature that can help you
save disk space and save time, too.
Reader Norman Vance likes to clean temporary files off his disk
periodically.
But he hates the long, unnecessary wait while Windows' own tools calculate
various compression ratios that might apply to his hard drive.
"Since moving to Windows 2000, and now Windows XP,
I've found the Disk Cleanup button on the General tab of my
hard drive's Properties sheet a pain instead of a plus," Vance says.
"Even though I've never turned on the 'Compress drive to save disk space'
option,
I still must wait long, agonizing minutes while my drive is scanned for
potential space savings.
This may have been appropriate default behavior when drives were small and
rapidly filling.
But in the modern age of dollar-per-gigabyte hard drives, why assume I want
to save a few megabytes by compressing files?"
The secret, if you don't wish to compress space but you do want to delete
temporary files,
is to eliminate Disk Cleanup's lengthy calculation of the possible savings
from compression.
This involves changing a value in the Registry.
Step 1. Click Start, Run. In Windows 2000 or XP, type Regedt32.exe and click
OK.
Step 2. In Regedt32, select the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE pane,
then select the Software folder.
Pull down the Registry menu, and then click Save Key to back up this folder
for safekeeping.
Step 3. Double-click each folder to open the following key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Volume
Caches\Compress old files.
Step 4. In the right pane, double-click the REG_SZ key to edit it.
Save the value in case you wish to restore it later
Now, right-click a hard drive in My Computer or Windows Explorer.
Click Properties, then Disk Cleanup. The utility will zoom along, skipping
the
usual analysis of how much your old files could be compressed. You'll hardly
have time for coffee!
***Altering the Registry can cause serious problems.
Remember to backup your Registry first in case.
