| "Peter" <0spam0 AT rogers DOT com>
| Message | I go to Start/Control Panel/Perf. & Maint./Free up space... on a daily
| basis and usually it takes a few seconds to do the cleanup.
| yesterday it took 20 minutes and under "Compress old files" there was
| something like 810,892kb!!
| Question, how often does Windows decide that almost all your downloaded
| programs need squishing?
Not certain this will answer your question, but...
"Compress Old Files" is a Disk Cleanup (cleanmgr.exe) function that (in the
initial phase) searches the selected partition for files that are not
accessed very often. By default the number of days that a file is "not
accessed very often" is set to 50. However, this can be changed to a
maximum of 500.
To change the number of days run cleanmgr.exe. Then, after the "Disk
Cleanup for ...." dialog box appears click to select (highlight) the
"Compress Old Files" entry. Next, click the Options button and specify how
many days to wait before an unaccessed file is compressed.
Downloaded Program Files are ActiveX controls and Java programs that are
downloaded automatically from the Internet and when you view certain pages.
They are temporarily stored in the Downloaded Program Files folder on
your hard disk.
The following Microsoft Knowledge Base Article has some details about the
various options you find in Disk Cleanup.
KB253597 - Automating Disk Cleanup Tool in Windows
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?Product=winxp&scid=kb;en-us;253597