Where do I find the compress old files under "Disk Cleanup"?

  • Thread starter Thread starter computerkiller
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computerkiller said:
Where do I find the compress old files under "Disk Cleanup"?
Click to expand...


Sorry I mean on the partition. D: drive is not able to clean them do, I
think, do to the partition is 48% full.
 
Are we discussing Disk Compression or File Compression?

Is D one of a number of partitions on a drive or a single partition on a
drive? Start, Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Computer Management,
Disk Management. See the lower right pane.

Is D formatted as NTFS or FAT32? Right click on D in Windows Explorer
and select Properties to get this information.

When you select Disk CleanUp you are asked to select a drive. The
default is C but you can use the scroll bar to select another drive e.g.
D.

--


Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
I apologize that I can not make my self clear :( but what you wrote is as
close as I can get. My systems is NTFS and I am discussing the files that
occur when you click on "Properties" then "Disk Cleanup". In the window that
appears it list; Office files, Recycle Bin files, Compressed Old Files, and
Catalog Files. The Compressed Old Files on that list is what I am trying to
find on the my Hard Drive.

PS If could tell me what creates those files and way to stop that from
happening I would truly be a happy man. Thank you all the responses so far.
 
computerkiller said:
I apologize that I can not make my self clear :( but what you wrote is as
close as I can get. My systems is NTFS and I am discussing the files that
occur when you click on "Properties" then "Disk Cleanup". In the window that
appears it list; Office files, Recycle Bin files, Compressed Old Files, and
Catalog Files. The Compressed Old Files on that list is what I am trying to
find on the my Hard Drive.
Click to expand...

There AREN'T any... that listing - if you tick it - will result in the
system compressing some little-used files to give you more disk space.
It won't delete compressed files, it will CREATE compressed files.
 
Uncheck the box before Compress old files will stop further files being
compressed.

The Disk Cleanup tool stops responding while it is compressing old files
on a Windows XP-based computer
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/812248/en-us

Another option is to change the number of days
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows/make-disk-cleanup-compress-olderor-newer-files-on-xp/

If you want to stop the calculation of disk space saving:
http://samanathon.com/registry-hack-disable-disk-cleanup-wizard-compression-calculation/

--


Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
[see bottom replies]
["do to" = "due to"?]
:
Sorry no Disk Compression turned on.
Click to expand...

There appears to be a misconception about the "compress old files" option in
Disk Cleanup. The other options remove files from the disk, but the
"compress old files" does not remove the files it operates on, but (like
ZIP,) compresses each individual file where ever it is located, so it takes
up less space. The Windows Help topics on Disk Cleanup do not explain that
option, however, while in the Disk Cleanup dialog, if you scroll down to the
"compress old files" option and (not the checkbox, but) click the words
"compress old files", the following Description appears:

"Windows can compress files that you haven't accessed in a while.
Compressing the files will save disk space while still enabling you to
access them. No files will be deleted. Because files compress at different
rates, the displayed amount of disk space you will gain is approximate."

There is also an "Options" button, which provides additional info:

"You can compress files that are not accessed very often. Specify how many
days to wait before an unaccessed file is compressed. Compress after:
[50]days"

So, if you have previously used that option and want to find one or more of
those compressed files, search for files with last accessed dates more than
50 days before they were compressed, unless you have changed the default "50
days" to some other value. Since Disk Cleanup does not identify which files
it is offering to compress, I have never used that option. (It is currently
indicating a space savings of only 64K. :)

HTH (Hope This Helps! :)
--Richard
 
I apologize that I can not make my self clear :( but what you wrote is as
close as I  can get. My systems is NTFS and I am discussing the files that
occur when you click on "Properties" then "Disk Cleanup".  In the window that
appears it list; Office files, Recycle Bin files, Compressed Old Files, and
Catalog Files. The Compressed Old Files on that list is what I am trying to
find on the my Hard Drive.

PS If could tell me what creates those files and way to stop that from
happening I would truly be a happy man. Thank you all the responses so far.
Click to expand...

Old files are files that have not been accessed in some number of
days.

What does accessed mean? What are the number of days? Hmmm... A
good discussion topic for another day.

You can have Disk Cleanup skip even trying to figure out what are old
files and speed this process up dramatically:

Back up your registry with some method such as:

http://www.larshederer.homepage.t-online.de/erunt/

After backing up your registry, navigate to:

HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Explorer\VolumeCaches
\Compress Old Files

In the right hand pane, double click on the REG_SZ (default) variable.

A window pops up that will have a long string of characters in the
Value Data field:
B50F5260-0C21-11D2-AB56-00A0C9082678

Press DEL to remove (clear out) the value data field, then click OK
and then exit regedit.

Do not delete the Compress Old Files key, just empty the (default)
value of i't contents.

No reboot required.

Resume being a happy man.
 
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