Compression (XPP)

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Two issues here:

I have “Compress drive to save disk space” unchecked in the local drive properties, yet when I do a disk clean up, it compresses all of my old files. Why is it compressing when it is not directed to do so & how might I prevent this?

Next, when I go to the command line and enter compact /u /s to uncompress, I get “The system cannot find the file specified”. Am I missing something in this command or entering it at the wrong spot?

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Hey Bruce-
1) On the switch you’re using–I think you are combining two switches and I’m not sure that combination would work. With Compact.exe’s parameters try /C /U /A /S / /I /F /Q separately. You can’t compress files larger than 4K–M$ believes it’s not worth the performance hit. One place I checked said you can use /s “as well” so if “as well” means concommitantly I’m not sure why this won’t work for you.

2) I believe you don’t have a choice when you run Disc Cleanup–that it is going to automatically compact your files when it runs–and if this is true, the checkbox is confusing.

3) If a folder is specified for filename, the /c /u parameters will only act on new files added to the folder . Include /s “as well” to compress or uncompress files already in the folder. If the filename is omitted, use the /s option to act on all files in the current folder.

4) For proof a file is compressed, right click on it in Explorer>Properties and see if the “size on disc” value is less than the “size value.”

5) Disk cleanup has an option to clean files in the Temp Folder, but the value lists [only] files in the temp folder that are more than one week old, so you could have hundereds of MB of files that wouldn’t be touched in this category. The best way to clean temp files is to put % temp% in the command line. Ocassionally a file won’t delete. I have one that won’t, and sometimes it takes a restart (rarely for me). This is a quick and easy way to do that.

6) You can use /f to force the operation if the system fails to finish.

7) You can compress or uncompress files that match certain criteria. For example, to compress all text files type: compact /c *.txt

There are also two other features a lot of people miss:

1) /D driveletter will run disc cleanup.

2) /Sageset:/n Enter number bet. 1-65535 for n. This opens a Disk Cleanup dialogue box and creates a registry key that corresponds to a number you entered and saves your settings in that key.

3) /Sagerun:n Retrieves settings for number you entered in place of n and runs automatically without you.

In the run box type cleanmgr /:sageset whatever number Bruce wants continguous with sageset like sageset:300 ( a no. bet. 1 and 65535.) In the dialogue box, choose your options you want to apply and click OK to save them in the registry. Create a shortcut using this command and save the shortcut in the Windows folder with a name you give it. Open Control Panel “Scheduled Tasks” applet and start the Scheduled Tasks wizard. When prompted to select what program you want to run, hit “Browse” and select the shortcut you just created in Notepad. Follow the wizard’s remaining prompts to schedule the command to run at regular intervals. Repeat these steps for any other options you want to run on a regularly scheduled basis. For example, you can make a batch file that cleans your temporary internet files, which of course are different from your temporary files that you use %temp% to clean every time you boot or log in, and another to compress files every week or whatever.

defrag

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Hi Frag ~

The switches I am using are /u which is to uncompress files and /s which is for all subsequent files and subdirectories.

You do have a choice in the compression as I have run Disk Clean-up many times without files being compressed. Not until I checked “Compress drive to save disk space” did this occur. I have since unchecked it, yet the drive still goes through a complete compression procedure.

The Compact help file indicates to simply enter compact /u /s to uncompress files. I wonder if I need to enter any additional values. I am entering this at C:Documents and SettingsBruce G.F. Krymow>_.

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Bruce,
Are you using NTFS on this machine? Remember that NTFS has a FILES compressing method that can be turned on. If turned on I am not sure what happens after it is turned OFF.

DaveA I am so far behind, I think I am First
Genealogy....confusing the dead and annoying the living

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Hi Dave ~

Yes, I am using NTFS. When I used Disk Clean up in the past, it never went through the compression procedure. At one point awhile back, I was under the misguided notion that compressing the files would increase my performance. I put the check in the box to compress files. Then I learned of the HUGE performance hit I would take as a result of doing so. I have long since cleared that box, but XP continues to compress my files. You are right in that after turning it off what would happen, but it appears that it is still active for some reason. It has compressed so many files in this last disk clean up that my system has slowed to an excruciating sloth-like crawl. You can imagine that I am now desperate to find a manner in which to uncompress these files and prevent this from occurring in the future.

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Bruce–

I bet the answer is yes but were you using XP before when you used Disk Cleanup and it wasn’t compressing files? I imagine answer is yes, but not sure because Disk Cleanup has been around since Win 98 and I wondered if it had changed with XP and NTFS.

defrag

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Yes, sir, XP all the way. Disk clean-up works fine on other two machines in NTFS w/ no compression as well as this unit before I so eagerly jumped to check that feature.

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Bruce–Come to think of it—I ran disk cleanup just fine when I had the Beta RC1 of XP, but I cannot make it run–admittedly I am having to trim down my too full “C” Drive and that could be the problem. Mine starts, and runs a progress bar one fifth the way over, and freezes there and never shows me the normal dialogue box. I wish I knew how to stop the compression in yours. Has to be a way.

defrag

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Bruce, The compression you mention is strictly a function of disk cleanup. How are you starting disk cleanup? Is it a scheduled task?

Joe

--Joe

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Yes, Joe, you are correct. It is started via the local drive properties or system tools in accessories. It is not a scheduled task: Task Scheduler Service is disabled.

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Bruce, When you start it don’t you get a Window to check/un-check the functions you want Disk Cleanup to perform? Compression of old files is on that page.

Joe

--Joe

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Joe ~
When I run disk clean up all I get is small Disk Clean up window that automatically goes to compressing files – no dialogue or options. When it is done after some undetermined period of time, it simply closes.

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Bruce, I think the best thing for you would be to run it via command line setting the options you wish – see defrag’s earlier post. Here’s a link to a KB article on automating disk cleanup which explains more:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?…b;en-us;Q315246%5B/url%5D.

hth, Joe

--Joe

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Unfortunately, this puts me right back here.

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Bruce, See my post post 179016 to defrag.

Joe

--Joe

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Bruce, found this in a MS newsgroup:

Hi Doug,

See if this helps: Go to Start/Run/Regedit and navigate to this key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerVolume
CachesCompress Old Files

Remove all the keys under “Compress old files” to get this cleanup
program to run to completion.

Or you can use the regedit from here: (2nd from the bottom-right)
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm

—
All the Best,
Kelly

MS-MVP Win98/XP [AE-Windows

--Joe

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Joe and Bruce–
| I applied the reg hack from Kelly’s Korner and it did the trick. I have my old dialogue box back instead of the stalled “Compressing Files Window”. Thanks a lot for that–I really appreciate the fix. Assuming I could have compressed old files and assuming that they could have caused a reduction in performance–I have occassional CPU spikes I’d like to eliminate and occassional proccesses that hog CPU and I have to kill off that I don’t need–but my computer is running well knock on wood after getting both SP1’s (IE6 and XP). I have always had “Show Compressed Files in Color” enabled on the view tab of C’s Folder Options, but have never seen any compressed files in color.

1) How do I find out and list any previously compressed files (I don’t think there are any)?
2) Does applying the regedit mean that you can now do Disk Cleanup and delete files but they won’t be compressed?
3) If you wanted to compress files now after applying the hacks that Bruce and I applied could you by simply checking compress files in the first dialogue box up when you right click properties?

Thanks and thanks again for the fix,

defrag

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Frag ~

The compression feature is intended to save space on a disk but you will give up performance as a result.

E-mailing the files to uncompress is more tedious and will take much longer than just resaving to the same location. I already have my compressed files shown in another color. Unchecking the “Compress Contents to Save Disk space” on the ‘Advanced’ button of the ‘General’ tab has to be done one by one and again this is much rather tedious and much slower than resaving a bunch of files at the same time. I was hoping the command line switches would do the entire array of compressed files in one fell swoop, but so far I haven’t been able to properly execute that.

I used ‘regedt32’ rather than ‘regedit’.

I don’t believe there are any suitable ways to find and list any previously compressed files and am not sure why you would even need or want to. Yes, you can now run Disk Cleanup and it will work very smoothly (although in my case it refuses to clean up the 48K in ‘downloaded program files’). If you want to compress files now, I would not use the ‘Compress files to save disk space’ in the Disk Cleanup dialogue box, but singularly apply it to the advanced attributes of individual files you wish to compress.

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Bruce–My motive for wanting too (might not be the first time my reasoning was faulty) was that I was getting this same box you were. When you referenced a performance compromise, and I believe you that there is going to be a trade off in space saving compression for performance –I just wanted you to see what Bott was saying in his XP Bible. So I worried that because I was getting that box put up on the screenshot with the partial progress bar running, that perhaps I was getting file compression. I know that setting it up like that and choosing to compress files for the whole disc can be time consuming. The regedit gets be back the normal dialogue box, and I think but may be wrong as I read on this with inferences that compression may not work as well with a full disc that having very little space left could be contributing to the thing not running before. So I reasoned if I had some file compression, it might be slowing my performance, now or later, so I wanted to try to look for any files that had been compressed.
Given the crowding on the disc though, it doesn’t look like I made any files smaller

defrag

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defrag, There seems to be some confusion on compression. Compression can occur at two different times. One if you change the properties of a drive, folder, or file the contents are compressed and de-compressed as needed. The other is if you select compression during disk cleanup. Then files older that a parameter you specify are compressed. The first is what Ed Bott is talking about in his book. If you notice he says that you will PROBABLY not notice the performance hit not that there will be no hit. Maybe I’m getting a little confused as to which you are interested and what problem you’re trying to solve. Please clarify.

Joe

--Joe

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Hey Bruce, With XP rededt32 is just a stub which starts regedit. So, you might as well use regedit.

Joe

--Joe

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I am not sure what you mean by ‘stub’, but documentation to which I have been referred seems to indicate that there is a difference, although I am not too clear as to what exactly those differences are. This is M$’s article with a brief overview.

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Yes but if you notice the article applies to NT workstation 3.51. MS changed this with XP. A ‘stub’ is simply a little program that starts the real program. So rededt32 really starts regedit on XP systems. So, you might as well start regedit yourself – save the system a little work.

Joe

--Joe

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Joe–I seem to be having the same problem. As Bruce knows 1/x times when you read all the great threads in this lounge, you also pick up the problem as well. When I push the “disc cleanup button” I get a window, not a dialogue box, and the window has a progress bar. It’s name is Disk Cleanup and it says “Disk Cleanup is now calculating how much space you will be able to free on C. This may take a few minutes to complete. I once left it up all night. I
put it up for help nearly a month ago in this thread on disk cleanup, but could not solve the problem. In other words, when I turn it on, it wants to start compressing before it will give me any checkbox options in a “dialogue box.” That used not to happen in RC1 but does in XP Pro. I don’t know if this is the box Bruce is seeing also when he presses the button to run. Also I have to turn it off with Task Manager, because it is CPU clock time intensive, and just killing the progress bar window, won’t turn it off. Would the fact that it runs my CPU clock time up from very low to 100% non-stop when it is on indicate IT is not working correctly?[/i]

defrag

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Defrag, On my XPP SP-1 system after it calculates how space will be saved I get another page displayed with two tabs of options to configure the cleanup. I may be wrong but in spite of the message I don’t think it has actually compressed anything yet. I’ll check the MS newsgroups later but I don’t recall anything recently off the top of my head.

Joe

--Joe

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Yes, this is what I used to get before I checked “Compress drive to save disk space”. Now it just compresses the drive regardless of what is checked. For the helluvit, I checked and unchecked the same on another machine, and sure enough, it now does the same thing: it wants to compress despite the fact the box is unchecked.

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Bruce–
Which[/i] regedit did you use to fix Disk Cleanup?

Thanks,

defrag

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Joe and Bruce–This is becoming therapeutic, because I can’t post screen shots yet, but Bruce is showing the exact same window I see. The next dialogue box after the little Window, Bruce and I aren’t getting too. I started searching to help Bruce, and then remembered as I read his posts that I must have the same problem. But two things puzzle me: 1) The behavior that Bruce is getting that his system is slowing,–because instincts tell me that that progress bar that haults means you aren’t really doing compression so I’m not sure how Bruce is certain he’s getting all these compressed files. And according to Ed Bott (see below) if Bruce is compressing he shouldn’t take any performance hit whatsoever 2) The other (a third would be how to fix this problem) is that Bruce just said the compression is “irreversible”. Bruce not according to what’s copied below from Ed Bott:
____________________________________________________________________________

“Defrag, On my XPP SP-1 system after it calculates how space will be saved I get another page displayed with two tabs of options to configure the cleanup. I may be wrong but in spite of the message I don’t think it has actually compressed anything yet. I’ll check the MS newsgroups later but I don’t recall anything recently off the top of my head”
__________________________________________________________________________
Joe–this is the dialogue box–the cleanup configuration choices–that Bruce and I can’t get to. I got it everytime in the Beta. I can’t get it on this install. I’m trying to understand what compression means besides space saving in terms of how the files, folders compressed can be used. I’m looking at Ed Bott’s (p. 422 Inside Out explanation of NTFS file compression. He says :
____________________________________________________________________________
“NTFS compression achieves only a modest degree of compression, but is extremely easy to use [if only I could get there]. After you have compressed a set of files and folders (or an entire NTFS disc), files look and behave exactly as before, in both Windows Explorer and in the dialogue boxes of the applications that you use. The only difference is that your files appear to be smaller. Windows Explorer and your applications decompress NTFS files when you open them and recompress them when you save. This on-the-fly compression and decompression occurs so fast that you probably won’t notice any performance effect. …Files compressed in NTFS compression remain compressed only as long as they remain on NTFS discs. If you move a compressed file to a FAT32 disc or email to a collegue…the file reverts to normal…making it compatible with other machines, or other people’s software…NTFS compression is incompatible with NTFS incryption. A file can be compressed, or encrypted, or neither, but not both.”

____________________________________________________________________________

If only I could get by this box, I could run the compression and I badly need to have it work. I want to say it again–Bruce what makes you think it is the compression that is causing a slow down in your machine’s performance? I think we should start looking elsewhere.
I’m going to start trying the command line and see if I can make this work. If it doesn’t, would adding some kind of “force” command help?

defrag

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Defrag, Found this in MS newsgroup:

Hi Doug,

See if this helps: Go to Start/Run/Regedit and navigate to this key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerVolume
CachesCompress Old Files

Remove all the keys under “Compress old files” to get this cleanup
program to run to completion.

Or you can use the regedit from here: (2nd from the bottom-right)
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm

—
All the Best,
Kelly

MS-MVP Win98/XP [AE-Windows

--Joe

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B-I-N-G-O !!

That was the fix. I applied the hack to both machines and now compression no longer occurs and options dialogue is made available again.

Joe, ya dun did it ag’in……Thanx!

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Bruce–I’m glad you’re fixed. I really appreciate Joe’s potential help. I’m going to apply them. But I want to hear your reaction to Ed Bott’s discussion of NTFS compression/decompression cycle where there is no performance hit.

BTW FWIW, I noticed that one of the XP Tweakers Tweak Now has a Disk Cleaner that allows you to search for and delete unused files. I’ll have to try it. There are also lots of other third party disc cleaners.

defrag

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Frag ~

With all respect due, I know not of what Mr. Bott speaks. it is well documented that you will in fact take a performance hit. In my case, the compression of 3GB slowed my system to a crawl now in accessing those files, and I mean a c-r-a-w-l. It was basically fine (not as fast as before the first compression done during disk clean-up) but a VERY noticeable perf hit immediately after this procedure.

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Hey Bruce,
Have you tried turning that “feature” back on and uncompressing your files,and then disabling it ?? I’d guess that if it won’t let you uncompress after you disabled the feature, that it might want the darn thing functioning to allow you to undo what it has done. I am, of course, just speculating, based on common sense (something that doesn’t seem to be very common in Redmond).

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Hey there, Doc ~

At this point there is no known mechanism for uncompressing files/folders once they have been compressed. Turning the feature back on will surely prepare it for compression when disk clean-up is triggered to run. If it is on, there is no additional feature to allow you to undo what it has done other than to turn the feature off to prevent compression of files in the future, allegedly.

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Bruce,
My lack of knowledge is only exceeded by my persistence. I came across this utility and wondered if it might do the job. I can see that you guys have already found a hack around the problem, but this might help some of us amatures out. Whatd’ya think??
Windows Commander is a tool for managing files, folders, compressing, uncompressing etc. (shareware).

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Hi Doc ~

I checked out Commander, but the type of compression this app handles are basically for internal unpackers for ZIP, ARJ, LZH, TAR, GZ, CAB, RAR and ACE formats.

However, Doc, Frag, Joe, et al, I did discover a way to uncompress files (all formats, so far): If you copy a file or set of files to another location, they will save to the new location uncompressed. Then if you move them back and accept the dialogue of writing over existing files at the original location, then they will no longer be compressed. I am not sure of about folders and subsequent directories at this point.

Now that a mechanism has been rooted out to halt further compression, now perhaps there exists another mechanism to uncompress all previously compressed files. The manner I described above works great, but is labor intensive and thus tedious and the command line switches I am not able to correctly perform.

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Bruce–I am far from experienced on running Disk Cleanup and would be the first to say that experience is worth infinitely more than my paging through web sites and XP books to see what they say to try to apply. With a little time, though, I think we could both find downloads that will let you delete or compress files and minimize a performance hit. It could not have been meant to slow you to a crawl, we both know that. There is too much out there on compressing files, and I thought it was one of the virtues of an NTFS system. The side effect of slowing you to a crawl seems to be an absurd price to pay for wanting to compress files.
As you have seen, if you copy files to another location or disc, it will decompress. But it’s tedious. But what about emailing files you want to decompress and then having them returned?
Emailing them will decompress them as well. Also I thought simply opening the file decompresses it.
You can list the names of compressed files in an alternate color to make it easy to ID them–Tools>Folder Options>View>Advanced Settings>Show Compressed File in Color.
Can’t you right click the file or folder you wan’t uncompressed>Properties>General Tab>Advanced Button >Uncheck Compess Contents to Save Disk space>click OK. Won’t that do it?

defrag

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