On Feb 25, 10:30Â am, "joe" wrote:
> Thanks Bob and Tim. I was not aware of this and both of those situations
> apply to me.
> i.e. Â There are files which are infrequently accessed and I use 'disk
> cleanup' all the time.
> You learn something new every day 
>
> "Bob I" wrote in message
>
> news:uj1GrOitKHA.4220@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
>
>
>
> > Yes if you run disk cleanup (see below)
> >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_Cleanup
>
> > joe wrote:
>
> >> Does the OS do this automatically and if so under what circumstances ?
>
> >> "Tim Slattery" wrote in message
> >>news:6eoao5h110aceg6vu58t7iv4uioro6m9m4@4ax.com...
>
> >>>"Twayne" wrote:
>
> >>>>IN XP's case, zip = compressed = zipped ... .
>
> >>>>A zipped file is compressed, but a compressed file is not necessarily
> >>>>zipped
> >>>>as there are other methods for compressing file sizes. Â In the caseof
> >>>>XP,
> >>>>with it compresses, it creates a zipped file.
>
> >>>I don't think so. A file whose name is shown in blue has been
> >>>compressed by the OS. This is *not* zip compression, it's something
> >>>that the Windows OS does. It's not as drastic as zip, therefore
> >>>doesn't take as long to do or to undo.
>
> >>>WinXP also has built-in support for zipping and unzipping files but
> >>>it's a totally different thing.
>
> >>>--
> >>>Tim Slattery
> >>>Slatter...@bls.gov
> >>>http://members.cox.net/slatteryt
As you accumulate files, you may learn to dislike disk cleanup as it
takes longer and longer to complete. I think it is old fashioned and
from the days when disk space was really expensive. Here is a popular
tweak to speed up disk cleanup:
When you run Disk Cleanup, it calculates how much space you could save
on your HDD if you choose to compress
"old" files. If you have a million files XP thinks might need
compressing, it could take a long time to
figure that out and your system could appear to stop responding.
Sometimes users interpret this as a problem
with their system, but Windows is doing what you tell it to do.
It also may really be hung for some reason and even Microsoft tells
you how to stop this check for file compression in a knowledgebase
article (maybe they don't like it either).
If you have no interest in compressing old files, you can have Disk
Cleanup skip that calculation entirely.
You'll be cleaning up your system in no time when that check for files
that might need compressing is removed.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/812248
