Disk Cleanup

[OldSchoolGamer]

I ran the program that's included with Windows XP called "Disk Cleanup". There is an option that I can select called "Compress Old Files". The description is:

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

The approximate amount of disk space that it will free up is 11,500,468 KB. That is about 11.5 GB. That is a lot considering my hard drive only has 80 GB. I currently only have about 8 GB of free disk space left. So it would be nice to regain that nice chunk of 11.5 GB of disk space.

My question is... would it be wise for me to select the "Compress Old Files" option to free up all that space? I read that it will make some programs that I don't use frequently load slower. My computer is old, it's an Intel Pentium 4, 3.0 GHz with HT technology, 1 GB memory, 128 MB ATI Radeon X300 SE video card. So I really wouldn't want my computer to become slower than it already is (when it's compared to newer computers.)

Does that do the same thing as if you right click on the C: drive, select properties, and then click the box "Compress drive to save disk space"?

[Pyriel]

I've always just manually cleaned up because I don't trust an automated compression not to bork things up. You can compress entire drives, but it causes pretty major slowdowns, and I've never investigated whether Windows does it well, or even does what I'm thinking at all without third-party software. In any case, doing it manually is the least risky way of clearing up space. If you let it clear out files that haven't been accessed recently, you'll probably find that you're missing template files you developed, or who knows what other useful things.

I'm guessing money is a big issue for you? You can get a TB drive for around $70 these days.

[OldSchoolGamer]

I've never investigated whether Windows does it well, or even does what I'm thinking at all without third-party software.

It's not a third-party software. It's a program that is included with all Microsoft Windows XP operating systems. It's an embedded Windows program, such as NOTEPAD, WORDPAD, MSPAINT, SYSTEM RESTORE, etc.

I've always just manually cleaned up because I don't trust an automated compression not to bork things up. In any case, doing it manually is the least risky way of clearing up space.

I've already cleaned up as much as I can manually. I've already deleted all *.tmp, *.chk, etc. files.

If you let it clear out files that haven't been accessed recently, you'll probably find that you're missing template files you developed, or who knows what other useful things.

It says that it doesn't delete any files. It just compresses them.

I'm guessing money is a big issue for you? You can get a TB drive for around $70 these days.

No, not really. I'm just not really in desperate need for a new computer because I can still do everything that I want with my current computer pretty quickly and with no problems. All I use the computer for is to play old school video game emulation (Atari 2600, NES, SNES, Genesis, and MAME), word processing, browsing the internet, and listening/watching media (music & videos.) So for all those things, my computer handles with no problem and loads/plays them basically instantaneously. The only thing that I would want to be able to do with a new computer is to play some of those arcade games in MAME that are too CPU intensive for my current computer to run at full speed. But regardless, I plan on buying a new computer anyway within the year and I don't want to invest anymore money on my current computer since I'm going to be buying a new computer within the year. And I won't be needing a separate TB drive once I buy a new computer because my new computer will already come with more than enough hard disk space.

[Pyriel]

Well, as I recall there's an option in that disk sweeper somewhere that lets you blow away "outdated" files, but I'd never have the guts to use it. I wasn't talking so much about temp files and the like, but if you've manually looked at various files of any type and cleared off everything you're comfortable with, then I guess you are on the point of either expanding or using compressed volumes. Personally, I'd advocate buying the larger drive and then purchasing a PC with a minimalist storage setup, as in another 80 GB drive as a system drive, and then just install the old, larger drive into it, but I always have huge databases and such on my PC and tons of development software and disc images for installations and stuff. I can never have too much space.

However, you have around 10 GB free, and it doesn't sound like you'll fill it up in a hurry. As long as you don't let your browser cache or something like that get out of hand, you can probably survive on it until you buy a new machine.

Edit: Looking around, it seems Windows will allow you to compress the system drive without the need for additional software, but even the guys on the MSDN forums recommend against it, and I can't say I'd disagree. If you have stuff you don't use much, compressing the folders may work, but most applications won't like it if you try to compress an directories they use.

[ReyVGM]

Windows XP's own maintenance programs are not that great because they are decades old and have not been updated.

It's best to download a 3rd party program. I use the popular CCleaner and Koshy John's Disk Cleaner. With those programs I can automatically remove any extra files my computer has (at your discretion) and CCleaner even allows me to select what programs/apps are loaded at startup on windows and the various browsers.

It also makes your computer run much faster after one of those scans.

[MIR]

compressing the old files can be helpful but i cannot recomend it. when you need to reaccess those files it will be an arse (mostly slow) witht the chance they got corrupted during the compression. I also recomend CC cleaner because it cleans things up that i normaly would not think of or be assed enough to bother with like registry files.