Thread: Why can't I compress?

When carrying out routine housekeeping on my pc , which runs Windows XP Home, I use the Disk Cleanup facility to get rid of unwanted files. It works well except the 'Compress old files' option, the size of which does not decrease. Does this mean that I am getting an increasing amount of clutter on the hard disk? One response on an internet forum I looked at suggested that it was a good idea not to compress old files at all. Is that true?

We're not convinced about the worth of the 'Compress old files' tool. What it does is to look for files on your computer that haven't been used or viewed for a long time, and, as the name suggests, compress them.

This saves some space, but it also means that the files will take longer to access next time because the computer will need to decompress them to use them. It also takes quite a while to do the compression in the first place.

The problem is that in this day and age, the majority of files that take up space on people's computers are music, photos and video files, none of which can be compressed much.

Most music, video and photo files are already heavily compressed in the first place, so trying to compress them any more is a waste of time.

In any case, modern hard disks are quite large compared to most people's usage, and compressing files won't make much difference.

If you find you're running low on space, it may be better to archive the files yourself by backing them up to a CD, DVD, USB memory key or external hard disk and then deleting them from the computer.

The usual caveats apply here too - make sure the backup works, test it regularly and if the files are important, perhaps even keep two or three backups in separate places.