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Author Topic: Disk Cleanup  (Read 2190 times)

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ojas25

    Topic Starter


    Apprentice

  • My Computer World
    Disk Cleanup
    « on: September 02, 2006, 06:18:57 PM »
    Can anyone tell why Windows XP professional disk cleanup will not clean "Old compressed files" and any ideas how to go about getting it todo it. Does the clean happen on rebooting?
    Computers are my hobby and my income love working with computers

    soybean



      Genius
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    Re: Disk Cleanup
    « Reply #1 on: September 02, 2006, 10:00:16 PM »
    What makes you think "Windows XP professional disk cleanup will not clean 'Old compressed files'"?

    ojas25

      Topic Starter


      Apprentice

    • My Computer World
      Re: Disk Cleanup
      « Reply #2 on: September 03, 2006, 01:09:51 AM »
      Quote
      What makes you think "Windows XP professional disk cleanup will not clean 'Old compressed files'"?

      Afer running the clean up there are still files listed in the old comprressed folder
      Computers are my hobby and my income love working with computers

      Dusty



        Egghead

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      Re: Disk Cleanup
      « Reply #3 on: September 03, 2006, 02:10:34 AM »
      AFAIK disk cleanup does not clear (delete) old files, it just compresses them.  The way a file is defined as being old is that you can set a number of days since the last access before the file is considered as being old and is then compressed when Cleanup is run.

      Here is an extract from http://www.theeldergeek.com/disk_cleanup_utility.htm

          *      Compress Old Files

      Unlike the other categories, Compress Old Files doesn't delete any files from the drive. It compresses files that Windows hasn't accessed for a specified period of time. The files are still available, but there will be a slight increase in access times because the files will be decompressed the next time they are accessed. Note that when Compress Old Files is highlighted an Options button appears. Clicking it will allow you to set the number of days to wait before an unaccessed file is compressed.

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      soybean



        Genius
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      Re: Disk Cleanup
      « Reply #4 on: September 03, 2006, 08:28:36 AM »
      Quote
      AFAIK disk cleanup does not clear (delete) old files, it just compresses them.  
      So, I may have old files from 3 years ago, files that haven't been used for that long and that I do not need, and they would still be on my hard drive in compressed form.  Is that right?  This isn't making a lot of sense to me.  Surely, there's a way to stop Compress Old Files from just continuing to accumulate old files and keep them in compressed form forever.  

      When I run Disk Cleanup, it shows no drive space being consumed by Compress Old Files.  I click on Options and see that it's set at 50 days (a default setting, I believe, since I don't recall ever setting that).  So, the 0 MB shown next to Compress Old Files means I have no files that have not been used in over 50 days, right?  That seems hard to believe.  But, indeed, I guess it indicates I either have no files unused for over 50 days, or I've run Disk Cleanup at frequent enought intervals to remove unused files less than 50 days old.  

      So, anyway, Compress Old Files appears to be the oddball in the Disk Cleanup panel; all the others do, in fact, remove files from the hard drive while Compress Old Files compresses old files and removes nothing.