How do I UNcompress old files!!?

[tpr007]

I selected the tick box when running disc cleanup in WinXP to compress old files.
Can I undo this and have them all uncompressed again?

thanks

[richgtfc]

Right click on the folder and/or files that have been compressed (usually changed the text to blue) select properties, advanced, then uncheck the compress files box, apply to all subfolders, then apply.

Rich

[KraGorn]

Originally posted by tpr007
Can I undo this and have them all uncompressed again?

Apart from the \WINDOWS tree and my MPEG/JPEG files most of my system runs as compressed .. space savings can be quite marked depending on one's PC use and from a performance point of view there's little difference in pratical terms.

Of course, if you've far more disk space than you need then the point's moot.

Just a thought.

[tpr007]

It's just that DriveImage didn't run correctly and it says a prob is due to the flopp.sys file being compressed. I have uncompressed this but I am also having trouble installing a printer, so wanted to uncompress everything to ensure it's not having an effect.

[tpr007]

Originally posted by richgtfc
Right click on the folder and/or files that have been compressed (usually changed the text to blue) select properties, advanced, then uncheck the compress files box, apply to all subfolders, then apply.

Rich

there are files within folders that are compressed, but not all of them. When I right click on the folder and choose advanced, the compression box is unchecked even though some files within it are compressed!

[KraGorn]

If the folder's compress option isn't set all that means is that files it holds won't automatically be compressed when they're created.

I can see how Drive Image would have problems, since it has it's own NTFS file system handler my guess is that this file is part of this which is needed in order to be able to handle compressed files ... Catch-22 if it's compressed it can't read it to allow it to handle compressed files.

Generally you should avoid compressing "\", "\WINDOWS" and below and "\PROGRAM FILES" and below, most everything else should be okay.

[richgtfc]

Originally posted by tpr007
there are files within folders that are compressed, but not all of them. When I right click on the folder and choose advanced, the compression box is unchecked even though some files within it are compressed!

You could try compressing everything, then uncompressing everything. Should be OK, but I'm no expert....

[cskates]

Goto Start|Run and type "cmd" to open a command prompt
Type "cd \" at the prompt to goto the root directory
Type "compact /u /s /a /q /i *.*" to uncompress all files in all directories

[tpr007]

thanks for all the help.
For various reasons I have gone for a full re-install.

However, upon starting the PC I still get that message (err5 and err8 etc...)

oops I forgot to explain earlier!
Yesterday I tried to use driveimage to create a new image of my harddrive. It shut down windows after explaining it needed to go to DOS mode, but then just reloaded windows straight away. Every time i start the PC since then it comes up with this message (after the bios screen but before starting XP):
:...
Err5 cannot find VFLOPPY.SYS
Err8 Fake Floppy Driver not found

I read on their website that err5 occurs if the vfloppy.sys file had been compressed. and to get rid of err8 removing and re-installing driveimage should fix it.

Now I have no compressed files, and a clean install but it's still happening

[KraGorn]

Did you look for the missing file? Where is it? Is this Drive Image 7? I only used it briefly but IIRC isn't it bootable of its' own CD, does that work?

[tpr007]

It came pre-installed and the file is in the Driveimage directory.