Disable Windows XP Disk Compression

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9 Responses

  1. Anthony says:

    @Event Log Monitoring – The reformat is not required when you only disable the compression option! Only when you want to change the cluster size on the disk do you need to reformat. Please keep in mind that these are completely separate things, and can be used independently from each other.

  2. I’ve always unchecked this as it seems to help with system performance. Did not know that I needed to reformat the disk.

  3. Anthony says:

    @Rex – Thanks for your feedback. Increasing the cluster size is indeed a valid method to disable compression in XP an 2003 server. The compression algorithm apparently only supports cluster sizes up to 4k.

    There are a few issues with this method though:
    1) you need to reformat the disk.
    2) larger cluster sizes reduce storage efficiency, as smaller files will still use at least the size of a cluster for storing.

    Fragmentation issues can also affect the performance with different cluster sizes, so some testing would be useful.

    If the two points are not a problem for you, yes the increased cluster size can indeed be used to disable compression in XP.

    Anthony

  4. Rex Carrs says:

    I’ve been told and found it to be true that the only way to get XP to leave files uncompressed is to change your cluster size to anything but stock. I use 32kb and there are never any compressed files on my machine. Neato, eh?

  5. Anthony says:

    @Gene – The instructions are correct, but I have seen mixed feedback regarding the success in Windows XP. In some cases disabling the compression works and in some cases is does not. I have updated the article with a link to a method from Microsoft to prevent users from compressing volumes, as well as the link to the disabling of the compress old files function in disk cleanup.

    Anthony

  6. Gene Washington says:

    Is it possible that there are errors in these instructions? I am very interested in finding a way to completely disable both the compression option and the encryption option in XP. But I have tried these instructions carefully to no avail. The checkbox option for compressing files [right-click, properties, General tab, Advanced, “Compress Files to save disk space”] still exists and still functions after applying these steps. Even after restart.

    Thanks for the help if possible!

    GW

  1. January 7, 2009

    […] Disable Windows XP Compression | PCauthorities.com […]

  2. January 18, 2009

    […] and compression in windows XPSP3 ‘Disable Windows XP Compression | PCauthorities.com (https://pcauthorities.com/pc-speed/disable-windows-xp-compression/) and ‘Disable Windows File Encryption (EFS) | Technipages […]

  3. May 4, 2011

    […] 90 Not sure why it's taking so long to load. Mid Ohio takes 10.4 secs for me. Make sure you don't have drive compression turned on, that could slow it down. This link might help if you're running XP or Vista https://pcauthorities.com/pc-speed/disable-windows-xp-compression/ […]

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