compressing old files

Hi All
In disk clean up it has compressing old files, can someone tell me the pro's and con's on doing this.
Is there a way to see what files it will compress.....maybe it's files I would rather get rid of?
The size is 1,285,337. seems rather large
Thanks
Geri

 

Geri--Not too sure this tells you the pro's and con's, but it does supply some info.
http://www.theeldergeek.com/disk_cleanup_utility.htm

 

Thanks Jim

 

There is one really good reason to compress old files when you run disk cleanup. If you do not, each subsequent cleanup will take longer to run and eventually they will freeze at the compress old files stage. Then no more disk cleanup unless you run the reg fix from kellys korner to remove the compress old files from disk cleanup.

Basically, XP uses diskkeeper lite as a defrag and disk management tool. It keeps track of what files are used every day or during bootup (the prefetch folder where it lists the name and location of files and programs loaded during boot up so that they can be prefetched from that location to the swap file while windows is loading so they will can be preloaded to RAM just before they are needed).
Now one other advantage of this, especially on an NTFS format drive is that small files are not assigned a full cluster on the hard drive like they are in FAT32. Instead, often a small file will be stored in its Master File Table entry. This makes storage more efficient, and it makes opening these small files more efficient.

So what does compress old files do? It takes things like windows update uninstallers for old updates, files you have not accessed in the last month , stuff like that and puts them into something similar to a zip file. It combines many files which have wasted space (fragmentation) and puts them in one contiguous zip file for storage.
This prepares your drive for defragmentation.
XP , using diskeeper lite technology does some unique things.
It naturally puts the swap file on the optimal spot on the drive/ partition. It puts operating system files, program files , data files etc all in seperate locations and sorts within them to optimize your performance and drive usage. Finally it can actually run mini defrags in the background (optimize drive ) . Ever noticed a bunch of hard drive activity when you are doing nothing? This is XP defrag moving things about so that their location better matches your usage and minimizes fragmentation.
So, by compressing these files you have not accessed and then running defrag, they are moved to a part of the drive which may take a little longer to load them from, but this means that the files you use all the time load faster and windows performs better.

 

UMM, OK
Lets see if I have this correct.
Don't compress, but use a Registry and system cleaner.
I have EasyCleaner and CCleaner that I use. Using these doesn't seem to change the "compress old files in disk cleanup.
As far as RegScrub or the likes, I'm not comfortable with...Used RegSeeker once, had to go into a recovery point and undo. I'm not that knowledgeable to know what not to get rid of.

Compress, but then do a Defrag.
This seems easy.
Is there a folder that shows what is compressed somewhere so I could look at it?
If you compress, is there a way to undo it, or just some files, other then a recovery point?
Geri