Disk Cleanup Problem

I have Windows XP Home Edition. Under "Disk Cleanup" I show 588,618 KB in Compressed Files.

Question: Is it always safe to delete these files?

Problem: When I click OK and try to delete them, it moves just one bar on the gauge and then hangs-up never completing the process. Is there an alternative way to remove these files safely?

Thanks for any input.

 

If you are talking about the "Compress Old Files" option, it is not deleting stuff. It simply checkes the "last accessed" date on files and compresses those you haven't used for whatever number of days you have set. I think the default is 50 days.

So the compression piece could easily take a good while and especially if it hasn't been allowed to run to completion in a while.

You might try booting to safe mode and running the cleanup from there at least once.

As to deleting the compressed files - bad idea.

 

It did take some time, but it did delete them.

I am confused. (Usually all the time.) I thought that all the files under Disk Cleanup could be safely deleted including compressed files. What consequences can I expect by having deleted them?

You have made me concerned.

 

Well, if I understand correctly what the compress piece is doing, it is badly worded to sorta make you think it is deleting files. Instead it is just compressing files you haven't used in a while to save space and speed up the system. If/when you later start a program that needs to use any of those files (or if they are documents, try to open them) the system automatically uncompresses the specific files you need.

My guess is you deleted some files/documents from your system simply because they hadn't been used in a while. But if you ever need them, you don't have them any longer. So for instance, a word document that hadn't been opened in 50 or 60 days and was compressed is now probably deleted.

And for what it's worth, the XP system restore probably won't help since it only caches copies of XP System files and nothing from other applications or any documents.

The documentation isn't real great on that part of the Disk Cleanup utility but you have my best guess.

As for the hang during the compression phase, take a look at Disk Cleanup Tool Stops Responding While Compressing Old Files and Disk Cleanup Utility Stops Responding for the cause and a simple fix - assuming you are comfortable editing the registry.