What do you think of this tweak? Disable NTFS Compression

@tilleroftheearth @Cloudfire @Mr. Fox @toughasnails

Something I do the first thing after installing and OS and reaching the desktop is to run an elevated command prompt and type:

fsutil behavior set disablecompression 1

that disables NTFS compression. The reason I do this is because if I don't, after a few days have passed or sometimes immediately, when I go to the C:\Windows\System32 folder and the System32\drivers folder I would see a lot of files/ folders in blue meaning they are compressed.

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't that a horrible thing to do? when space is not an issue, why would I ever want to compress any file then it would have to be decompressed before being accessed and according to this logic, it means it would make the system less snappier

correct me if I'm wrong. what do you think of this tweak?

PS: The bigger issue if you buy a PC which already has Windows installed and this tweak wasn't applied, it is almost impossible to reverse the damage since that would mean you would have to take ownership of each file/folder one by one just in order for you to uncompress them, which ultimately may require you to format jut to get rid of this nuisance of compression

 

I don't know. Never heard of doing that before. None of the files in my C:\Windows\System32 or the System32\drivers subfolder are compressed. The text in the file names is black like everywhere else.

 

I remember this sort of thing happening with Windows XP, but I haven't seen it since then.

 

I've actually noticed this on some of my machines, along with a ballooning WinSXS folder that I have no idea how to fix.

 

Hmm can you check a few subfolders in there randomly?

I know one thing for sure, when installing the Alienware ST Microelectronics Freefall Sensor Driver it places its files in the System32\drivers folder and they will be compressed 100% unless one applies the above tweak.

Not that is not the only problem, as time passes by, Windows seems to like to compress files it rarely accesses by compressing them even though you have a lot of free space available.

 

Well if you try to uncompress one of them files, they are all system protected so it won't allow you. You need to take ownership of each file separately then uncompress them one by one. When I saw this, I'm like to heck with it, I formatted and noticed my system snappier, I don't know if it was placebo effect but I don't like my stuff compressed.

 

I was talking more about the increasing/large WinSXS folder that starts out small on a fresh install and gradually gets to be bigger and bigger over time for no reason.

 

That's because the winsxs folder holds backup files of every single Windows Update you install on your system, so that you can uninstall updates from the Control Panel or reinstall removed updates without re-downloading them. You can keep the folder's size in check by running Disk Cleanup and ticking the Windows Update Cleanup option every time after installing Windows Updates. Note that only W8 and W10 have this option in Disk Cleanup by default. In W7, you need to install KB2852386 to add the Windows Update Cleanup option to Disk Cleanup.

 

I do run the disk cleanup utility, and have it scan the Windows Updates but it only amounts to like 1GB tops, and the WinSXS folder I've seen get up to 13-15GB on my systems.

 

Service pack backup files, temp files, installed Windows Features all affect the size of the winsxs folder

 

but back to the topic, what do you think of the tweak?

 

I don't have any compressed files/folders in those directories

 

I checked in subfolders also and none are compressed.

 

Perhaps default setting differs between ' Home/Professional/Ultimate'?

Anyway, weird thing, that fsutil ... you'd expect a gui somewhere. No matter:

Code:

fsutil behavior query AllowExtChar
fsutil behavior query BugcheckOnCorrupt
fsutil behavior query Disable8dot3
fsutil behavior query DisableCompression
fsutil behavior query DisableEncryption
fsutil behavior query DisableLastAccess
fsutil behavior query EncryptPagingFile
fsutil behavior query MftZone
fsutil behavior query MemoryUsage
fsutil behavior query QuotaNotify
fsutil behavior query SymlinkEvaluation
fsutil behavior query DisableDeleteNotify

Result:

Code:

AllowExtChar is not currently set
BugCheckOnCorrupt = 0
The registry state of NtfsDisable8dot3NameCreation is 2, the default (Volume level setting).
DisableCompression = 1
DisableEncryption = 1
DisableLastAccess = 1
EncryptPagingFile = 0
MftZone = 0
MemoryUsage = 0
QuotaNotify = 3600
Local to local symbolic links are enabled.
Local to remote symbolic links are enabled.
Remote to local symbolic links are disabled.
Remote to remote symbolic links are disabled.
DisableDeleteNotify = 0

 

Here's another data point.

On May 29, 2014 I did a clean install of Windows 8.1 Pro on a system (i5 3427U 'IB', 16GB RAM, M4 256GB SSD with OP'ing leaving 166GB available capacity. On August 23, 2015, I did the Win10Pro upgrade.

Three days ago, I checked the free space on the drive and afterwards ran the tweak to disable NTFS compression. I rebooted the system three times since then (the first time, immediately after running the tweak) and the free space increased by 0.3GB, total, on the third day.

The system does not feel any faster (or slower) after disabling NTFS compression (and yes, it was on...).

Looking at a specific 'test' file (C:\Windows\System32\aclui.dll size: 5.19MB, size on disk: 1.20MB) it doesn't seem to have affected anything there either.

After my grueling and exhaustive testing, I think this is a non issue for anything past Windows 8.1

(And yes; everyone should be past Windows 8.1 by now, imo...).

 

Even on Win 8.1, I just took a look and the only folder showing in blue (as compressed) is the drivers folder.

I'd imagine this isn't the working copy of the driver file, but rather a copy of what was installed (for rollback purposes). I feel like the OP thought these were the driver files Windows is actively using. This clearly isn't the case, and I'm not concerned.

My System32 folder is 4.24GB, FWIW.