File names changing to blue??

[forget]

A lot of my file 'Names' have changed (are changing) to blue, rather than black. It seems that every day there are more blue ones there. Everything else normal; Windows XP. Any ideas?

[Saab Dastard]

If you have disk compression switched on, then this is correct. Files & Folders in BLUE are compressed

SD

[forget]

Thanks for that. I've got a huge amount of free disk space so don't need compression. What's the down side - and how do I disable it? Thanks.

[Cypherus]

Select any file you want, right click it and select properties.

Under the General tab click the ‘Advanced’ box.

Uncheck the option for file compression.

Click OK and then Apply. a page will appear giving you the option to apply this change to just this folder or to all folders, select all to turn off global compression.

Having done this the computer will set about the task of uncompressing all the currently compressed folders again, it will take some time to do and a progress bar is displayed to let you know how things are going, but still expect a wait for it to complete.

Other than this the best way to compress files is to use Zip files, gives a far better compression ration than the NTFS version and is less susceptible to corruption during transfer or copy functions.

[Saab Dastard]

A couple of points here, Cypherus:

NTFS Compression is enabled on a per-drive basis. Select My Computer, Drive (x), Properties, then tick / untick the Compression Box to enable / disable compression for that drive.

With Compression enabled on a drive, you can then enable / disable compression on a per folder or file basis in the manner you describe.

Do bear in mind that a compressed drive that gets very full is a real pain to sort out - to move files off the drive they need to be uncompressed, and if there is insufficient space on the disk to uncompress them they can't be moved!

Finally, there is a significant difference between NTFS compression and Zip compression (be it Windows or WinZip). If anyone wants to know more, just use Windows XP Help and search for "File Compression".

SD

[forget]

I'm still confused by this.

Select any file you want, right click it and select properties. Under the General tab click the ‘Advanced’ box. Uncheck the option for file compression. Click OK and then Apply. a page will appear giving you the option to apply this change to just this folder or to all folders.

I've tried this but I see no option for 'all folders', only individual files.

And my main drive - Properties, General, - the Compress Drive to Save Disc Space is unticked. I've changed nothing that I know of and this 'compression' malarkey appears to have started of its own accord.

[Spitoon]

Don't know if it's relevant but I've noticed that many of the update and roll-back files the MS creates seem to be compressed regardless of your personal settings - never been interested enough to look into it but is it just MS stuff that's going blue on your machine?

[forget]

..... is it just MS stuff that's going blue on your machine?

MS docs and Adobe pdfs mainly. Seems to be completely random. Some are compressed - others aren't.