Page 258 - Windows 10 May 2019 Update The Missing Manual: The Book That Should Have Been in the Box

file” that can’t be compressed; then click Ignore All. A few files will still be

uncompressed when you get back from the cineplex, but at least you won’t
have had to stay home, manually clicking to dismiss every “open file”
complaint box.)

When Windows is finished compressing files, their names appear in a

different color, a reminder that Windows is doing its part to maximize your
disk space.

Note

If the files don’t change color, somebody—maybe you—must have turned off the “Show
encrypted or compressed NTFS files in color” option.

Zipped Folders

NTFS compression is ideal for freeing up disk space while you’re working

at your PC. But as soon as you email your files to somebody else or copy
them to a flash drive, the transferred copies bloat right back up to their

original sizes.

Fortunately, there’s another way to compress files: Zip them. If you’ve ever
used Windows before, you’ve probably encountered .zip files. Each one is a

tiny little suitcase, an archive, whose contents have been tightly compressed
to keep files together, to save space, and to transfer them online faster (see
Figure 3-20). Use this method when you want to email something to

someone, or when you want to pack up a completed project and remove it
from your hard drive to free up space.