NTFS Compressor (early α-version)

This Program is designed to compress an NTFS-Harddisk with some Criteriums Microsoft does not make 
if you want to compress a whole Drive. This Program is Freeware and open Source andcan be downloaded 
at http://sourceforge.net/projects/ntfscompressor/

If you Harddrive is NTFS-Filesystem every File can be compressed by the System its own. You can
read and write to such files in same ways as if they are not compressed.

• All Files which are smaller than the Clustersize are NOT compressed. (It makes no sence anyway, but Microsoft DOES)
• Appreciated for Memorysticks or Small Notebook-HDDs.
• You can change the minimum Age of the Files to be compressed. 14 Days old Files and older Files is a good Property.
• Every File must be at least x Percent smaller when it is compressed. Otherwise it is decompressed for more Performance. You can setup this Value wit a Trackbar in the Windows of NTFS Compressor you can see screenshots of below.
• Important System Files like Command.com, MSDos.sys, NTDETECT.COM etc. are not touched.
• Extensions like AVI MPG etc. can be excluded easy, because such Files can not be compressed much.
• The Maximum Size of the File this Progam should handle can be set to, because compressing of very big Files can even crash Windows.
• No Installation required. Just start the Exe-File.
• v0.2a works with Folders, too.
• v0.34a handles the "File not found"-error and has logarithmic Scale in the Scatterplot now

This is how the just startet program looks like:

Klick on "Scan for Files" to scan the Drive for Files.

Hiere you see the Programm, when scanning is complete:

Klick on "Start de/compressionprocess" to start the main Kompressionprocess. Please be ensured that this will slow down your System immediately. You can set "program is idle" to reduce this effect a little.

Here you see the Kompressionprocess just started:

Remember that the kompression of a whole Drive may take more than one Hour, because every File which matches the primary Properties will be kompressed and if it's Kompressionquality is not a good as expected it will be decompressed again.

Here you see the Program ready:

Hint #1: If you minimize the Window of NTFS Compressor the Statistic are not necessary to paint and updated to your Monitor so the Program will run much faster. You will even hear it if you Minimize the Window, when there are abaout 10000 Values in the Diagrams.

Here you can see my System-Harddrive before and after this Program run with standard-parameters:

Before	After

Here is an Example how the Attribute "Compressed" is set:

Blue are the compressed Files.

Hint #2: Sometimes there appears Infoboxes from Windows that any System-Files has been changed and asks you to insert the Windows-Installation-CD. You may ignore this Message, because Windows thinks that the Fileversion has changed only because the File is compressed now.

At last..

Thanks to Robert Rossmair and the whole JEDI-Project whose Sourcecode I used to access the 
Compressed Attribute and of course to all people from the Newsgroup de.comp.lang.delphi.misc 
who helped me with answers.


Have fun and free Space! ;)

Yours,

Markus Gronotte - http://gronoworx.dyndns.org
Overmannstr. 60 - 48268 Greven - Germany
Email 



PS: I'm not responsible for any kind of damage this Program may cause. Use this Program on your own risk!

Hint #3: NTFS Compressor frees about 1 GB Space at a normal Installation of Windows XP with Service Pack 2.

Hint #4: At some Systems the Program "destroys" NVIDA-Graficdrivers. If this happens, just start Windows in Protected Mode with pressing F8 while booting and first deinstall the Driver and then reinstall it after a second reboot.

Hint #5: In most cases a Drive-defragmentation is appreciated after NFTSCompressor has been run. This frees even more Space.