Cannot uncompress system files that are in use

[Curley_Boy 0]

I've been experiementing with NTFS disk compression on my XP machine. But I turned off compression on a number of files after I noticed a performance hit. However there remain some system files which I cannot decompress because they are in use. How do I get round this problem?

[Christianb 8]

Hi Curley Boy,

You have described one of the countless annoyances with NTFS. I personally only use FAT32, even though MS has done a dreadful job of keeping a FAT based system secure. I mean really unless I explicitly state for files to be shared then don't share them. It should be that simple, but it isn't as the Microsoft Personal Security Advisor (downloadable program, like windows update, but delves more into security settings and less into drivers) will point out. The reason I use FAT 32 is the same reason you quit compressing your files. If you'd really like a fast file system use one that's simpler. NTFS is far more complicated because of all the security, encryption, and compression options. It has about a 40% performance hit for the aquisition of the same files! I think that's a huge reason to ditch NTFS, but I realize that if you have a web server and I do then NTFS might be a good idea. Okay enough about FAT. There are a couple of way to fix that. If it's a system file you might be SOL. However any of the following should work:

-Log Into Safe Mode and try converting the files from there

-Try uninstalling and re-installing the compressed program

-Try closing whatever program is running that is leaving the files in use

-Try turning off some of your services (read them first) and then try converting your files

-Make sure you're the admin (which you probably are)

 

Good Luck,

Christian Blackburn

[Curley_Boy 0]

Thanks for the advice, no quick fix as such

 

had to use safe mode / recovery console to decompress them all but its done now (time for a defrag methinks)

[Christianb 8]

Hi Curley Boy,

Wow you actually had to use the recovery console. That sucks! Oh well, what was the command you executed. You don't have to provide the exact syntax or anything, but if you can remember the names of some or all of the commands you had to execute to decompress the whole drive I'm sure that'd be nice to know for future reference.

Thanks in Advance,

Christian Blackburn

[Curley_Boy 0]

I didn't have to decompress the whole drive... the problem was a few files in the system32 folder that were in use and could not be decompressed because of this (some of them even in safe mode).

 

So I loaded the recovery console, copied each file to a backup folder, then deleted the originals, then restored the files from the backup folder, cleared the dllcache and rebooted.