Compress Old Files?

I apologize for asking, since I'm sure this questions already been answered, but, since I couldn't find it:

Should I use the Compress old files option in Disk Cleanup? And I'm not talking about compressing an entire drive here, just the files that Windows thinks I haven't used in awhile. I've heard people say both that it can significantly slow your computer and that it has very little effect on modern computers. So, I was kinda wondering which is true...

My specs:
Windows XP Home
1.60 GHz, 1.00 GB RAM
279 GB HDD space (with 111 GB free)

That said, is there a way to uncompress all the random files that Windows has already compressed without having to compress my entire drive and then uncompress it? I've heard there is a registry fix for this, but was unsure if it would uncompress all files or just turn off the option to compress.

 

111gb free. you have loads of free space. whats the point.
by compressing these files your not going to gain that much space compared to the already available 111gb.

you might free up a few hundred meg at most. probably alot less.

 

Do you know of a way to uncompress the entire drive, since I have selected to Compress old files in the past? Also, do you know of a registry fix to stop the Disk Cleanup tool from taking the extra 20 minutes to search for old files that need to be compressed?

Thanks!

 

In the old days of computers (1970-1990), data compression resulted in much slower response time. Not today.

Modern CPU's are so much quicker than disk drives. If the compressed data can be retrieved with fewer disk drive seeks, then the response time may be less because the CPU can decompress the files much quicker than the disk drive can seek for more data.

You pretty much have to test your system with your data to learn how compression will work for you.