How To Compress A Rar File In Windows 7 ((TOP))
Gretel Parriera
Except for speed issues (there is a lot of discussion here on that topic with some saying it is actually beneficial to performance in some ways) there is no issues in using NTFS compression a current Windows installation disk and all it's folders in it.
In general, it is used to store/cache the basic installer for programs, so that when you want to modify an installed program, it runs from there and allows you to uninstall or possibly even do a repair without needing the original installation media, and so there should be no adverse affects from setting it to use NTFS compression.
In most cases, you can compress or move the files and put them back when you want to make a change (modify, repair, uninstall). In fact, the folder is ultimately a cache of installation files, so you could even delete them and just use the original installation media.
Windows 10 was initially quite a bulky operating system but over the years it has been trimmed down to be compatible with devices that contain less storage such as notebooks and other portable handhelds. But not only does Windows 10 consume less space now, but you can also save up more space on your C: drive via the compression feature as it compresses Windows 10 on your PC to make room for some more gigabytes under the hood.
Compression ratio results are very dependent upon the data used for the tests. Usually, 7-Zip compresses to 7z format 30-70% better than to zip format.And 7-Zip compresses to zip format 2-10% better than most of other zip compatible programs.
SMB compression allows an administrator, user or application to request compression of files as they transfer over the network. This removes the need to first manually deflate a file with an application, copy it, then inflate on the destination computer. Compressed files will consume less network bandwidth and take less time to transfer, at the cost of slightly increased CPU usage during transfers. SMB compression is most effective on networks with less bandwidth, such as a client's 1 Gbps ethernet or Wi-Fi network; a file transfer over an uncongested 100 Gbps ethernet network between two servers with flash storage may be as fast without SMB compression in practice, but will still create less congestion for other applications.
You can configure SMB compression from both a client and server perspective. Client and server don't refer to a particular edition like Windows Server 2022 or Windows 11 Insider Preview but instead to the architecture of a file transfer between two computers. Both Windows Server 2022 and Windows 11 support being a client or server of SMB compression.
Starting in Windows Server 2022 with update KB5016693 (OS Build 20348.946) and Windows 11 with update KB5016691 (OS Build 22000.918) you can configure an SMB client or SMB server to always request compression and to always reject requests for compression. You can now use Group Policy or PowerShell; in the initial release of Windows 11 and Windows Server 2022, you could only use registry settings to control most of these behaviors and you could not configure an SMB server to always request compression despite its share settings. An SMB client and SMB server refers to the SMB services, not to a Windows edition or SKU. All of these SMB changes take effect immediately without a reboot.
Starting in Windows Server 2022 with update KB5016693(OS Build 20348.946) and Windows 11 with updateKB5016691 (OS Build 22000.918), SMB by default always attempts tocompress a file when a client or server requests it, without using compression sampling.
In the original release of Windows Server 2022 and Windows 11, SMB compression defaulted to use of an algorithm where it attempted to compress the first 524,288,000 bytes (500 MiB) of a file during transfer and track that at least 104,857,600 bytes (100 MiB) compressed within that500 MiB range. If fewer than 100 MiB was compressible, SMB compression stopped trying to compress the rest of the file. If at least 100 MiB compressed, SMB compression attempted to compress the rest of the file. With this behavior change, sampling is now disabled by default and SMB always attempts to compress the entire file when a client or server requests it.
A simple way to test your compression configuration is using VHDX files. You can create and mount a VHDX, add some files to it, then dismount the VHDX and copy it as a file. Alternatively, you can just copy an existing dismounted virtual machine VHDX file, as much of its file contents will compress. For an example of creating a VHDX test file:
Testing SMB compression between a pair of VMs running on the same Hyper-V host may not show time savings because the virtual switch is 10 Gbps and has no congestion, plus modern hypervisors often use flash storage. Test your compression over the real networks you plan to use. You can also reduce the network bandwidth on Hyper-V VMs for testing purposes using Set-VMNetworkAdapter with -MaximumBandwidth set to 1Gb, for example.
To see how well compression is working, you can robocopy the same file to a server twice, once with the /compress flag and again without compression, deleting the server file between each test. If the file is compressing, you should see less network utilization in Task Manager and a lower copy time. You can also observe the SMB server's Performance Monitor object "SMB Server Shares" for its "Compressed Requests/sec" and "Compressed Responses/sec" counters.
SMB compression doesn't support SMB Direct and RDMA. This means that even if the client requests compression and the server supports it, compression will not be attempted with SMB Direct and RDMA. Support for SMB compression with SMB Direct and RDMA will come after the Windows Server 2022 and Windows 11 public previews.
The Compress-Archive cmdlet creates a compressed, or zipped, archive file from one or morespecified files or directories. An archive packages multiple files, with optional compression, intoa single zipped file for easier distribution and storage. An archive file can be compressed usingthe compression algorithm specified by the CompressionLevel parameter.
The Compress-Archive cmdlet uses the System.IO.Compression.ZipArchive API to compress files.The API limits the maximum file size to 2GB. For more information, seeSystem.IO.Compression.ZipArchive.
This example compresses files from different directories and creates an archive file. A wildcard isused to get all files with a particular file extension. There's no directory structure in thearchive file because the Path only specifies file names.
The Path parameter accepts specific file names and file names with wildcards, *.vsd. ThePath uses a comma-separated list to get files from different directories. The compression levelis Fastest to reduce processing time. The DestinationPath parameter specifies the locationfor the Draft.zip file. The Draft.zip file contains Draftdoc.docx and all the files with a.vsd extension.
Absolute path and file names are used because the LiteralPath parameter doesn't acceptwildcards. The Path uses a comma-separated list to get files from different directories. Thecompression level is Fastest to reduce processing time. The DestinationPath parameterspecifies the location for the Draft.zip file. The Draft.zip file only contains Draftdoc.docxand diagram2.vsd.
This example compresses a directory and creates an archive file that includes the rootdirectory, and all its files and subdirectories. The archive file has a directory structure becausethe Path specifies a root directory.
This example compresses a directory and creates an archive file that excludes the root directorybecause the Path uses an asterisk (*) wildcard. The archive contains a directory structurethat contains the root directory's files and subdirectories.
Compressed (e.g., archived or zipped) files may contain manyseparate files in one large archive, which often takes up less spacethan the original files. Before you can read or run all the separatefiles and programs, you must use an archiving program to extract thefiles from the archive. In Windows, you can compress (zip) anddecompress (unzip) files without installing any third-partyprograms.
Note: The new .zip file will have thesame name as the file or folder you compressed. If you compressmultiple items, the file name will be the same as the file youright-clicked to start the compression.
For zipping and unzipping most files, the built-in Windows utilitywill suffice; however, if you encounter a compressed format notsupported by the built-in Windows tools, you can try one of thefollowing programs:
Are there scenarios in which anyone would recommend NOT UPX-ing an executable (e.g. when writing a DLL, Windows Service, or when targeting Vista or Win7)? I write most of my code in Delphi, but I've used UPX to compress C/C++ executables as well.
Upon startup of a compressed EXE/DLL, all of the code isdecompressed from the disk image intomemory in one pass, which can causedisk thrashing if the system is low onmemory and is forced to access theswap file. In contrast, withuncompressed EXE/DLLs, the OSallocates memory for code pages ondemand (i.e. when they are executed).
Multiple instances of a compressed EXE/DLL create multipleinstances of the code in memory. Ifyou have a compressed EXE thatcontains 1 MB of code (beforecompression) and the user starts 5instances of it, approximately 4 MB ofmemory is wasted. Likewise, if youhave a DLL that is 1 MB and it is usedby 5 running applications,approximately 4 MB of memory iswasted. With uncompressed EXE/DLLs,code is only stored in memory once andis shared between instances.
The only time size matters is during download off the Internet. If you are using UPX then you actually get worse performance than if you use 7-zip (based on my testing 7-Zip is twice as good as UPX). Then when it is actually left compressed on the target computer your performance is decreased (see Lars' answer). So UPX is not a good solution for file size. Just 7zip the whole thing.
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