Disable Windows File Compression

How to disable the File Compression feature in Windows. These steps should work in Windows 2000, XP and Vista.

1. Hold down the Windows key and press R.

2. Type regedit and click OK.

3. Click the plus sign next to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
then SYSTEM
then CurrentControlSet
then Control
then click FileSystem.

4. Look for an entry on the right side for NtfsDisableCompression. If it doesn’t exist, you will need to create it. To do so, right-click on FileSystem and select New > DWORD Value. Give the value a name of NtfsDisableCompression. Press the Enter key when you are done.

5. Right-click the NtfsDisableCompression entry and click Modify.

6. To disable compression set the Value data to 1. (To enable compression again, set the Value data to 0 or delete NftsDisableCompression)

7. Restart the computer to apply changes.

Now when trying to compress a folder, the following error will be produced:



An error occurred applying attributes to the file:
{file path and filename}
Access is denied.

Windows Vista Command
In Windows Vista, you can accomplish the same thing by simply using the following command on the Run line:
fsutil behavior set disablecompression 1