Windows compression - Maxi Images

[XtremeX]

Even after using windows compression I find that the maxi image takes up the same space. If I right click it & view the disk usage details it says less, but in "My Computer" the full size of the image is still gone from space on the drive. Anyone who's used windows compression could you please post if it only works on a seperate drive etc (not the main Windows install drive)?

[acal3000]

Until I know windows compression don't saves to much space

[Joe Forster/STA]

What is the real and compressed size of that maxi image? The two should tell us the compression ratio.

However, Windows has to be able to "virtual-uncompress" the file contents on the fly. Especially, seeking around such a compressed file must be a bitch! For this reason, I think, the compression ratio cannot be as good as with an archiver (although ZIP has a relatively good compression ratio and it compresses/uncompresses extremely fast, too!) and/or the file must be compressed in separately uncompressable chunks and there must be some kind of an index added so that the "virtual-uncompression" can be started from the beginning of a chunk, rather than the beginning of the file, upon every seek.

[Edit] Hmmm, I've tried the Need for Speed: Most Wanted maxi image by Team Riverstorm: 1.74 Gigabytes real size, 1.23 Megabytes compressed size. By compressing it, I won 1.74 Gigabytes of hard disk space. I think, the amount of free space, reported by Windows, is the actual amount of space left on the drive; no estimations, concerning the ratio of compressed files, is made. If you save uncompressed files onto the drive, the amount of free space will be reduced by the total size of the files saved onto it. However, if you save compressed files, the reduction of free space will be less than the total (uncompressed) size of the files saved.

@XtremeX: Stupid question: Have you enabled compression, in general, for the drive? Although, if you haven't, why would Windows let you enable compression on the file level?!

[XdaywalkerX]

jup - if u have the correct settings u can free much disk space...

[Joe Forster/STA]

That looks fine to me. Haven't you won back the several Gigabytes of difference between the real and compressed size of the maxi image? I did!

[free4eveeer]

hi .. im sorry if my question is little stupid but i never mounted a mini image before .. i have the mini image for most wanted and i have also the deamon 4 .. but i have no clue what to do with that file .. i mean if i extract it it will take same size of the real image .. so whats the difference then ??