3: Managing and Maintaining Access to Resources

Table of Contents

1. Working with Shared Folders
2. Offline Files
3. Troubleshooting Terminal Services and Remote Desktop Connections
4. Windows Server 2003 File Systems
   1. Converting from FAT or FAT32 to NTFS
   2. NTFS Disk Quotas
   3. NTFS Data Compression
   4. NTFS Data Encryption
   5. Encrypting a File or Folder
   6. Copying and Moving Encrypted Files
   7. Shadow Copies of Shared Folders
   8. Setting Up Shadow Copies
   9. Accessing Shadow Copies
5. Configuring File System Permissions

NTFS Data Compression

Windows Server 2003 enables you to compress individual files and folders so that they occupy less space on an NTFS drive volume. Any Windows- or MS-DOS-based program can read and write to NTFS compressed files without having to decompress them first. The compressed files decompress automatically when opened and recompress when closed. Compressed folders and files are displayed in blue in My Computer and Windows Explorer. You can turn off this default color distinction by clicking Tools > Folder Options > View and marking the box next to Show Encrypted or Compressed NTFS Files in Color.

To compress or uncompress a file or folder, follow these steps:

1. Open Windows Explorer or My Computer.

2. Right-click the file or folder that you'd like to compress or uncompress and select Properties.

3. On the General tab, click the Advanced button.

4. From the Advanced Attributes dialog box, mark (or clear) the Compress Contents to Save Disk Space check box to compress (or uncompress) the file or folder that you selected (see graphic below).

5. Click OK for the Advanced Attributes dialog box, then click OK for the Properties window.

Instead of compressing individual files or folders, you can compress an entire NTFS volume by right-clicking the drive volume in My Computer or Windows Explorer, selecting Properties and marking the check box labeled Compress Drive to Save Disk Space. You can also use the compact.exe tool to compress and uncompress folders and files. If a lot of files are compressed on a server and many users access those files, the compression and decompression operations can degrade server performance.

Note the following:

• Compressed files that are moved to FAT or FAT32 drive volumes become uncompressed.

• Compressed files that are moved or copied to uncompressed folders stored on NTFS drive volumes become uncompressed.

• Compressed files that are moved or copied to compressed folders stored on NTFS drive volumes remain compressed.

• Uncompressed files that are moved or copied to compressed folders become compressed.

Next: NTFS Data Encryption