How to find archived files in xp

[fowerman]

I am trying to understand the Archive attribute in XP. How it works, ie how to create or find a way to view archived files and how XP's backup system/application deals with the Archive attribute to backup files, say to another hard drive. Many thanks.

 

[AntiZig]

Hi,

as far as I know, archived simply colors the files blue in explorer and what it does is it zips those files and folders so they take up less space. You can still access the files because winzip is built into windows now, so when you go to open an archived file it takes longer to open it if compared to not archived file. Simply because windows has to extract then open instead of simply opening.

 

[Saga Lout]

Hello and welcome to Tom's Hardware Forums.

I can only help part way on this because I never use Microsoft's backup facility. However, simply to apply an attribute to a file you need the Command Prompt and type attrib /A (plus drive, path and filename) to archive a file and attrib /- to clear that attribute later when you want to revert the file to a readable state.

 

[Hawkeye22]

The archive bit is set when a file is created or updated. The archive bit only gets reset when you manually reset it or a backup program backs up the file, assuming the backup program respects the archive attribute.

To see the archive files, open a command prompt and switch to the folder you want to view. Then type: attrib and you will see files with their attributes.

 

[Hawkeye22]

Hi,

as far as I know, archived simply colors the files blue in explorer and what it does is it zips those files and folders so they take up less space. You can still access the files because winzip is built into windows now, so when you go to open an archived file it takes longer to open it if compared to not archived file. Simply because windows has to extract then open instead of simply opening.

You are thinking of NTFS compressed files and folders. If they have been backed up recently, the archive bit should be off for these files. The archive attribute does not mean it has been compressed.

 

[fowerman]

Hi

I am starting to understand a bit better now, thanks. Where are these zipped files stored? I found some limited information about the relationship to archiving and XP's file backup system, but no instructions or applications thay may exist within XP itself, so i could not work out how it would work. Once i know the location of the zipped file would i just be able to copy that file to my backup drive?

Thanks

 

[Hawkeye22]

As I stated, the archive attribute has nothing to do with compressed files/folder. if you are interested in compressed files/folder, just right click on a folder and select properties. Under properties, click the "advanced button", and check off "compress contents to save disk space". Now click "ok" and on the properties screen, click "apply". This folder should now show up in blue to let you know it is compressed.