With the ending of support for XP, I've had an increase lately of the number of upgrades to 7 / new computers, etc. and have had to do plenty of data transfers. Recently, I've noticed a lot of XP systems with many random compressed files on them. The file is colored blue, and when you check the advanced attribute properties, the check is in the "Compress contents to save disk space"
Now, I could understand a disk cleanup utility compressing old dated data but what I'm seeing is so totally random. You could have folders that are labeled in black, but the entire contents are blue (compressed) - and you can have other folders, again colored black, and have maybe 3 or 4 within that are blue. I'm even seeing it in Program Files, the Windows directory, all over. These hard drives aren't remotely full either, which is again, baffling as to why so many files are being compressed. I could suspect a virus did it, similar to the ones that mark stuff as hidden, but again, with it being so random, I just don't get it.
Anyway, the question then is this. Does it matter if I decompress these files before transfer? Or will copying them do the decompression on it's own? I'm more worried about data loss/corruption than anything else here, so what I have been doing is just decompressing the files on the drive before I move them. I'm just curious if I'm overreacting by doing that. I feel it better safe than sorry anyway, but I thought I'd ask.
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