Names of folders and files suddenly changed color

[scottmcll]

Very odd. My laptop has two HDs and on one of them something has happened to make the names of all the folders and files appear in blue text, rather than black. Stranger still. When I transfer any of these files or folders to another machine, the blue is transferred as well. I can't find any setting that would cause this. Any ideas what has happened and how I can revert back to black?

Thanks much, Scott

 

[scottmcll]

Sorry, never mind. I found out what was causing it. I needed to uncheck the "Show encrypted or compressed NTFS files in color" in the folder options>view dialogue.

 

[Ztruker]

Do you really want the folders/files Encrypted or compressed?

 

[scottmcll]

Actually, no. That setting must have been inadvertently checked. Is it recommended not to have files encrypted or compressed? What happenes if I uncheck it now?

 

[Ztruker]

You need to decompress the files manually.

Compression is sometimes turned on by disk cleanup, make sure it's unchecked.
Open Computer, right click on a drive and select Properties then the Tools tab.



Next, decompress the entire drive or if it's just one folder then decompress the entire folder.

Open an Elevated Command Prompt
Enter compact /u /a /f /i /s:c:\

Replace c:\ with the drive (or folder) you want to decompress.

 

[scottmcll]

Thank you so much! Will do.

 

[scottmcll]

When I unchecked the "compress this drive.." it asked if I wanted to apply the changes to all subfolders and files. I clicked yes and now it is going through a long operation that says it will take 5.5 hours. Is it decompressing everything on the drive, or do I still need to do the command prompt operation you mentioned in you last reply?

 

[Ztruker]

Sounds like it's doing it for you. Let it finish and you should not see any more blue file/folder names.