Windows XP has a compression feature built-in so you no longer need to use a third party utility to compress your folders and files. Most people who work with Windows XP know how to compress a folder – right click the folder, point to Send to, and click Compressed (zipped) folder. Here are a few additional ideas you can use when working with the compression feature in Windows XP.

Normally people compress their folders after they are created. However, you can create an empty zipped folder to store future files in. You can create a new compressed folder using the following steps:

1. Open Windows Explorer.

2. From the File menu, point to New and click Compressed (zipped) folder.
3. Type in a name for the folder that includes the ‘zip’ extension.
4. Press Enter.

You can easily add your files to the existing compressed folder. Just double click the compressed folder you just created. Now drag and drop the appropriate files into the folder. Keep in mind that this does not move them into the compressed folder, but copies them. If you want to actually move the files, hold down the Shift key as you drop them into the folder.

For those of you who are concerned about security and do not want others viewing the contents of your compressed folder, rest assured there is a way that you can secure them. To increase security, you can assign a password to a compressed folder. This way any user that wants to view the contents must first supply the correct password.

You can assign a password to a compressed folder using the following steps:

1. Open Windows Explorer and My Computer.

2. Locate the compressed folder you want to assign a password to.
3. Double click the compressed folder to open it.
4. From the File menu click Add a password.
5. Type in the password twice and click OK.

If you need to remove the password simply open the compressed folder again and select Remove password from the File menu.

Finally, if you are using third party software for compression, such as Winzip, you may find that this feature of Windows XP just gets in your way. If this is the case, you do have the option of disabling it and just using your favorite third party software. Keep in mind as well that the zip feature included with Windows XP is very basic and does not give you the functionality of other programs.

You can disable the built-in zip feature using the following process. Open the Run command from the Start Menu and type: regsvr32 /u %windir%\system32\zipfldr.dll. You can re-enable this feature at anytime using the same command without the /u switch (regsvr32 %windir%\system32\zipfldr.dll).

[tags]xp,zip,compressed folder,compressed file,zipped[/tags]