Best way to compress seldom used game folders?

[randypj]

Yeah, I've got plenty of hard drives.....they are just in and out of my pcs all the time. And, I always do full installs on games.

So.....I'd like to free up some space by compressing some games that I'm not presently playing. I may periodically want to play them again or demo them for people, so I really don't wanna uninstall them, and have to reinstall with all the patches. I'd rather just unzip them back to the same location, which will be the location that the zip file is currently in. I know I'll have to have enough space on the partition.....probably plus some for the uncompress process.

I know it'll muck up shortcuts and reg entries, but, would that really be a problem?

I'm still using an old version of Winzip.....maybe it's 6.* or 7.*. It's not fancy and doesn't include spyware. I'd like something that can compress a folder, and keep all the files and folders within, intact. So, when I uncompress it, it's just like it was. Freeware or nagware would be great.

Using W2K, FAT16 & FAT32. NTFS isn't an option.
--Randy

 

[EagleKeeper]

You answered your own question.
WinZip will save the folder names.
Just zip up the game folder and save the zip file in the parent of the game folder.
Delete all files & sub-directories in the game folder but leave the folder itself.
Move the zip file into the folder.
If the OS complains about DLL file(s) missing, then extract file(s) from the zip file with the path retention option selected.

 

[Mavrick007]

I find that zipping up games does not give you alot of free space cause data files are compressed alot already.
The thing that will save you space with the most usually are saves, especially with games that has save games of 4-10megs each. If you zip up your saves, then you can save alot of space cause they usually compress nicely.