A friend let me borrow a copy of Windows 2000. No, I’m not pirating it; I already have 2000 installed on my computer. Rather, I borrowed this little item out of sheer curiousity.
It’s one CD that has Windows 2000 Pro, Server, and Advanced Server on it, plus SP3, IE6, the Resource Kit, and a few miscellaneous programs. Based on a text document found on the CD, it appears to be a homebrew effort. My friend said he downloaded it.
When I right click on the drive in Explorer, it shows 664 MB. When I select all the files and folders on the CD, right click, and choose properties, I’m told the CD contains 25,148 files in 534 folders, tallying up to 1.46 GB (1.49 GB on disc)! The file sizes seem right, too. The Professional folder is 372 MB, the Server folder is 438 MB, and Advanced Server is 439 MB. The Resource Kit is 97 MB and SP3 is 144 MB. I was able to copy and run all of the files I tried. Everything appears to be valid.
The only product I’ve ever heard of that offered invisible data compression on CDs is DirectCD. I never heard the makers of the program claim compression ratios this high, though. Furthurmore, you need DirectCD’s UDF reader to be able to view the contents of those CDs. I haven’t installed that or any other product made by Roxio on my computer. Hell, this CD isn’t even UDF! It’s ISO 9660 bootable with the Joliet Secondary Volume Descriptor.
Anyone have any idea what’s going on here?
(Note to mods : While this CD is probably technically illegal, I’m not copying or using any of the programs on it, and I’m not asking for information on how to do so. I just want to know how such a level of invisible, highly-compatible compression was achieved so I can apply those methods to my own data CDs when I backup my hard drive.)