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How to Turn Off Remote Differential Compression in Windows 7

Windows 7

Windows 7 has a feature called Remote Differential Compression (RDC) which is used to compute the difference between the files when these files are synced over a network so that only the different portions are transferred. This results in minimizing the bandwidth usage and makes the transfer much quicker. While this is useful and saves the bandwidth, it works only if you are on a local area network and share files over it. If you do not use this feature and use your Windows PC without such networking then this service only consumes the valuable system resources. You can turn it off if you want to save some of your system resources.

Here is how :

  1. Press the keyboard combination Windows logo key + R to bring up the Run dialog.
  2. Type OptionalFeatures.exe in the Run dialog and press Enter.
  3. This would open the Windows Features window. Scroll down and un-check the checkbox labeled Remote Differential Compression.
  4. Click OK to save the settings.

After disabling the RDC feature in your Windows 7 computer, there is no need to reboot the computer as the changes are applied instantly. Any existing network transfers that are being done using RDC will complete but no further file syncing using RDC will be possible in future.

There have been some rumors that when RDC is left enabled, it makes the local file system operations (such as copying files and moving them) much slower. But Microsoft claims this is not the case in a very dated article on TechNet : Debunking the Vista Remote Differential Compression Myth.

In any case, you should not disable this feature if you have a really powerful system with great specs and have a very good network. But if your PC is a little older and disabling RDC can free up some of the system resources then go for it and use our guide to disable this feature.

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