This utility compresses .COM files without affecting the way you run
them. Its compression scheme is simple and will not work on all files, but may produce impressive results depending on the particular file. If SHRINK is unable to compress the file, it will abort without doing
anything. Otherwise, it will overwrite the old file with the smaller, compressed
file. Note that this will save only disk space, not memory. You must have at least 64K of memory available to run a compressed program. The larger the program is, the better chance SHRINK has to compress it... but SHRINK can only handle programs up to 30,000 bytes
long.
NOTE that SHRINK is not compatible with every program. In some cases, a program compressed with SHRINK will no longer run. Do not use SHRINK on a program unless you have a backup copy, just in case! Some files known not to compress properly with SHRINK are: BURGER.COM, the Landmark Speed
Test, PKARC, and PKXARC.
The average compression rate seems to be around 7% for files that SHRINK is able to compress, but I've seen compression rates of 46% and
higher. It depends entirely on the program.