Turn File Compression On and Off

With Vault 2013, File Compression is introduced to reduce the size of data (file bits) that is sent back and forth between Client and Server and also between Servers.

By default, File Compression is ON for file replication (Site-to-Site) and OFF for file transfers (Client-to-Server uploads and downloads). However, it can be manually configured, as explained in the following sections.

Release Availability

This feature is available in certain editions of Vault. Refer to the following table to see if your Vault edition is supported.

  2012 2013 2014
Autodesk Vault Basic  
Autodesk Vault Workgroup  
Autodesk Vault Collaboration  
Autodesk Vault Professional  

File Replication (Site-to-Site)

Follow these instructions to toggle the file compression for Site-to-Site replication.

  1. Locate the Web.config file.

    The default location is C:\Program Files\Autodesk\ADMS <edition> <year>\Server\Web\Services

  2. Open the file and add the following key under the appSettings section of the Web.config file:
    <addkey="CompressReplicatedFiles"value="true"/>
  3. Note: Even though the key is not present by default in the config file, File Compression is ON by default for Site-to-Site file replication.
  4. Set the value to false to turn file compression off.

    You can enable File Compression again at any time by setting the value to true.

File Transfers (Client-to-Server)

Follow these instructions to toggle the file compression for Client-to-Server file transfers.

  1. Locate the config file for the Vault Client for which you want to configure file compression.

    For instance, if you would like to configure compression for uploads and downloads to/from Vault Professional Client, you will modify the Connectivity.VaultPro.exe config file.

    The default location of the config file for Vault Client is C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Vault <edition> <year>\Explorer

  2. Open the file and add the following key to the AppSettings section:
     <addkey="CompressFileTransfers"value="false"/>
    Note: Even though the key is not present by default in the config file, File Compression is OFF by default for file transfers.
  3. To enable File Compression, set the value to true.
    Note: Turning ON compression for file transfers might result in increased memory consumption on the Server.
    Tip: Client-to-Server file transfers can be faster by turning ON File Compression when the Client and Server are connected over a WAN with low bandwidth.

    To disable File Compression in the future, set the value to false.

Each application needs to be configured separately for compression of file transfers between that application and the Server. For Inventor, the CompressFileTransfers key needs to be added to the appSettings section of Inventor.exe.config (default location is C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Inventor <edition> <year>\Bin) and for AutoCAD, it needs to be added to appSettings section of acad.exe.config (default location is C:\Program Files\Autodesk\AutoCAD 2013).