On a SQL Server 2008 instance, managed via ssms 2012, a backup job won't run with compression. The instance has compression off by default, and I turned on compression for the particular backup job. I read somewhere that compression is only enabled on developer and enterprise versions of sql server, and the instance is standard, so at first I figured it was simply a feature that wasn't available for this instance. But then I checked another instance which uses compression and it's standard (sql server 2012).
I also found that the destination folder for the backups has it's compress folder switch disabled. The server is windows 2012 r2 running as a vmware vm.
Is the inability to compress the backup due to the instance being sql server 2008 std, or it is more likely that some policy set at a higher level (OS or vm) is preventing compression?