Disk Defragmenter
Tue, 09/11/2007 - 19:38 — Ciprian
Disk Defragmenter is another application that has been changed in Windows Vista compared to Windows XP. Unlike other applications that were modified, Disk Defragmenter was simplified to a bare minimum. You no longer have menus or the colored graphs showing you how the data is arranged on your hard drive. The application offers only two options: "Defragment now" and "Modify schedule". Even though some people will miss the old interface and the configuration features, others will welcome the change. One thing is for sure - working with the Disk Defragmenter is easier than ever.
In this article I will go through the new interface and the available options and you will see for yourselves how easy it is to use the new Disk Defragmenter.
To find Disk Defragmenter, go to Start Menu -> All Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools.
As mentioned earlier, the application offers only two options: "Modify Schedule" and "Defragment now".
If you press the Defragment now button, the defragmentation process will start. Unfortunately you won't see a progress bar nor an estimation about the time left until the end of the process. You just have to wait until it finishes. This is why I recommend you to do this during the night or when you go to work and the computer is not being used.
If you want to cancel the process, just press the Cancel defragmentation button.
If you want to schedule automatic defragmentations, first click on Modify schedule.
In the scheduling window choose the frequency, the day and the time when the automatic defragmentation should start. For most people, it should be enough to run the defragmentation once per month.
Related articles:
What is new in the Disk Defragmenter from Windows Vista SP1
Defragment your hard drive from the Command Prompt
Benchmarking the Disk Defragmenter
Disk Cleanup
Recommended articles:
Add Defragment to the Right-Click Menu for a Drive
Disk Defragmenter FAQ
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Comments
Vista's Defragmenter, like
Vista's Defragmenter, like most things on Vista, is a horrible downgrade. No status bar or indicator of any kind leaves you wondering whether or not Vista is hung up, and whether or not it's telling you the truth when it says your file system needs improvement. Not to mention the fact that it takes 10x longer on Vista to degrag your hard drive. I've managed to make it through the process one time. When it finished in the morning as I woke up, I restarted the computer, and out of curiousity I decided to start disk defragmenter again. And it still said "Your file system performance could be improved, it is recommended you defragment your hard drive now." Or something to that effect. So a 5 hour defrag that apparently doesn't do anything? Either that or Vista is lying to me when it says that my system needs defragged. But we have no way of knowing which is which. WHY, you ask? Because there's no freaking status bar! I wasn't really a big fan of XP's disk defragmenter when it came out, but it was 30x better than Vista's version.
Isn't the idea of upgrading your computer with a newer OS to make the computer run better? So far, Vista has been a huge let down. Disk defragmenter doesn't work, errors keep popping up, my games all have issues running. Even the ones designed specifically for Vista. I have had to use workarounds for COD 4, COD 5, Grand Theft Auto IV, etc. etc..
And these aren't normal workaround either. In one of them, I had to change the freaking sound settings to output at 16bits 48000Hz just to get the game to work. In a different one, Vista kept saying my disc wasn't in the drive, when it was. And another of them just won't work at all. And on top of it all, I still can't get my microphone to work right with Vista. People can barely hear me, and I have the volume cranked all the way up with the mic boosted to the max.
I know for a fact that I'm not the only one suffering from these problems. And there are people out there that have it far worse than I do with Vista. Only reason I haven't thrown the hard drive out the window is because I have enough experience with computers to know how to work around most of the issues that arise. But some of them are new even to me.
Anyway, enough ranting about Vista for now, I guess.....Bill Gates should shove it where the sun doesn't shine...
Vista should be trashed. It never should have been released in the first place. This is worse than Millenium Edition. And quite frankly, new computers being released should stick with XP. If I could get Vista off of my computer, I would. Unfortunately it's designed to be hard as you know what to uninstall. And I am not paying Microsoft another $80 to DOWNGRADE to XP. This freaking computer came with Vista because I didn't get to choose my OS.
Defrag not working?
I have Vista HomePremium SP1 installed with the defrag utility scheduled to run every Mon at 2AM. At the scheduled time the task scheduler will claim it is running but I can find no evidence of this in the task manager process list. If I hit the Run button in task scheduler I also find no evidence of the process. If I run defrag from a command prompt I will then find the defrag process in the task manager process list.
Two, when I return to the computer the next day after work I will open the task scheduler and under the defrag task History tab I will find that the defrag utility is claimed to have run continuously for the last 14 hours, only stopping because I moved the mouse. I will also find the computer in sleep mode. I have always heard that the HD is turned off in sleep mode so I cannot believe that defrag was running while the computer was asleep.
I've also heard that Vista defrag will only run with lowest priority. Could it be that every slight tick of computer activity will cause defrag to restart from the beginning, effectively never allowing it to complete it's work?
Ciprian, could you please use my email to respond?
Thank you, Dave
This is not acceptable M$
Without a graph, how do you know if your page file (swap file) (which is in Green) has data before and after it? With out a graph how do you know if your page file is fragmented? I can not afford to buy extra tools, like diskkeeper, to maintain my systems. This is CRAP. We pay way too much $ for this average OS, and for what we pay for it, IT SHOULD COME WITH EVERYTHING WE NEED OUT OF THE BOX!
Vista SLOW Defragmentation
It has been over 12 hours now defraging! I miss the visual of seeing the fragmented files in red. It is more satisfying to see it! Should I cancel it or let it do it's thing??? I deleted about 56GB of stuff off of my 298GB external hard drive (ie. Autocad program and such). Will it damage the external drive for being on so long? It's getting quite hot.
I already click disk
I already click disk defragmenter, but doesn't work, what is the solution to slove this problem?
tips before defragmenting
before defragmenting your hard disk, run first the disk cleanup utily, to delete all unnecessary files(temp,cookies,offline webpages, recycle bin) in this way, when you run defragmentation, unnecessary files will not be included.. you can also use CCleaner utility, download it on cnet...
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