Defrag with Win7 Beta – 1613 days old

[RavenMaster]

Well since I have a dual boot and the beta is for experimentation, I decided to give the defrag a whirl. First I defragged the Win7 beta volumn. A new way of defragging, it defrags first then compacts or compiles, and takes a few passes. Went fairly smoothly and quick. Not a lot of junk to clutter up the drive.

Next on to my XP SP3 drive that was visable with the defrag utility, but not in my computer. Only ther partition on that drive is visable. Living dangerously, I went and let Win7 defrag it too. Booted to it and have been running most of the day with no problems.

One thing seems to be working fine so far that is backward compatible.

On to more adventures to see what I can crash with this old rig.

[Grogan]

The NTFS filesystem hasn't changed significantly since Windows 2000, so it's compatible. The only difference is that you did it with the filesystem offline, in which case it might be able to do a better job because its able to move files that it couldn't touch on a live system.

[Fingerle]

Hadn't played with the defrag.. Come to think of it, Haven't used that utility in Vista either...

[Grogan]

It's horrible in Vista. It displays no progress whatsoever (all it tells you is that it might take minutes or hours). Not even a progress bar. It takes a long time too, and you are in limbo not knowing just how long. It's meant to run with the task scheduler (scheduled by default) but you'd have to have a hole in the head to want that happening automatically.

[~Jan~]

It's horrible in Vista. It displays no progress whatsoever (all it tells you is that it might take minutes or hours). Not even a progress bar.

I would hate that. I count on that progress bar many times. I like to know just how long something is going to take.

Sadly I find myself watching it at times like a pot of boiling water, trying to rush it. I'm sure you know what they say about that.

[Grogan]

You probably like to sit there mesermized, watching the squares on a disk map, don't you?

[~Jan~]

Go ahead laugh all you want.... I'll just laugh with ya. It doesn't take much to mesmerize me at times Grogan. You should know that.

Now I'm not sure what a disk map really is but I bet I have watched it, yes. I know when I would do the defrag I would watch it put all the pretty colors together! That is the truth. I should be ashame to admit it. *sigh*

[Dark Angel]

You probably like to sit there mesermized, watching the squares on a disk map, don't you?

Well uhmmm ... <puts hand up> I've been known to do that before.

[RavenMaster]

I have to admit I'm hypnotized by the old windows defrag too!!!!! And the win7 beta doesn't have a progress bar or a graphic display. It just gives a message of what its doing. boo. Loved it when I used the win2k or me defrag with 98!!!!! Better and bigger groups were moved!!!

[Dark Angel]

I used to feel like cheering when it started to move big blocks

<read read read read read read read>
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WRITE

[ablib]

you'd have to have a hole in the head to want that happening automatically.

What's wrong with letting it automatically defrag my disks?

[Dark Angel]

Like a lot of things, the problem isn't what it is intended to do, it's what ends up happening when things don't go according to a very narrow plan.
I discovered that when XP (or w2k) tries to defrag, it I haven't shut down every possible app and service that could write to the hard drive it takes exponentially longer thanks to the constant stopping and restarting. I gather that the Vista defrag utility doesn't even tell you it's doing that, but rather just keeps running on and on and on and on and ...
Also the default options, which is what most people use, spends a great deal of time reorganising files for little or no benefit.

[Grogan]

What's wrong with letting it defrag your disks automatically? What do you do with your computer, just let it sit there and go round and round? I personally play games (and would do work if I used Windows for my main OS) and I don't want the fucking defragmenter starting when I'm in the middle of something. I don't like disk i/o.

Besides, defragmenting is best done as an exclusive foreground task without any other disk access occurring.

It's my goddamned computer, not Microsoft's to waste resources and gyrate with unneeded tasks and services running. When do we get to actually use it? After it's done reading what it thinks it should prefetch, defragmenting the disk and attempting to fix their bullshit with automatic updates in the background? This is part of the reason why Vista is so frustrating for people.

[Grogan]

I gather that the Vista defrag utility doesn't even tell you it's doing that, but rather just keeps running on and on and on and on

Yes, that's exactly what happens. I've been questing for the source of disk activity that never stops on customer systems and it's that thing. You'd have to let it sit forever for that background task to finish.

I delete that scheduled task on every Vista system that goes through my hands. Defragging is something that doesn't need to be done very often. Most people, never, because they'll screw up their system and need a reload long before that becomes a problem.

[Grogan]

Me too, on the disk map. I like to have something like that to watch. In the old days of Windows 95 and Windows 98 I used to watch the squares. I don't watch the whole thing anymore, but I do for part of it.

This is what I use now:
http://www.download.com/UltimateDefr...-10582157.html

[ablib]

What's wrong with letting it defrag your disks automatically? What do you do with your computer, just let it sit there and go round and round? I personally play games (and would do work if I used Windows for my main OS) and I don't want the fucking defragmenter starting when I'm in the middle of something. I don't like disk i/o.

Besides, defragmenting is best done as an exclusive foreground task without any other disk access occurring.

It's my goddamned computer, not Microsoft's to waste resources and gyrate with unneeded tasks and services running. When do we get to actually use it? After it's done reading what it thinks it should prefetch, defragmenting the disk and attempting to fix their bullshit with automatic updates in the background? This is part of the reason why Vista is so frustrating for people.

lol, you make things more difficult than it needs to be sometimes. I set mine to defrag once a month, at a time I know I won't be using it...when I'm at work. I don't know how long it takes (Vista defrag IS horrible), but it's done by the time I get home. Other than that one time, it doesn't run.

Automatic defragging is one, err no, the only good thing about Vista's defrag. I don't know how many XP computers I've worked on where the analyze bar is completely RED.

I do hate how Vista's schedule by default is weekly. Too much. And the least amount I can do is monthly. Still too much, but what the hell, you can't beat automatic.

[Grogan]

I don't know when I won't be using the computer and when I'm away for a long period of time it's shut off. During work, I'd hate to come home to download something quick or do something and find it gyrating.

I do, however, know when I'm going to start a defrag process that takes me 5 to 15 minutes to defragment and consolidate both my NTFS partitions. More importantly I know when I'm not going to do it.

[Troy]

Gro telling it like it is.

[ablib]

I don't know when I won't be using the computer and when I'm away for a long period of time it's shut off. During work, I'd hate to come home to download something quick or do something and find it gyrating.

I do, however, know when I'm going to start a defrag process that takes me 5 to 15 minutes to defragment and consolidate both my NTFS partitions. More importantly I know when I'm not going to do it.

I know when I defrag and when I am not going to do it also. Different strokes I guess. I just asked the question to see if there was a technical reason other than you don't like it.

I can definitely see the problem with things automatically doing stuff when people don't leave their PC on 24/7, are using a laptop, or have a varied schedule. All my gyrating happens while I am away -- updates, scans, defragging, backups, etc..

My life is clockwork and as such don't need to over complicate it by trying to remember to do something that could be automated. Especially something as menial as defragmenting.

[Grogan]

There are "technical" reasons also. The first of which is that defragmenting hard disks is not a trivial operation. I don't want other stuff going on at the same time, and I want to be around at least when it completes, because I'm going to check the disk for errors afterward. If I should happen to be running a defrag operation on someone else's computer, I will do that both before and after.

The same goes with automatic updates. It's far too serious to run unattended on a schedule.

Ever wonder at the "here today, gone tomorrow" nature of files on Windows? Why do windows computers boot up to missing ntldr and missing registry hives and stuff when it was just fine last time it was used?

[ablib]

Ever wonder at the "here today, gone tomorrow" nature of files on Windows? Why do windows computers boot up to missing ntldr and missing registry hives and stuff when it was just fine last time it was used?

There's an easy answer I give to people for that one, "because it's Windows!".

[Grogan]

I say that a lot too... "That's Windows for you" but there's usually a reason the fragile house of cards falls down.

Last week I worked on a computer that had problems. The clock was going all screwy and the display was shutting down. I replaced the CMOS battery and reconfigured, and the display problem turned out to be the BenQ LCD malfunctioning. So a new LCD and everything was top shape. I also got rid of an old Norton Antivirus Corporate client that was years out of date and replaced it with NOD32.

I had forgotten to run chkdsk, despite being aware that he was improperly shutting down when his display was going screwy. Oh well, it should run automatically on bad shutdowns, right? Not always.

A couple of days later the problems started. He couldn't get anything from the Internet and got on the phone with tech support. They were blaming NOD32. So what does he do? He did what most impotent and frustrated users do. He ran a defrag. Then he ran a registry cleaner/fixer program (he said he "put the cleanup disk in"... WTF is that?)

Anyway, I got the HELP! call when the System hive was missing or corrupted. "My screen just goes all blue and it says something about config system"

So the first thing I did was boot with UBCD4Win and run chkdsk (file records deleted because they are unreadable), and replace the registry from one of the system restore folders. Then Windows won't load because of missing oleaut32.dll. I extract that, then find that spoolsv.exe needs extracting. Can't get into services to even see why it won't start. So I extract that and reboot and printers show up again but still can't get into services or any other MMC related doohickeys. msxml3.dll is missing and that's why MMC won't work. So I extract that and the nightmare is over.

The moral of the story is, defragging is not something to be taken lightly. You have to make sure the filesystem is in good shape and you can't rely on Windows to know that.

[ablib]

What you mean the moral of the story ends in defragging? What about the bullshit registry cleaner/fixer program and this "cleanup disk"?

[Grogan]

It was probably defragging a corrupted filesystem that caused the major problems. Both of those things really, but the registry cleaner didn't make the files disappear.

The cleanup disk was the registry fixer program. Registry something Pro.

[ablib]

Then people will never be able to defrag. A.) People's computers are always too fucked up, B.) they don't know how to make sure everything is ok before defragging.

The long line of RED is inevitable.

I only conceded that automatic defrag was good for me. I can't speak for anyone else. Most people aren't as neat freaky about their PC's as I am.

Anything automatic can cause gyrating at unwanted times. What about automatic virus protection updates? There's another one that I never notice because it happens while I am at work. But on anyone else's computer it isn't that perfect. The computer will be off or disconnected from their dial-up at the time the updates are supposed to happen. So of course it happens when they either connect to the internet or turn on the computer. Then they bitch that this computer is soooo slow. I hate people.

[Grogan]

The long line of red usually isn't as dire as it looks. For example, larger files in more than one contiguous piece will show large areas of red, while in reality that doesn't harm anything at all. A filesystem has to be very badly fragmented for it to make a difference to performance or filesystem health. NTFS is a bit like a database in nature (retrieving data is a much more ordered process) and the penalties aren't as severe as they were with FAT.

I generally don't encourage people to run defragmenter. I've seen too many filesystems blow up and hard disks taking the opportunity to reveal bad sectors. Defragmenting is not the way you want to discover this, believe me.

As for virus updates, that's not as big of a deal. It doesn't take too long, and it's not updating system files that affect other programs usually. I tell people not to rely on automation, but to check manually whenever they think about it to make sure it's getting updated.