Windows Vista Defragging in Vista

By default, Vista is set to defrag on a schedule. This is great, unless you happen to be working at that time. There is no progress bar to let you know how long it will take, and with today's big big drives, it can take awhile. Why is there no "analyze" function so you can turn off the schedule and defrag as needed? How is the user supposed to know if the drive is messy? Why can't you specify "only defrag my "C" drive, not my other partitions? Or maybe you can and I'm just missing that info somewhere?
Johanna

 

Thank you Johanna for asking this question and Evan Omo for answering it.
I was doing a search around Vista trying to work out how I can do my own Defraging.

 

Yep, Evan Omo= that works a treat! Thanks for the explanation in the link and the link to the program. Looks to be a keeper. Much obliged.
Johanna

 

I use Diskkeeper, never have to defrag. (maybe every 5 months, OK I take it back)

 

"I personally don't use the Windows Vista defrag utility because its very limited on what it does and it has no progress bar. "
In which areas do you find it limited? It has some innovative facilities which are well suited to Vista. On first defrag it can take a long time - admitted. After that it operates on your chosen schedule at a very low priority and should not normally interfere with anything you are doing with your computer. I have had mine running on this automatic feature since first release and must confess I have never noticed it giving me any problems.
The whole point was that Microsoft decided it was not a program as such, but a background routine. A decision with which I can agree.
I cannot understand why anyone would want to sit and watch all those little squares jumping around.

 

I don't care to sit and watch the little blocks rearranging themselves either, but an estimated time to completion would be nice. Windows can't possibly do a great job defragging while I have several software programs running and am moving files around. I would prefer to let the defrag do its thing in peace. The progress bar helps me to plan my time better.
Johanna

 

"it has no customizable options you can really set other than the schedule and it has taken up to three hours to defrag my drive "

What customising options are you actually looking for? You can schedule an operation, selct individual volumes to defrag or defrag immediately. Beyond that, I have no requirements in a defrag program.

" it doesn't even tell me if my disks need to be defragged in the first place. "

Well, in fact it does if that is the case!

"It also doesn't tell me how long its going to take "

Vista Defrag works progressively in Linear mode. It could not therefore give an assessment of how long it would take. On first install of the OS and your own programs, it can take a long time. Mine has never exceeded about 2 hours, buit maybe that is irrelevant. I have found third party programs which can also take a long time to complete the operation. After the initial defrag, if you set a schedule ( I have mine weekly) It runs, as I said in a previous post, on a very low priority. This means you can carry on with you normal work without interruption.

" Microsoft has dumbed down the interface of the Vista defrag utility so that a beginner could be able to use it. "

Far from the true story. It was "dumbed down" (you got that phrase from some pundit sites!) as a result of feedback from Beta testers and consultation. It was decided that it should be regarded as a normal maintenance operation and should work in the background. Hence the loss of the graphical interface. It was not considered necessary to have a graphical window pop up in your face when you needed to do a simple operation such as this.

For anyone interested, here is the Microsoft rundown on the tool:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/942092

And here is a more down to earth feature on it:

http://blogs.technet.com/filecab/ar...s-cover-why-windows-vista-defrag-is-cool.aspx

 

FWIW, PerfectDisk has a graphical interface and has StealthPatrol which runs in the background.