What is a good disk defragmenter for Vista?

I just got a new laptop with Vista home Premium on it and I'm not sure that
disk defragmentation works. After an hour or so it says its still
defragmenting but there's nothing I can see to let me know whether or not
it's still working. Even if I leave it on all night it never says
defragmenting is complete. I have two XP machines and they never take
longer that 10 mins. even though they have a lot of data on them. The
laptop has nothing but Vista and some programs so it should be much faster
to defragment.
Thanks,
Al

Alton Davis;501129 Wrote:
> I just got a new laptop with Vista home Premium on it and I'm not sure
> that
> disk defragmentation works. After an hour or so it says its still
> defragmenting but there's nothing I can see to let me know whether or
> not
> it's still working. Even if I leave it on all night it never says
> defragmenting is complete. I have two XP machines and they never take
> longer that 10 mins. even though they have a lot of data on them. The
> laptop has nothing but Vista and some programs so it should be much
> faster
> to defragment.
> Thanks,
> Al

Hi Al,

Auslogics Disk Defrag is a good one for both the 32 and 64 bit Vista.

'Disk Defrag - Reclaim the Speed Of Your Disks'
(http://www.auslogics.com/disk-defrag/)

Shawn


--
brink

*There are no dumb questions, just the people that do not ask them.*
WWW.VISTAX64.COM (\"HTTP://WWW.VISTAX64.COM\")
*Please post feedback to help others.*

My Vista Home Premium Disk Defragmentation is scheduled to run automatically
once per week, and does so without much fuss or bother. On a few occasions
I look at the Disk Defragmentation window but when I do it simply says that
it ran successfully at such and such a time etc. I have pretty much gotten
over the need to see the live defrag progress display as there was in XP;
now it is something I don't have to bother with.

"Alton Davis" <xxx.xxx> wrote in message
news:%23NSzPjOHIHA.3956@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
>I just got a new laptop with Vista home Premium on it and I'm not sure that
>disk defragmentation works. After an hour or so it says its still
>defragmenting but there's nothing I can see to let me know whether or not
>it's still working. Even if I leave it on all night it never says
>defragmenting is complete. I have two XP machines and they never take
>longer that 10 mins. even though they have a lot of data on them. The
>laptop has nothing but Vista and some programs so it should be much faster
>to defragment.
> Thanks,
> Al
>
>D

Auslogics has a free defragger which is fast and works with Vista.

This question seems to pop up a lot, concerning Vista. Whatever the
criticism of Microsoft, on this subject I feel they got it right. Most
posters such as Alton (with respect, Alton) are asking for something
with a pretty animated picture. presumably they have the time to sit and
watch it!
MS decided, correctly in my opinion, that this was a background
operation.
On first use, it is extremely vexing and takes a huge amount of time.
The computer can be used, but maybe this would be a bad idea. After
that, when run on schedule, at least in my case, I do not notice it.
If you read up on it, the new geometry is ver interesting and has
logic. I have chosen, via the shell commands, to set it to run on ony my
C: drive. This is a thorough Vista plus, software installation and is
hardly ever altered. This means, of course, the defragger has little to
do.


--
uhaligani

> MS decided, correctly in my opinion, that this was a background
> operation.

Ah, what a joy to read such a sensible assessment!

Watching coloured blocks shuffle around meaninglessly is a particularly
nerdish pastime.

SteveT

uhaligani;501306 Wrote:
> This question seems to pop up a lot, concerning Vista. Whatever the
> criticism of Microsoft, on this subject I feel they got it right. Most
> posters such as Alton (with respect, Alton) are asking for something
> with a pretty animated picture. presumably they have the time to sit and
> watch it!
> MS decided, correctly in my opinion, that this was a background
> operation.
> On first use, it is extremely vexing and takes a huge amount of time.
> The computer can be used, but maybe this would be a bad idea. After
> that, when run on schedule, at least in my case, I do not notice it.
> If you read up on it, the new geometry is ver interesting and has
> logic. I have chosen, via the shell commands, to set it to run on ony my
> C: drive. This is a thorough Vista plus, software installation and is
> hardly ever altered. This means, of course, the defragger has little to
> do.

Watching the blocks does seem a bit dumb, but it does give a good
visual cue as to how much fragmentation exists for any given volume.
There is no reason for Defrag NOT to be a background task, but was it
really necessary to remove all kind of progress displays? Whether it be
the traditional blocks display or even a % meter, Windows Vista Defrag
is tedious in that you don't know how much time is left before the
defrag is complete!


--
dzomlija

____________________________________
Peter Alexander Dzomlija
Do you hear, huh? The Alpha and The Omega? Death and Rebirth? And as
you die, so shall I be Reborn...

- ASUS A8N32-SLi-Deluxe
- AMD Atlon 64 Dual-Core 4800+
- 4GB DDR400
- ASUS nVidia 6600
- Thermaltake Tai-Chi Watercooled Chassis
- 1207GB Total Formatted Storage
- Vista Ultimate x64
- CodeGear Delphi 2007

"dzomlija" <dzomlija.2zf2xf@no-mx.forums.net> wrote in message
news:dzomlija.2zf2xf@no-mx.forums.net...
>
> uhaligani;501306 Wrote:
>> This question seems to pop up a lot, concerning Vista. Whatever the
>> criticism of Microsoft, on this subject I feel they got it right. Most
>> posters such as Alton (with respect, Alton) are asking for something
>> with a pretty animated picture. presumably they have the time to sit and
>> watch it!
>> MS decided, correctly in my opinion, that this was a background
>> operation.
>> On first use, it is extremely vexing and takes a huge amount of time.
>> The computer can be used, but maybe this would be a bad idea. After
>> that, when run on schedule, at least in my case, I do not notice it.
>> If you read up on it, the new geometry is ver interesting and has
>> logic. I have chosen, via the shell commands, to set it to run on ony my
>> C: drive. This is a thorough Vista plus, software installation and is
>> hardly ever altered. This means, of course, the defragger has little to
>> do.
>
> Watching the blocks does seem a bit dumb, but it does give a good
> visual cue as to how much fragmentation exists for any given volume.
> There is no reason for Defrag NOT to be a background task, but was it
> really necessary to remove all kind of progress displays? Whether it be
> the traditional blocks display or even a % meter, Windows Vista Defrag
> is tedious in that you don't know how much time is left before the
> defrag is complete!
>
>
> --
> dzomlija
>
> ____________________________________
> Peter Alexander Dzomlija
> Do you hear, huh? The Alpha and The Omega? Death and Rebirth? And as
> you die, so shall I be Reborn...
>
> - ASUS A8N32-SLi-Deluxe
> - AMD Atlon 64 Dual-Core 4800+
> - 4GB DDR400
> - ASUS nVidia 6600
> - Thermaltake Tai-Chi Watercooled Chassis
> - 1207GB Total Formatted Storage
> - Vista Ultimate x64
> - CodeGear Delphi 2007


The first time I used the Vista defrag was straight after install. After 48
hours it was still going. Rebooted and it said it had already been done but
needed doing again, this time it was running for 70+hours solid, still never
finished. The machine was sat idle and there was nothing else on it at that
stage.

The inbuilt defrag tool has never actually finished once for me so I use a
third party app now.

--
Can't think of a sig at the moment.
Read this instead.

Disk defragmentation is never complete as long as the machine is in use,
hence Vista Defrag never officially finishes. Third party defragmenters like
Diskeeper or PerfectDisk allow a greater degree of scheduling, either low or
high priority, and also allow the user to optimize the MFT for each
partition or drive. They do also allow the user to see what is happening,
but as with all 3rd party defragmenters, it is a visualization and is by no
means deadly accurate.

--
Mike Hall - MVP
http://msmvps.com/blogs/mikehall/default.aspx
Posting Productively.. http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm



"Alton Davis" <xxx.xxx> wrote in message
news:%23NSzPjOHIHA.3956@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
>I just got a new laptop with Vista home Premium on it and I'm not sure that
>disk defragmentation works. After an hour or so it says its still
>defragmenting but there's nothing I can see to let me know whether or not
>it's still working. Even if I leave it on all night it never says
>defragmenting is complete. I have two XP machines and they never take
>longer that 10 mins. even though they have a lot of data on them. The
>laptop has nothing but Vista and some programs so it should be much faster
>to defragment.
> Thanks,
> Al
>
>

Thanks for all the comments. I downloaded Auslogics Disk Defrag and it
seems to work well. This laptop will be used mainly for taking notes,
writing minutes, and giving Powerpoint presentations in various church
meetings so I don't want any interference while I'm using it. I want to do
all of the maintenence and updates at one time. Most of the time it's off
and about the only reason for having an internet connection is to do
updates. I've turned off automatic updates and haven't installed any
antivirus software.
Al


"Mike Hall - MVP" <mikehall@mvps.com> wrote in message
news:%23nTV%23SUHIHA.6068@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
> Disk defragmentation is never complete as long as the machine is in use,
> hence Vista Defrag never officially finishes. Third party defragmenters
> like Diskeeper or PerfectDisk allow a greater degree of scheduling, either
> low or high priority, and also allow the user to optimize the MFT for each
> partition or drive. They do also allow the user to see what is happening,
> but as with all 3rd party defragmenters, it is a visualization and is by
> no means deadly accurate.
>
> --
> Mike Hall - MVP
> http://msmvps.com/blogs/mikehall/default.aspx
> Posting Productively.. http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm
>
>
>
> "Alton Davis" <xxx.xxx> wrote in message
> news:%23NSzPjOHIHA.3956@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
>>I just got a new laptop with Vista home Premium on it and I'm not sure
>>that disk defragmentation works. After an hour or so it says its still
>>defragmenting but there's nothing I can see to let me know whether or not
>>it's still working. Even if I leave it on all night it never says
>>defragmenting is complete. I have two XP machines and they never take
>>longer that 10 mins. even though they have a lot of data on them. The
>>laptop has nothing but Vista and some programs so it should be much faster
>>to defragment.
>> Thanks,
>> Al
>>
>>
>