How to turn off auto defrag?

[Qubit]

Vista begins defragging my hard disc automatically when the screen saver activates and I can't find any way to turn this off. I want it to only run when I tell it to.

It's driving me bonkers, because I have a Raptor X 150GB drive which is very noisy. This means that I can't leave the PC on when I go to sleep, because it starts doing its woodpecker impression.

I've looked everywhere, but can't find anything on turning this off.
I've checked the following:

- The standard defragger doesn't have any timed options set
- There's no screensaver option for it
- The task scheduler doesn't have anything set
- I've googled and read various manuals, but there's nothing on this

If I leave the Task Manager and Resource Monitor windows open, I can clearly see that the defragger is running, but I don't understand how it's being triggered.

I'm running Vista32 SP1 and fully patched. Help greatly appreciated.

[JimB]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Qubit

Vista begins defragging my hard disc automatically when the screen saver activates and I can't find any way to turn this off. I want it to only run when I tell it to.

It's driving me bonkers, because I have a Raptor X 150GB drive which is very noisy. This means that I can't leave the PC on when I go to sleep, because it starts doing its woodpecker impression.

I've looked everywhere, but can't find anything on turning this off.
I've checked the following:

- The standard defragger doesn't have any timed options set
- There's no screensaver option for it
- The task scheduler doesn't have anything set
- I've googled and read various manuals, but there's nothing on this

If I leave the Task Manager and Resource Monitor windows open, I can clearly see that the defragger is running, but I don't understand how it's being triggered.

I'm running Vista32 SP1 and fully patched. Help greatly appreciated.

[JimB]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Qubit

Vista begins defragging my hard disc automatically when the screen saver activates and I can't find any way to turn this off. I want it to only run when I tell it to.

It's driving me bonkers, because I have a Raptor X 150GB drive which is very noisy. This means that I can't leave the PC on when I go to sleep, because it starts doing its woodpecker impression.

I've looked everywhere, but can't find anything on turning this off.
I've checked the following:

- The standard defragger doesn't have any timed options set
- There's no screensaver option for it
- The task scheduler doesn't have anything set
- I've googled and read various manuals, but there's nothing on this

If I leave the Task Manager and Resource Monitor windows open, I can clearly see that the defragger is running, but I don't understand how it's being triggered.

I'm running Vista32 SP1 and fully patched. Help greatly appreciated.

Start > Control Panel > Control Panel Home > System Maintenance > Administrative Tools > Defragment your Hard drive > Uncheck Run on a schedule > OK .... There's also the Defragment now tab below You can also click Start, type dfrgui.exe and press {ENTER}, but than an analysis will start rightaway, upon which you can still decide to defrag or not.

[Qubit]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JimB

Start > Control Panel > Control Panel Home > System Maintenance > Administrative Tools > Defragment your Hard drive > Uncheck Run on a schedule > OK .... There's also the Defragment now tab below You can also click Start, type dfrgui.exe and press {ENTER}, but than an analysis will start rightaway, upon which you can still decide to defrag or not.

Thanks JimB, but that leads me right back to the defragger, which I said I'd already looked at - and scheduling is switched off.

As I explained, defragging cuts in whenever the screen saver starts.

btw you can get to the defragger much more easily by simply clicking on the orb and entering defrag in the search box.

[Qubit]

Thanks JimB, but that leads me right back to the defragger, which I said I'd already looked at - and scheduling is switched off.

As I explained, defragging cuts in whenever the screen saver starts.

[JimB]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Qubit

Thanks JimB, but that leads me right back to the defragger, which I said I'd already looked at - and scheduling is switched off.

As I explained, defragging cuts in whenever the screen saver starts.

That's weird, so in the task manager it says defrag or something ? But how do you know since the screensaver would stop when you start the task manager and at the same time stops defrag, so nothing would be visible in the TaskManager. Geez what a f*ck up this Vista.

[Qubit]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JimB

That's weird, so in the task manager it says defrag or something ? But how do you know since the screensaver would stop when you start the task manager and at the same time stops defrag, so nothing would be visible in the TaskManager. Geez what a f*ck up this Vista.

Yeah, good question. I thought I should have clarified that one!

The program name remains visible for a short while after the desktop has returned. The Resource Monitor is set to show the most HD activity, so the app drops down only slowly after it has finished woodpeckering my HD.

In Task Manager, it takes a few seconds to disappear. In fact, I think I saw two exe's, one with the name you gave and a similar one, who's name I can't remember. Both quit after a few seconds.

My friends have noticed the same behaviour, too. I get the impression that it's a feature that's forced on by Microsoft, to ensure that the HD gets some defragging. I'm using the boring old "blank" screen saver set to 20 minutes, if that helps.

Why don't you try setting your defrag schedule to off and see if it happens to you? I'll turn mine on and see if Vista stops bothering me at every screensave.

[JimB]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Qubit

Yeah, good question. I thought I should have clarified that one!

The program name remains visible for a short while after the desktop has returned. The Resource Monitor is set to show the most HD activity, so the app drops down only slowly after it has finished woodpeckering my HD.

In Task Manager, it takes a few seconds to disappear. In fact, I think I saw two exe's, one with the name you gave and a similar one, who's name I can't remember. Both quit after a few seconds.

My friends have noticed the same behaviour, too. I get the impression that it's a feature that's forced on by Microsoft, to ensure that the HD gets some defragging. I'm using the boring old "blank" screen saver set to 20 minutes, if that helps.

Why don't you try setting your defrag schedule to off and see if it happens to you? I'll turn mine on and see if Vista stops bothering me at every screensave.

Ye, could do that. On the other hand let me tell you a curious story, now that I have your attention, about this f*cked up Vista that does things behind your back you've nevr asked it to do. On my XP there would never be a defrag without you asking it. That was standard procedure in XP. So I assumed that it would be the same in Vista. I've installed a third party defragger called Perfect Disk, which I've been using since another one called Diskeeper deceived me. After some 5 months I looked with the Perfect Disk Tool how much my C drive was partitioned. My surprise was big when I saw that it still didn't need defragging allthough I used my PC some 10hrs/day. So yes this Vista OS was defragging behind my back during all the time since 5 moths !!!!!!

[Qubit]

Yes, certainly sounds like Vista was defragging without your knowledge. I can only think that Microsoft have forced this, because most people are too clueless to defrag their hard drives and then wonder why their PC is so slow.

I work in an IT department and you should see the number of old PC's I see that have Windows 2000 on them which haven't seen a defrag in their life (the users don't have the account permissions, so cannot be blamed for cluelessnes here). The fragmentation graph is a sea of read and performance is terrible. 10 minute bootups and long waits on a mouse right click are common. A defrag makes them quite a bit snappier.

You sound like you really don't like Vista? I do, nowadays. It was a piece of beta crap when they released it, but with all the patches it's now very nice and has less glitches and annoyances than XP.

[JimB]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Qubit

Yes, certainly sounds like Vista was defragging without your knowledge. I can only think that Microsoft have forced this, because most people are too clueless to defrag their hard drives and then wonder why their PC is so slow.

I work in an IT department and you should see the number of old PC's I see that have Windows 2000 on them which haven't seen a defrag in their life (the users don't have the account permissions, so cannot be blamed for cluelessnes here). The fragmentation graph is a sea of read and performance is terrible. 10 minute bootups and long waits on a mouse right click are common. A defrag makes them quite a bit snappier.

You sound like you really don't like Vista? I do, nowadays. It was a piece of beta crap when they released it, but with all the patches it's now very nice and has less glitches and annoyances than XP.

Well, I'm not gonna start a like or dislike about Vista, but it's not because I'm on a Vista forum that I would like Vista. When you say don't like, that's a serious understatment. I'd rather speak in terms of hate myself. I guess it all depends of what you do with your OS. I'm rather what you could call a heavy user. There's no room in Vista for them.