No clue as to Disk Defragmenter status

I remember that in previous versions of Windows all the way up to Windows
XP, the Disk Defragmenter would tell me exactly how much of the
defragmentation process was complete. Now, I find that Windows Vista tells
me absolutely nothing about what Disk Defragmenter is doing, apart from the
fact that the utility is in fact running. My question is, why would
Microsoft throw out such a useful feature in Disk Defragmenter, and is there
any course of action I can take regarding this dilemma?

Brandon Taylor

It's designed to work in the background.
Forgetaboutit.


--
Vista Home Premium 32 SP1
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"Brandon Taylor" <donnie126_2002@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:02C32D99-7F75-419B-A7E4-AE34EEE43D17@microsoft.com...
> I remember that in previous versions of Windows all the way up to Windows
> XP, the Disk Defragmenter would tell me exactly how much of the
> defragmentation process was complete. Now, I find that Windows Vista
> tells me absolutely nothing about what Disk Defragmenter is doing, apart
> from the fact that the utility is in fact running. My question is, why
> would Microsoft throw out such a useful feature in Disk Defragmenter, and
> is there any course of action I can take regarding this dilemma?
>
> Brandon Taylor

Brandon Taylor;872354 Wrote:
> I remember that in previous versions of Windows all the way up to
> Windows
> XP, the Disk Defragmenter would tell me exactly how much of the
> defragmentation process was complete. Now, I find that Windows Vista
> tells
> me absolutely nothing about what Disk Defragmenter is doing, apart from
> the
> fact that the utility is in fact running. My question is, why would
> Microsoft throw out such a useful feature in Disk Defragmenter, and is
> there
> any course of action I can take regarding this dilemma?
>
> Brandon Taylor

other than 3rd party options not really, there is a completion gauge in
the command line version in vista but the changes in the GUI version is
based on the fact that it is supposed to run in background and use as
few resources as possible so the "bells and Whistles" are not needed ;)


--
barman58

Regards,
*Nigel*
the beginning of knowledge is the discovery of something we do not
understand.,- frank herbert

Hi Brandon,

Every time you use the pc, you incur some measure of fragmentation. Rather
than do it wholesale and then wait for a deterioration in performance before
doing it again, the defrag routine in Vista is ongoing. By doing it this
way, it constantly works to optimize performance, employing times when the
machine isn't in use. You don't need to see it, as the level of
fragmentation is immaterial. If you really want to see a machine defrag,
then there are plenty of third party products that will turn you pc into a
display to watch while you wait for it to finish. Personally, I'd rather
just use my machine and not watch blocks move (unless I'm playing tetris).

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/
Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

"Brandon Taylor" <donnie126_2002@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:02C32D99-7F75-419B-A7E4-AE34EEE43D17@microsoft.com...
>I remember that in previous versions of Windows all the way up to Windows
>XP, the Disk Defragmenter would tell me exactly how much of the
>defragmentation process was complete. Now, I find that Windows Vista tells
>me absolutely nothing about what Disk Defragmenter is doing, apart from the
>fact that the utility is in fact running. My question is, why would
>Microsoft throw out such a useful feature in Disk Defragmenter, and is
>there any course of action I can take regarding this dilemma?
>
> Brandon Taylor

On Mon, 27 Oct 2008 17:25:49 -0500, "Brandon Taylor"
<donnie126_2002@hotmail.com> wrote:

>I remember that in previous versions of Windows all the way up to Windows
>XP, the Disk Defragmenter would tell me exactly how much of the
>defragmentation process was complete. Now, I find that Windows Vista tells
>me absolutely nothing about what Disk Defragmenter is doing, apart from the
>fact that the utility is in fact running. My question is, why would
>Microsoft throw out such a useful feature in Disk Defragmenter, and is there
>any course of action I can take regarding this dilemma?

This question has been asked a bazillion times already.

GOT GOOGLE?


DDW
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Reply via this group
No email please

How in the world Microsoft managed to overcome the need to close all running
processes before you defragment your system is beyond me!

-- B.D.T.

"Dave" <dave@beepbeepbeepbeep.com> wrote in message
news:Omo6$SIOJHA.1144@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
> It's designed to work in the background.
> Forgetaboutit.
>
>
> --
> Vista Home Premium 32 SP1
> http://get.live.com/wlmail/overview
> http://download.live.com/wlmail
>
>
> "Brandon Taylor" <donnie126_2002@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:02C32D99-7F75-419B-A7E4-AE34EEE43D17@microsoft.com...
>> I remember that in previous versions of Windows all the way up to Windows
>> XP, the Disk Defragmenter would tell me exactly how much of the
>> defragmentation process was complete. Now, I find that Windows Vista
>> tells me absolutely nothing about what Disk Defragmenter is doing, apart
>> from the fact that the utility is in fact running. My question is, why
>> would Microsoft throw out such a useful feature in Disk Defragmenter, and
>> is there any course of action I can take regarding this dilemma?
>>
>> Brandon Taylor
>

[barracuda]

Vista's defrag runs as a low priority process in the background. So, it has no 'proper' GUI, drive map or ETA.

If you want a GUI, drive map, faster defrags, more features etc, then you'll need to buy a commercial program such as Diskeeper 2008.

BTW, there is no need to close running processes to defrag in XP or Vista, unlike for Win 9X. Almost all files can be defragged within Windows itself (Diskeeper even defrags the MFT from within XP when it's running). For defragging the paging file and some metadata, a boot-time defrag will do the trick, and closing processes is irrelevant because you are doing it from 'outside' Windows anyway.

Brandon Taylor;1054137 Wrote:
> I remember that in previous versions of Windows all the way up to
> Windows
> XP, the Disk Defragmenter would tell me exactly how much of the
> defragmentation process was complete. Now, I find that Windows Vista
> tells
> me absolutely nothing about what Disk Defragmenter is doing, apart from
> the
> fact that the utility is in fact running. My question is, why would
> Microsoft throw out such a useful feature in Disk Defragmenter, and is
> there
> any course of action I can take regarding this dilemma?
>
> Brandon Taylor

If you want an automatic defragger which also shows the defrag process,
the best option in my opinion is Diskeeper 08


--
namdeo
Posted via http://www.vistaheads.com

On Tue, 28 Oct 2008 16:27:00 +0000, namdeo
<namdeo.3i01k3@no-mx.forums.vistaheads.com> wrote:

>
>Brandon Taylor;1054137 Wrote:
>> I remember that in previous versions of Windows all the way up to
>> Windows
>> XP, the Disk Defragmenter would tell me exactly how much of the
>> defragmentation process was complete. Now, I find that Windows Vista
>> tells
>> me absolutely nothing about what Disk Defragmenter is doing, apart from
>> the
>> fact that the utility is in fact running. My question is, why would
>> Microsoft throw out such a useful feature in Disk Defragmenter, and is
>> there
>> any course of action I can take regarding this dilemma?
>>
>> Brandon Taylor
>
>If you want an automatic defragger which also shows the defrag process,
>the best option in my opinion is Diskeeper 08

For a freebie that has all the pretty boxes and progress indicator
PLUS which can be run either auto or in the background while
everything else is running (just like Diskeeper), try Smart Defrag:

http://www.iobit.com/iobitsmartdefrag.html

--
Max

Thanks for all the suggestions, but I think I'll stick it out with the
Windows program for now.

"The Max" <max.imus@geemail.com> wrote in message
news:7jmeg4dfq6pufbu24jjie8kgsgbmn3ltia@4ax.com...
> On Tue, 28 Oct 2008 16:27:00 +0000, namdeo
> <namdeo.3i01k3@no-mx.forums.vistaheads.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>Brandon Taylor;1054137 Wrote:
>>> I remember that in previous versions of Windows all the way up to
>>> Windows
>>> XP, the Disk Defragmenter would tell me exactly how much of the
>>> defragmentation process was complete. Now, I find that Windows Vista
>>> tells
>>> me absolutely nothing about what Disk Defragmenter is doing, apart from
>>> the
>>> fact that the utility is in fact running. My question is, why would
>>> Microsoft throw out such a useful feature in Disk Defragmenter, and is
>>> there
>>> any course of action I can take regarding this dilemma?
>>>
>>> Brandon Taylor
>>
>>If you want an automatic defragger which also shows the defrag process,
>>the best option in my opinion is Diskeeper 08
>
> For a freebie that has all the pretty boxes and progress indicator
> PLUS which can be run either auto or in the background while
> everything else is running (just like Diskeeper), try Smart Defrag:
>
> http://www.iobit.com/iobitsmartdefrag.html
>
> --
> Max

In message <BD284363-4A3C-4184-936C-F1501933B48B@microsoft.com> "Brandon
Taylor" <donnie126_2002@hotmail.com> was claimed to have wrote:

>How in the world Microsoft managed to overcome the need to close all running
>processes before you defragment your system is beyond me!

This is actually fairly easy. The physical data on disk, filesystem and
application levels are largely isolated from each other.

Normal applications cannot read/write clusters on the disk directly,
only files, and accessing a file means using an API. The defragment API
and file access APIs were designed to function together.

The way a defragger works is that it first copies a cluster, then
updates the file allocation tables to reflect the file's new location.

(Strictly speaking, defraggers don't do that, they just decide what
clusters to move and use a special defrag API call, Windows then moves
the cluster and updates the file allocation tables)

The Windows file APIs are smart enough to update the location on disk
(if the files are even being read from disk, ideally most file access
will get cached anyway) without the application being aware anything
happened. This is actually not too dissimilar to how disk caching
works, the application doesn't try to read from the disk cache, it
simply tries to read from the file and Windows figures out if the
portion of the file being requested is cached or not.