One of the absolute worst parts of Windows is the fact that users must manually defragment their hard drives. This is a fundamental short coming of the OS. Computers are supposed to do stuff like that for us.
All of us poor PC suckers are constantly wondering "Is it time yet? Should I check?". We are always in fear of the inevitable decline into fragmentation.
I recently discovered a way to schedule defragmentation and thus forget about it forever. I will never defrag my drives again.
It's pretty easy. Here are the steps (XP + 2000 only - users of other OSes are fools):
Start > All programs > Accessories > System Tools > Scheduled Tasks.
Click "Add Scheduled Task".
Click Next
Browse to C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\defrag.exe.
Choose your preference of daily/weekly... (I chose weekly)
Pick a time (I chose a time when I know I'm way asleep)
Enter User/Pass.
Click the check box that says "open advanced options when wizard is done".
In the Run: box, enter C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\defrag.exe c: -f -v.
The c: is for your hard drive.
The -f forces the defrag to occur, whether windows wants to or not.
The -v is for verbose output (I like it... but you can remove it).
--- BUT WHAT IF YOU HAVE A MULTIPLE HARD DRIVES? ----
No problem. You have two choices. Either repeat the above process for each drive (making sure the jobs won't overlap). Or, more elegantly, you can create a new file somewhere on your hard drive called defrag.bat. Open the file with notepad and put in one line for each hard drive. Like this:
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\defrag.exe c: -f -v
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\defrag.exe f: -f -v
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\defrag.exe e: -f -v
Don't try to defrag your cd-rom :). Then simply schedule your new batch file to be run at your time of choice.
Although this is cool and rewarding, you should still be pissed at Microsoft for not automating this simple, mundane job.
Cheers,
Matt.
www.theigloo.com
All of us poor PC suckers are constantly wondering "Is it time yet? Should I check?". We are always in fear of the inevitable decline into fragmentation.
I recently discovered a way to schedule defragmentation and thus forget about it forever. I will never defrag my drives again.
It's pretty easy. Here are the steps (XP + 2000 only - users of other OSes are fools):
Start > All programs > Accessories > System Tools > Scheduled Tasks.
Click "Add Scheduled Task".
Click Next
Browse to C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\defrag.exe.
Choose your preference of daily/weekly... (I chose weekly)
Pick a time (I chose a time when I know I'm way asleep)
Enter User/Pass.
Click the check box that says "open advanced options when wizard is done".
In the Run: box, enter C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\defrag.exe c: -f -v.
The c: is for your hard drive.
The -f forces the defrag to occur, whether windows wants to or not.
The -v is for verbose output (I like it... but you can remove it).
--- BUT WHAT IF YOU HAVE A MULTIPLE HARD DRIVES? ----
No problem. You have two choices. Either repeat the above process for each drive (making sure the jobs won't overlap). Or, more elegantly, you can create a new file somewhere on your hard drive called defrag.bat. Open the file with notepad and put in one line for each hard drive. Like this:
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\defrag.exe c: -f -v
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\defrag.exe f: -f -v
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\defrag.exe e: -f -v
Don't try to defrag your cd-rom :). Then simply schedule your new batch file to be run at your time of choice.
Although this is cool and rewarding, you should still be pissed at Microsoft for not automating this simple, mundane job.
Cheers,
Matt.
www.theigloo.com