Diskeeper

[Gianni]

Here is my .02...

You do not say how you want to use the XP defragmenter, but let's say
you are going to Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, and
running Disk Defragmenter.

Right Click Disk Defragmenter, and choose Properties, does the Target
field look like this:

%SystemRoot%\System32\dfrg.msc

dfrg.msc is the built in XP defragmenter. See how it is in the
System32 folder with all the other XP stuff?

When you get to your disk(s) through My Computer... Properties, Tools
it also runs dfrg.msc.

I don't use DK, so I suspect if it gets installed and choose Disk
Defragmenter and DK runs instead of the XP verision, DK changed these
Targets to run the DK version instead of dfrg.msc. That would be a
quick and easy, sneaky change. Nothing gets deleted, nothing gets
hidden, nothing gets renamed. Only the Targets get changed. All the
XP stuff is still there, but now when you choose a defrag operation,
DK runs instead of dfrg.msc.

You can also go to Start, Run and enter dfrg.msc to always run the XP
defragmenter (or lots of programs).

If you want to use DK, go ahead! You can choose to not have it start
automatically and if it replaces dfrg.msc in your Tools Target, change
it back. Is there a "make this by default defragmenter" option
perhaps? Run DK whenever you feel the need. Some people swear by
DK. Some people swear at it.

Since I don't use DK, if somebody has it installed, they can check if
those options launch DK instead of dfrg.msc and check the Properties
to see if DK changed them. It is easy to make a change to run any
program you want when you choose Disk Defragmenter.

You can certainly have more than 1 browser installed and still use
IE. I prefer Firefox and you can make it your "default" browser so
every time you click a link it will run FF instead of IE, but you can
change it back anytime you want (but you probably won't want to make
IE your default anymore).

There are times you must run IE - not surprisingly, some Microsoft
pages don't work with Firefox, so I would never uninstall IE and
installing FF will leave IE just fine for when you need it.

Now I have to add defragmenter to my spelling dictionary.

Jose

I have Diskeeper. Even if you type dfrg.msc, or double click
dfrg.msc in system32, Diskeeper starts. The dfrg.msc file is
intact, but the call is redirected to Diskeeper at the registry
level. The reason for this, Diskeeper uses more advanced
defragmentation algorithms for better system performance,
and mixing in use of the XP defragmenter would interfere
with this.

Jose,

My experience was the same as Ian's. No
matter how I ran
the defragmenter, I always ended up with
Diskeeper. Someone
explained that Diskeeper was considered
an upgrade from
the Window's default.

I removed Diskeeper and I have the
default defragmenter now.

Gianni