(Rocky - Nick) Defrag.exe at command prompt

[Joe]

OK here is the story will make as short as possible. I'm
part of a team that supports a significant user base
world wide. Our company is rolling out XP but has chosen
not to include any third party defrag utility to save
money on licensing. We are quickly getting complaints to
the helpdesk of poor performance so the helpdesk or desk
side walks the client through defragging the drive which
was done automatically before. To ask these users to
defrag the drives themselves will never work, so what I
thought is if we drop a simple batch file on there c:\
drive and schedule the batch file to kick off the
defrag.exe it will maintain disk performance. Right? Well
a college and I are having the same discussion about XP's
defrag not defragmenting free space and that we should
push for third party software, but at the following link
(http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/Windows/
XP/all/reskit/en-us/Default.asp?
url=/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/reskit/en-
us/prmb_tol_tgys.asp) Microsoft states that it does
reorder free space. So what is the verdict Does it or
doesn't it?

 

[Rocket J. Squirrel]

Your original question asked about defragmenting free space. There are no
files or folders in free space. Consequently, there is nothing to
defragment.

"Description of the New Command Line Defrag.exe Included with Windows XP"
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;283080&Product=winxp

"The Defrag.exe command line utility locates and consolidates fragmented
boot files, data files, and folders on local volumes."

Re-ordering free space is a different matter. As a result of the
defragmentation , blocks of free space are created. Where possible, these
blocks of free space are placed at the end of a volume.

Rocky

 

[Ian]

The following article discusses how you can automate Disk Cleanup & Disk
Defragmentation on Windows XP.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/columns/crawford/october08.asp

It's a good article.

 

[Greg Hayes/Raxco Software]

Joe,

"So what is the verdict Does it or doesn't it?"

In your environment and on your typical company workstations, what is your
experience with the built-in defragmenter and consolidation of free space?
It may perform acceptably well in your environment and not well enough in
somebody elses environment.

- Greg/Raxco Software
Microsoft MVP - Windows File System

Disclaimer: I work for Raxco Software, the maker of PerfectDisk - a
commercial defrag utility, as a systems engineer in the support department.

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