Automatic defragment company's PCs

[Guest]

I am trying to figure out how to set a time to automatically defragment all of our PCs (say, during the night for example). Users are complaining that their PCs are becoming very defragmented and of course they cant do it themselves because they dont have local admin rights. I am trying to do this through group policy. Is this possible?

 

[David H. Lipman]

Create a JOB file in the MS Tasker ( %windir%\tasks ) to defrag the disk.

In the job you can apply an admin. account and password.

Dave



| I am trying to figure out how to set a time to automatically defragment all of our PCs
(say, during the night for example). Users are complaining that their PCs are becoming very
defragmented and of course they cant do it themselves because they dont have local admin
rights. I am trying to do this through group policy. Is this possible?

 

[JR K Yoshikawa]

what kind of client pc do you have?
all of them are windows 2000 or XP, or mixed with windows98, ME?

I think Diskeeper is smart and easier solution.

http://www.executive.com/coverpage.asp

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

You have to use a third-party tool to do this:

http://www.morphasys.com/autodefrag/

When setting the schedule for your defragmentation, keep in mind that in
most cases the benefits of defragging a disk are not noticeable. On the
other hand there is a substantial danger of the process going wrong,
requiring you to rebuild machines regularly.

I am trying to figure out how to set a time to automatically defragment

all of our PCs (say, during the night for example). Users are complaining
that their PCs are becoming very defragmented and of course they cant do it
themselves because they dont have local admin rights. I am trying to do this
through group policy. Is this possible?

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

This won't work - the defragger requires some input from the user.

 

[Greg Hayes/Raxco Software]

"the benefits of defragging a disk are not noticeable"

Most people would strongly disagree with this statement - including
Microsoft.

Defragmenting is such a concern with Microsoft that Windows XP attempts to
pro-actively reduce the amount of fragmentation with certain files (so that
Windows boots faster and applications launch faster).


"substantial danger of the process going wrong, requiring you to rebuild
machines regularly."

There is NO danger of the defrag process going wrong. Microsoft's defrag
APIs provide a supported and safe way of "moving" files. It is the file
system that is actually performing all file "moves" - performing consistency
checks throughout to verify that all files moves did actually take place.

- 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.

Want to email me? Delete ntloader.

 

[Greg Hayes/Raxco Software]

Using GP and the built-in defragmenter - nope. Using a specific 3rd party
defragmenter - easily done. If you would like more information, please
holler.

- 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.

Want to email me? Delete ntloader.

I am trying to figure out how to set a time to automatically defragment

all of our PCs (say, during the night for example). Users are complaining
that their PCs are becoming very defragmented and of course they cant do it
themselves because they dont have local admin rights. I am trying to do this
through group policy. Is this possible?

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Let's talk about facts, not impressions.

For a human to notice an improvement in performance, a PC would need
to run at least 20% faster. A 10% improvement is only detectable with
a stop watch.

Would you be able to quote some authoritative industry report, accessible
on the web, that demonstrates that this magnitude of improvement can
be observed after defragging some average hard disk?

 

[Greg Hayes/Raxco Software]

Facts:

Here is a link to a Microsoft paper that talks about (among other things)
fragmentation. Please be sure to read the section on Evaluation Issues -
where the #1 evaluation issue discussed is defragmentation.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/tr...chnol/winxppro/evaluate/xpperf.asp?frame=true

- 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.

Want to email me? Delete ntloader.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Thanks for the link. It certainly sounds impressive, coming from
Microsoft and using statements such as "I/O performance is
strongly influenced by the layout of files on disk. Files and
directories that are heavily fragmented or dispersed across
the disk will hurt performance.".

Unfortunately the report stops well short of quoting actual
performance figures. Until it does, the benefits of frequent
defragging are a matter of faith, not fact: It might give me a
warm and comfortable feeling but otherwise I may not notice
much of a difference. I would have loved to see some real-life
figures!

 

[Jisha]

Well... fragmentation became an issue for me recently when I noticed that
W2K's native defragmenter and Norton's speed disk seemed to be working
exactly opposite directions! Looking at one app's product from the other app
seemed like someone dropped a bomb in the middle of my file system... bits
and pieces strewn all over the place!

So... went out and got copy of Diskeeper & went to town with that.
Gave my system drive a good boot-time defragment... and never been the same
since.
Results? ...not quite what I expected...

Pegasus wrote below that....based on this measuring stick, how would I rate 30% to 40% SLOWER?

However, performance DID seem to improve with time using their "set it and
forget it" option... that is after I was able to get the dammed thing to
start at all...

Diskeeper is a powerful app... but I'm curious about why the various
"defragmenters" I've come across don't appear even vaugely similar in their
results after a defrag run... are there _that_ many ways to defrag a drive?
which way is "best"? should I use "speed disk" for one situation,
"diskeeper" for another? what about "PerfectDisk"...haven't tried it yet,
but by this count... maybe I should... must come in handy for that 3rd
situation?

Chris