Vista's Disk Defrag - ick

Post by **Vince** » Fri Dec 21, 2007 1:29 pm

Don't like it. It seems like every generation of disk defragmenter gives you less and less info about what it's doing. In vista you don't get ANYTHING other than the little circling cursor when you pass over it to show it's running and a message telling you it might take a while.

Don't like.

Post by **TheCatt** » Fri Dec 21, 2007 2:55 pm

Ah, the Macification of the OS.

one of the biggest and consistent complaints we had from users (broad sample here from home users to experienced IT Pros) in the past was that a vast majority of them had no idea what the detailed fragmentation statistics they saw meant. The Windows XP graphical view also had some limitations and inaccuracies that prevented it from being included in Windows Vista. If you really want to keep a close eye on fragmentation, I’d recommend using the command-line tool Defrag.exe.

Post by **Vince** » Fri Dec 21, 2007 6:05 pm

At this point I'd be content with a progress bar or "percent complete"

Post by **GORDON** » Fri Dec 21, 2007 6:32 pm

So it's like a generic "Check engine" light in a car? I hate those. I want to know exactly which sensor is flagging an alarm, and I want to know without an expensive car diagnostic machine.

Post by **TheCatt** » Fri Dec 21, 2007 6:50 pm

GORDON wrote:So it's like a generic "Check engine" light in a car? I hate those. I want to know exactly which sensor is flagging an alarm, and I want to know without an expensive car diagnostic machine.

It's more like a tachometer than has a 1 and a 0.

1 = Engine is on.
0 = Engine is off.

That's useful.

Post by **GORDON** » Fri Dec 21, 2007 7:16 pm

So this is more user friendly? Because a bunch of retards were running disk defrag on XP and then becoming frightened and confused and tying up Microsoft's help desk?

Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Fri Dec 21, 2007 7:29 pm

Things that people do not understand frighten them. Visualizations of things people do not understand horrify them.

Post by **Vince** » Fri Dec 21, 2007 10:19 pm

TheCatt wrote:Ah, the Macification of the OS.

one of the biggest and consistent complaints we had from users (broad sample here from home users to experienced IT Pros) in the past was that a vast majority of them had no idea what the detailed fragmentation statistics they saw meant. The Windows XP graphical view also had some limitations and inaccuracies that prevented it from being included in Windows Vista. If you really want to keep a close eye on fragmentation, I’d recommend using the command-line tool Defrag.exe.

defrag.exe with the -v flag apparently gives you detailed information about the defragmentation.

After the defrag finishes running.

Post by **GORDON** » Fri Dec 21, 2007 10:23 pm

Well I was leaning toward getting Vista, but I'm sure as hell not, now.

Post by **Vince** » Sat Dec 22, 2007 2:04 am

Not a deal breaker for me, but I definitely don't like not having any indicator of how long it has left to run.

I file it under "annoying".

Post by **GORDON** » Sat Dec 22, 2007 10:33 am

I was being sort of sarcastic.

Post by **TheCatt** » Sat Dec 22, 2007 11:40 am

I ran my XP defrag today.

At the end it said "Could not defragment some files," then gave my a button to click to see the files. I clicked and a little window popped up.

It was blank.

Post by **GORDON** » Sat Dec 22, 2007 11:42 am

I guess that's good news?

Post by **Vince** » Sat Dec 22, 2007 11:52 am

TheCatt wrote:I ran my XP defrag today.

At the end it said "Could not defragment some files," then gave my a button to click to see the files. I clicked and a little window popped up.

It was blank.

That used to happen to me a lot on my Media Center, only it would show some recorded shows that were fubar'd. One I upgraded to MCE '05 it took care of it.