Recommended Defragmentation Tool for Vista

[nicobelich]

does anyone know any commercial defragmentation tools for vista?

[dangel]

Nope. But on XP I've just checked and I've still yet to get a single fragmented system file (that the sysinternal tool knows about, so no point running it).

I've had plenty - certainly i've not found a defragger that manages to cope with volume shadow copy whilst the OS is up. Pagefiles still fragment too etc. The bootdisc idea works best if you're not dual booting imho.
The sysinternals tool was very useful for XP but it's a dead duck now and I doubt we'll see it updated to cope with Vista.

[kalniel]

I've still never had my pagefile fragment either, but then it is a fixed size and presumably location so I don't see much reason for it to.

Alternatively maybe my sysinternals tool isn't working right? All I get are straight 1's for the number of fragments for everything.

[dangel]

I've still never had my pagefile fragment either, but then it is a fixed size and presumably location so I don't see much reason for it to.

Alternatively maybe my sysinternals tool isn't working right? All I get are straight 1's for the number of fragments for everything.

I use fixed sizes too - it's luck of the draw that you have enough contiguous space when it allocates (i used to defrag the drive before fixing the page file to increase the chance of this). See page 42 of this: http://www.disktrix.com/downloads/Ul...agHelpFile.pdf for some info on Vista VSC.

[Infinite]

Whats wrong with the defrag that comes with windows that makes you need to use a 3rd party one?

thanks

[dangel]

Whats wrong with the defrag that comes with windows that makes you need to use a 3rd party one?

thanks

It's the retarded brother of diskkeeper. MS bought a cut-down version from them for win2k(?) and that's what you get. It's basic, usually fails to one-pass defragment, can't defrag locked files, has no placement options (i.e. intelligence) and refuses to do anything will low disk space volumes (to be fair a few commercial defraggers have this shortcoming).

Edit: see below, turns out they did a lot more than i suspected

[2Cold Scorpio]

Auslogics Disk Defrag is another free defragger, which is Vista compatible (32bit and 64bit)

I second this one; I love it. I also have Defraggler (from the same group that made CCleaner). The main reason I kept Defraggler along with Disk Defrag was that, although slower, Defraggler lets you defrag individual files and folders. Very nice!

[CaptainCrash]

It's the retarded brother of diskkeeper. MS bought a cut-down version from them for win2k(?) and that's what you get.

This was only true for XP and before - the inbuilt Vista defragger doesn't contain any Diskeeper code.

I honestly don't think fragmentation in Vista is anywhere near the problem it was in previous versions of Windows, certainly not to the extent that would justify shelling out for a commercial third-party app.

[dangel]

This was only true for XP and before - the inbuilt Vista defragger doesn't contain any Diskeeper code.

Really? I thought they bought the code, not just the app? It's different for sure - https://blogs.technet.com/filecab/articles/440717.aspx - is an interesting read (looks like they did a lot more work than I suspected).

[CaptainCrash]

I've been looking for the reference I used, which claims that Vista defrag was completely rewritten from the ground up but, typically, I can't find it now. So I will have to provisionally withdraw my comment that it contains no Diskeeper code at all...

It's still true though that there's a lot going on behind the scenes with Vista's file organisation, and I can't see third-party defraggers adding an awful lot of value (they may actually make things worse in some circumstances).

Really, for most tuning and housekeeping duties (not just managing file fragmentation), Vista is much better left alone to sort itself out IMHO.