jaywallen

Quote: The incorrect part is that O&O's defragger will defragment the MFT and metadata. O&O defragments the $MFT only - it doesn't defragment the $Logfil, $Bitmap, $Upcase, etc... There is only 1 defragger available that will defragment these metadata files - PerfectDisk - it is also the only defragger that tells you how badly fragmented these metadata files are. Defraggers like O&O Defrag only tell you how badly fragmented the $MFT is. - Greg/Raxco Software Disclaimer: I work for Raxco Software, the maker of PerfectDisk - a competitor to O&O Defrag, as a systems engineer in the support department. Sorry, I should have been more careful / precise. Have you examined the "Select Additional Files" feature on the Boot Time Defragmentation dialog in O&O? Once you have performed one full defragmentation of a drive, you have the option to add the files that couldn't be defragged with the GUI online by using the Add Exclusive feature. I won't pretend to know whether or not that comprises all the metadata, but that is some or most of it, isn't it? I mentioned it because it's a feature that I've seen many users / evaluaters of O&O overlook. Anyway, once you add the exclusively locked files, they also get defragged at boot time. In addition to the manual Action | Boot-Time Defragmentation settings, the Executive Software Product does have FragGuard which can be set to run when fragmentation exceeds certain levels on the MFT or registry hives (but without mention of any other items), but I didn't see evidence that it could defrag the "unmovable" files on an NTFS partition. BTW, I tried out Perfect Disk about a year-and-a-half ago when I was evaluating defraggers for use with Win2K. (I've been using Windows only since a couple of months before the advent of Win2K.) I thought it was generally a good product, but I had some problems with the user interface on a notebook with an ATI graphics subsystem that I couldn't resolve with tech support and had to resort to O&O. Regards, Jim Edit: I asked you if the "additional files" comprised any significant portion of the metadata but didn't tell you what they were. DOH! I'd be glad to PM or e-mail the list to you.

Ron_Jeremy, Sorry for the unpleasantness. Regards, Jim

I don't really need confirmation of my opnions from others, but I've seen the comments about your "contributions", and they are far from unaniously slanted in your favor. Take a hint. You are presumptuous, and no one needs a doctorate in psychology to see that. I guess you're at least relatively safe with your puffery online. Hard to get away with it in real life, isn't it?

Quote: Did I say it was deleted by clearing it above? It can be deleted, by filesystem corruptions! That wasn't the topic under discussion. I was merely trying to be certain that it was understood that the security setting being discussed would NOT delete the pagefile itself, and therefore would not result in a file system fragmentation issue, in and of itself. Quote: (I gain speed by housing the pagefile/swapfile onto another disk... on EIDE a second one on another EIDE I/O channel, & on ScSi on another drive device on the chain. So, when one drive is seeking/reading/writing for me? The swapfile & temp. operations take place on another.. simultaneously! Makes for good performance sense!) * Understand now? APK P.S.=> You are bringing in the possibility of MFT$ defrags now? Diskeeper from Executive Software also does the same as well... not a freeware one, & not in their LITE versions either! I told folks abotu a FREEBIE they can use for PageFile & Reg file defrags above! apk I pointed out the differences in cost in my own post. For the information of anyone who's interested in the differences, the Executive Software product has to be set each time to perform the boot time defrag, whereas the O&O product can be set to perform it automatically at each boot. As for you, APK, you might want to have that ego checked. Your voluminous posts speak volumes about you but more, I think, about a presumptuous nature than about knowledge.

I'm not sure I see the point you're making. The pagefile is NOT deleted by this security setting. The contents are wiped. Fragmentation will not result from the use of this setting. That's all I was saying. The pagefile and registry hives are defragged by the Sysinternals utility, Pagedefrag. However it doesn't touch the MFT or metadata. O&O makes a decent defragger that performs a defragging operation of all of this stuff at boot time, and in very little more time than it takes for Pagedefrag to run. However, the versions that do boot time defragging are not freeware. Regards, Jim

That registry entry is controlled by the Local Security Policy named "Shutdown: Clear virtual memory pagefile". It doesn't remove the pagefile, but merely wipes it. So the pagefile doesn't have to be re-created at boot if the option is turned on. It might be worthwhile option to enable if you keep encrypted data on the system and don't want anyone to be able to snoop the pagefile. If you don't use encrypted data, I'm not sure why anyone would bother to use it. If the pagefile is big, this option can make shutdown take quite a while. Regards, Jim

Sweatus minimus. I hope you find something that works for you. Be careful when installing, believe the warnings, and remember that Safe Mode and an immediate uninstall can be your best friend if you experience troublees following an installation. Regards, Jim

Be safe, friend. Be safe, everybody!

Hi, ofelas! I suppose I'm cranky today. Thank you for posting that link. I had forgot about them. Regards, Jim

I repeat the question. Are you official thread police or something? It's not like this forum is exactly overrun with posts. And it's not as though there was any definitive information about freeware programs in any of the other threads pertaining to this issue. While it may be true that there's nothing wrong with looking around and / or searching before posting, there's also nothing wrong with a little civility. I imagine the forum moderators can handle the task of dealing with duplicate threads, thread drift and the other slightly irksome minor details of netiquette without help from self-appointed forum marshalls. We're talking about a few lines of text here. Not bandwidth hogging. In the grand scheme of things, your point is Lilliputian. Is it the type of thing you would bring up when face-to-face with people? If not, then I don't see the need to bring it up in a message base. And if you do make a point of correcting people in this manner when face-to-face with them, I'd be surprised if you have all of your teeth. Regards, Jim

Beg your pardon. Are you official thread police or something? Give the guy some slack. No one was answering.

Hi, Yeah, that's the same canned response I got AFTER I reported the problem to them!!! I hope they pull their heads out soon! Regards, Jim

Yes, be careful with the Grisoft product. I've had some conversations with tech support over both their commercial and freeware versions. Although they claim that the latest freeware version works properly under WinXP I have not been able to get it to do so. Installing an older version under RC2 caused system failures on one test machine from which I had to recover by booting in Safe Mode, uninstalling the AVG software, and then STILL having to resort to a restore to a previous configuration. No real harm since the OS does an admirable job of protecting itself, but it was pretty annoying. I had one notebook running a 2600 (legitimate) which appeared to take the AVG installation just fine, and there were no immediate problems on reboot. But system behavioral problems did start cropping up, and they all traced back to the anti-virus. I removed it, and the problems went away. I'm using the old InoculateIT PE (withOUT the on access scanner running since it isn't compatible) on my personal machines and am being very careful about my handling of files, attachments, etc. CA's replacement product for InoculateIT PE, the commercial EZ Armor thing, still isn't compatible with WinXP, though they say they will have a compatible system out by the end of October. I think most AV software, commercial or otherwise, is having a problem with WinXP's method of loading drivers in parallel since they may require a specific order of loading in order to get their on access scanners to work properly. This is probably also the problem with much of the firewall software like Zone Alarm. At least that's the way it looks from my chair. Regards, Jim

Xteq's X-Setup also has this ability, among many others.

Hi, Chris. I'm sorry to hear of the disappointment. I'm sure you'll fare better later on with updated hardware. W2K actually uses less total power than Win9X on any given machine that supports ACPI, but it really "works" the video subsystem and memory. An older system with a mixture of various levels of hardware could be expected to have some issues. All of the systems upon which I've installed W2K have been less than two years old. Even then I've had to be very careful, in a couple of cases, to get the very latest drivers. (Though the APIs for this OS were out for plenty enough time for the vendors to have got their drivers right, I suspect that a lot of them held back to see how well the new OS did in the market before deciding to committ the resources to the development of new drivers.) Nothing will bring W2K down faster than a badly written kernel mode driver or hardware that just doesn't cut the mustard. But I expect that you'll really like it once you get to try it on hardware that supports it. Actually, I suppose that WinXP may be out by the time you upgrade the hardware. Should I duck when I say that??? Sorry I couldn't be of some help. I wish you better luck in the future. Regards, Jim