Louisville SEO, Computer, Network, And Data Solutions

Why defrag and how to schedule it?

A lot people are already aware that you need to defrag your PC every once in a while to help maintain optimal performance.  How often does this really get done?  It is processor and time consuming so a lot of user either forget or just don’t think they have time.  Vista and above OS’s are your new best friend when it comes to using defrag.  Click Start –> All Programs  –> Accessories –> System Tools –> Disk Defragmenter.

You will get a dialog box similar to the following:

Defrag comes preconfigured.  You can alter the schedule to fit your schedule.

What about XP users?  There are still a lot of people still using XP.  Defrag is still located in the same place but it looks like this when you open it:

There is no place to schedule a defragmentation.  This is accomplished by setting up schedules tasks.  Navigate to Click Start –>All Programs  –> Accessories –> System Tools –> Scheduled Tasks

You will see something similar to this:

I find it interesting that all the tasks listed are a result of programs I have installed doing automatic updates.

Click on Add scheduled task

The wizard will open, click next

On the following page, click browse

Now navigate to the windows directory and then to the System32 folder and select Defrag.exe and click ok

Here is where you decide the frequency of your defragmentations.  I set mine up for daily defragmentation to optimize my machine’s performance.

I am changing the time to 4am.  I am choosing a time that will help my machine complete the task before other scheduled updates will occur, such as windows updates.  We do not want out machines trying to download updates while it is defragmenting the hard drive.

Now you will set the username and password of a user with administrative rights.

Check the box for Open advanced Properties for this task when I click Finish

In the Defrag Properties Screen, locate the run field, and add the drive letter followed by :

note: You will want to set up a new scheduled task for each drive on your PC.

Here you can set the task to stop after running for x hours.  This is important if the PC is a business machine.  If you start defragging, at 1 am you need it to be stopped by 8 am or so, otherwise performance would be a major issue.

 

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