My defragging time will outlast mankind

[Soundwhiz]

Hello

I am, as we speak, defragging my average middle of the road 160 gb Seagate HD under WinXP SP2 and it is consuming my life (with a touch of exaggeration). I started it last night before I hit the sack and now, thirteen hours and twenty minutes later, it has defragged 43 %. I am doing it with the standard defrag utility that ships with Windows, and I'm in safe mode with all non-required processes not running. I am almost hoping readers of this thread are laughing wherever they may be. Please, can you tell me if I'm doing something wrong? How long should it take?

Regards
Kristofer, Estonia

[Captain America]

Why Safe Mode?

I've never had the Windows Defrag Utility take more than 10 minutes?

How much free space do you have? The Defrag Utility requires a certain
amount of free space to move files around properly.

[Leadraft]

Yeah, that's way too long, so somethings not right. I have a 160 and it takes about 2 hours but the length of time depends on a few factors:

1) How often you defrag. I do it about every 3 months or so.
2) Size of the drive
3) How much data is on the drive
4) and of course, how fragmented it is (refer to item 1)

I don't think running it in safe mode or turning off processes makes any difference. I've never done that.

[Soundwhiz]

The hard drive is about 80 % full of stuff. I thought it was good practice to to it in safe mode. I defrag way too little. About three times a year/installation.

[Captain America]

The hard drive is about 80 % full of stuff. I thought it was good practice to to it in safe mode. I defrag way too little. About three times a year/installation.


That might be your problem. I think the Defrag Utility needs about 15% free space to
operate. 80% full puts you right up at the limit.

I'm a Defragging fanatic, I do it at least once a week or whenever I add or delete anything.
I also have nothing on my hard drive not associated with FSX. I only have 6 add-on
aircraft. My hard drive is less than 50% full so my defrag time is very short.

Try deleting any unnecessary stuff and see if that helps.
I don't think you need to do it in Safe Mode?

[xxmikexx]

Soundwhiz,

It's perfectly okay to run the defragger in normal user mode. In fact, you can do other application work while the defragger is running. (But if you run FS you may find it to be very jerky while the defragger is running.)

When the defragger has run to completion, run it once or twice more. Those additional runs should take much less time than the first one did.

Poke around in this forum on the subject of defraggers. If the built-in defragger does everything you want then you're done. If not, you may want to acquire one or more third party defraggers.

[Soundwhiz]

Thanks for the replies. I will uninstall as much as I can and do defrag more often.

[ED_4]

That is what happens if you never defrag your drive for like forever. It will indeed take hours maybe even more if you don't have much space. For me, like some, I always defrag within a month's time. And for the OS drive even as much as within a week or two.

[jimmymac]

FYI, a very good 3'rd party defragger is Perfectdisk 2008. You can use it free for 30 days. It also will clean out duplicate files which can add to a lot of clutter on your drive. And as another person said, run it at least three times for the first time. This takes time, but it won't be 13+ hours. Once all of this is done, then defrag at least once a week. There are a several good defraggers out there, and this is my personal prefrernce.

[angels355]

Soundwhiz,

Defrag in safe mode, for two reasons, firstly defragging in safe mode gives you more complete defrags. With all the other programs turned off there's nothing to interfere with the defrag mode. I've even defragged using the command prompt, c: prompt, although I understand that can be a little risky I understand with regards to the video settings, but it didn't effect my computer when I did it a couple times, but I don't think I'd recommend it. Any way, you DO get more complete defrags defragging in safemode, and it is more efficient.

Secondly, guess what happens when you go into safe mode with regards to amount of free hard drive space to use for defragging the hdd? It goes up! And sometimes when you're at the borderline like that that can make a critical difference. That's what I said, your free space goes up, check it out and compare! The difference is the amount of hdd space required for page files to support all those programs running.

I've never defragged that large of a hdd w/ that much data, I just got a 160, 150, 120, 100, but they're all blank so I guess i'll find out later how bad they can be to defrag.

I'd say there are two main issues in your defrag time, first, amount of data, secondly how fragmented your hdd is. The first defrag takes the longest, you just have to be patient. After the first one the next two or three will go faster. If your hdd is very well defragged it won't take very long at all. When you do your defrags read the reports and see the % of defragmentation, keep an eye on those numbers they will give you an idea of how good or bad the fragmentation is.

I think the default defrag program in xp was provided by Diskeeper? I tried out Diskeeper and was amazed by it, but I just stayed with the default defragmenters. If you defrag often, you'll keep your computer healthy. And like the Diskeeper program tells you, if you allow the hdd to become too fragmented it can actually effect the stability of Windows!

With regards to payware defragmenters, I just stick with the default one, however getting really sophisticated is not objectionable as long as you know what you're doing, and study up on the different defrag programs. I don't think you can go far wrong with Diskeeper. And, I had my blueberry pills this morning so there's a slight chance I might have this name right: The O & O Defragmenter?? I read posts describing that as the ultimate defragger as you can tell it to place the most crucial files I think they said on the outer rim of the hdd which will give you a lot faster response time, and the less necessary files on the inner portion of the hdd. One person however had a serious issue with the O & O because he stopped or he turned off the computer right in the middle of defragmenting. Any way you cut it, I think it can be seriously dangerous to simply turn off the computer in the middle of any type of defrag. So I'd just be careful.

So, I'd say, defrag often, and even multiple times if necessary. The reason, greater Windows system stability, that should also transfer over to greater stability to flight simulator. And secondly greater performance. Ram is cheap, however defragmenting is even cheaper! You can boost your performance and stability by simply defragmenting often. I was telling one Geeky person that I've defragged as often as every week, he objected to that and said that only once per month is good enough. But that's only because HE'S NOT A MANIAC FLIGHT SIMMER!! IT'S NOT JUST A HOBBY IT'S AN ADVENTURE!! So don't listen to Geeks like that, they don't know what they're talking about!

And definitely reduce the size of data on your hard drive. That is really important. When you start to get over filled with data, guess what can happen, parts of windows can get erased, it happened on one of my computers, don't know exactly what was lost.

And run chkdisk to keep your hdd and system healthy. Start, My computer,right click Hard drive c (and/or d, e, etc), Properties, Tools tab, and "Check disk for errors", select both box options. Normally it has you run the program on the next start up because it needs greater system resources.

Good luck, and reduce the amount of data on your hdd.

[xxmikexx]

Folks,

I don't want incorrect information to remain uncorrected. I will summarize my many remarks on this subject in many different threads. Here we go ...

Set pagefile to 4095 MB. Defrag the pagefile using PerfectDisk, which also is the tool of choice for all the other system metafiles (like the MFT), which can only be defragmented offline. Offline is not the same thing as Safe Mode, which is a special case of normal system operation but is nevertheless a normal system operating mode.

Defrag the data and program files using O&O Defrag since it is the only reliable defragger that has an alphanumeric sort option.

If you need a way to check on the degree of defragmentation of the system metafiles, use Ultimate Defrag -- even though it is not a reliable defragger, it is the only one that will report this information. However, while Ultimate Defrag does have an alphanumeric sort option, it is not a reliable defragger. During a period when it was running to completion instead of hanging up, a test of its various other exotic features revealed no or little performance difference.

So in a perfect world you will use these three defraggers and not the built in one. And you will not do any defragging in Safe Mode unless you're a glutton for punishment.

Whether or not you check on its health, the MFT will (repeat will) get defragmented and so regular use of PerfectDisk is recommended along with regular use of O&O Defrag for the folders and files themselves. The issue here is rate at which files are added to and deleted from the system. The more such churning there is, the more defragmentation there will be, the defragmentation will be to both the MFT and the folders/files, and the more often you should defragment.

If I could pick only one third party defragger it would be PerfectDisk. It does a good (but not alphanumeric) online job on the folders and files, and it does a complete offline job on the metafiles.

We report, you decide.

[djt]

Defrag the pagefile using PerfectDisk, which also is the tool of choice for all the other system metafiles (like the MFT), which can only be defragmented offline. Offline is not the same thing as Safe Mode, which is a special case of normal system operation but is nevertheless a normal system operating mode.

Defrag the data and program files using O&O Defrag since it is the only reliable defragger that has an alphanumeric sort option.


Mike,

This was the suggestion you gave me back in this discussion -

http://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/showthread.php?t=159827&page=7

I ended up buying PerfectDisk 8 and Registry Repair 5.0 and have been using them both along with O&O Defrag 10 on my XP/SP3 setup. The three programs work very well together, thanks for the advice.

[xxmikexx]

djt,

You're very welcome. And thanks for reminding all of us about the registry ...

It doesn't matter what other people may say, it is a fact of life that the registry very rapidly becomes fragmented, that this can affect the speed of operation of many applications, and that only a third party registry maintenance tool can deal with this.

There are payware registry maintainers, and there are freeware registry maintainers. The one djt and I like is the payware product Registry Repair. I have never heard anybody complain that it damaged their system, and this alone is good reason to pick that product.

[angels355]

There is an indication of % fragmentation in the report from the default defragger.

When you get so low on hdd space defragging in safemode is critical as you get more free hdd space available for defragging. The hdd I have that I'm thinking of is short on free space, it's only 25 gb's, and the difference in the amount of free hdd space available for defragging in safe mode was critical.

Because computers are so powerful now days, it's easy to forget what defragging was like on old weak computers ruining 98se or me, which had a very inefficient defragger. If you try to defrag in normal mode, it will just start over and over and over, because some process keeps writing to the disk, so the defrag program starts over, and over. Well, if you're defragging even in xp, you're going to have a million processes running and writing to the disk thereby interfering with the defrag process. Not to mention large page files needed during normal mode to run all those programs and processes in normal mode. If you go into safe mode, you clear away all those processes running, reduce page files thereby free up hdd space while in safe mode, and you have more system resources dedicated to defragging the hdd. Like when you run a chkdisk, most of the time it asks to run it on the next start up so that it can use the full system resources of the computer to complete the task. Same idea w/ safe mode defragging.

Now the way you really defrag completely as a glutton for punishment, and I don't recommend anyone do this, but, you take the entire hdd out, make it a slave drive in another computer, and defrag that hdd as a slave drive in safe mode. Now, that's where you get some really thorough defragging! If you notice when you defrag a slave drive there's no processes running on it, so the defrag is really pure and complete, very little fragmentation. I've done that a few times before.

O & O Defragmenter sounds very interesting to me. Defragmenting is very important, and crucial for not only system stability but also higher performance running flight sim. I liked using Diskeeper. I don't know if there are any truly excellent freeware defragmenters. I just use the default one.

Defragmenting is where it's at if you want high gaming performance.

[djt]

Defragmenting is where it's at if you want high gaming performance.

It will be nice when we can finally say good bye to mechanical hard drives all together. I think with the way solid state drives are rapidly progressing they might become main stream very soon. I’m actually thinking of trying one out for my laptop.

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3311

[xxmikexx]

Angels355,

You wrote "There is an indication of % fragmentation in the report from the default defragger." ...

This is true, but the defragmention it's reporting on is not that of the metafiles. PerfectDisk will give you an indication of how things stand once you start the offline defrag process, but by then the information is irrelevant -- when the process completes, the defragmentation of the offline files will be perfect, though it will not remain perfect for certain files, including the MFT. The only meaningful data available on this issue comes from Ultimate Defrag. I'm not aware of any other utility that will report the state of the metafiles in a useful way, not that the knowledge is important. (It's important only to assessing the effectiveness of some other defragger.)

As for your continued assertion that there is some kind of benefit in defragging in Safe Mode, this is simply not true, other than in the most minor theoretical sense. Unless you're doing something wacky like installing scenery at the same time that you're defragging, there is no reason in the world not to do normal defragging while normal applications are running -- web browsing, using Word, using Excel, and so on.

Given that normal applications would barely disturb the files/folders defrag process, to require that defragging be done in Safe Mode with no applications running is to take the system out of normal service when there is no reason to do so.

I'm now going to stop repeatedly correcting your repeated incorrect information because we've got it all down now in a small number of posts that can be linked to at any time.

[xxmikexx]

djt,

Long term you have to be right -- solid state will replace the electromechanical HDD ...

In the meantime there might be benefit in using a solid state drive for holding FS scenery files, especially if it were sorted alphanumerically as I recommend.

I don't know how the access times of typical external HDDs compare with the access times of flash drives (or whatever) but by now this might be worth looking into as a strategy for reducing scenery stutters, if scenery stutters are happening in spite of HDD alpha sorts.

[djt]

I don't know if there are any truly excellent freeware defragmenters. I just use the default one.


One thing that I find very interesting is that the commercial disk defragging utilities do little or nothing to improve system performance compared to the built-in defrag program in Windows Vista.
I’ve used the above mentioned utilities on my Vista setups and have not noticed any real improvement over the default defrag program. The June 2008 issue of Maximum PC actually did an article called “The Disk Defrag Difference” in which they tested various free and paid for defragmentation software (including PerfectDisk and Diskeeper 2008) on Vista. After running a bunch of benchmarks they came to the same conclusion I did with Vista, the built in defrag program did just as good as the third party defragmenters.

Why they make a difference with XP and not Vista is a mystery to me, possible because of the improvements in prefetch with Vista compared to what we had with XP? Another feature that I’m using with Vista is “Ready Boost” (8GB USB Flash Drive), whether this combined with super prefetch is part of the reason I don’t know.

[xxmikexx]

djt,

I suspect that your speculation about the benefits of improved algorithms is what makes third party defraggers of little measured benefit in the Vista situation. However ...

The issue of MFT defragmentation is still going to be there, and it's unlikely that the benchmarks that were run represented the tactical state of an HDD after a large scenery install has been done -- and that's the situation of real interest -- the massive "damage" done by the dynamics of the scenery installation process, which involves creating large number of files on the HDD and therefore in the MFT.

Furthermore, I very much doubt that Vista's built in defragger has an alpha sort feature, which can make a BIG difference to the performance of an FSX installation that's exhibiting unacceptably frequent scenery stutters ...

... But if it does, and if it will also defrag the metafiles including the pagefile and the MFT then no, there would be no benefit to third party defraggers.

I don't know because I evicted Vista before I ever got to thinking about that stuff to any extent, and I have no immediate plans to install the new generation of Vista. I can only state what the issues are and what the solutions are, not which programs have the solutions to the issues in the context of Vista.

[angels355]

It will be nice when we can finally say good bye to mechanical hard drives all together. I think with the way solid state drives are rapidly progressing they might become main stream very soon. I’m actually thinking of trying one out for my laptop.

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3311

I haven't had a chance to take a look at the drive you site here, I had maybe 20 firefox windows or tabs open and ff crashed on my pII, I'll check it out later.

I have read about ram drives where they have I think 8 gb's of ram where the system files are loaded, so you get ultra fast response time. However you have to have the computer always plugged in, if you unplug it then all that data is erased and has to be reloaded to the ram drive.

Vista is interesting because it pre-loads data into the ram anticipating or guessing what you're going to need next. So w/ Vista in theory you can actually use 4 gb's in 32 bit vista or up to 128 gb's(?) of ram to run a 32 bit program which would normally only allow the use of 2 gb's of ram in xp.

But prior to vista sp1, all gaming specs across the board were worse with vista. A recent thread on vista vs xp however asserts that vista is faster than xp now. What made that change, was it SP1?

Any way back to hdd's, hdd's are if I'm not mistaken the ultimate bottle neck in a computer system. I was reading about futuristic computing, and I think big changes are not far off. Technology sounds as if it will advance so fast that we can hardly keep up with it, from the sounds of the articles I've read. My pII is still running well.

[angels355]

One thing that I find very interesting is that the commercial disk defragging utilities do little or nothing to improve system performance compared to the built-in defrag program in Windows Vista.
I’ve used the above mentioned utilities on my Vista setups and have not noticed any real improvement over the default defrag program. The June 2008 issue of Maximum PC actually did an article called “The Disk Defrag Difference” in which they tested various free and paid for defragmentation software (including PerfectDisk and Diskeeper 2008) on Vista. After running a bunch of benchmarks they came to the same conclusion I did with Vista, the built in defrag program did just as good as the third party defragmenters.

Why they make a difference with XP and not Vista is a mystery to me, possible because of the improvements in prefetch with Vista compared to what we had with XP? Another feature that I’m using with Vista is “Ready Boost” (8GB USB Flash Drive), whether this combined with super prefetch is part of the reason I don’t know.

There could be a big improvement in the design of the default defrag program going from xp to vista, similarly from 98/se/me to xp. The win 98/se/me defrag program was positively AWFUL! I tried out Diskeeper at that time, couple years ago. I would do a thorough defrag several times over with the 98/se/me defragger, then defrag with diskeeper and found that the hdd was really fragmented. I defragged several times with diskeeper to clean things up. Then, I defragged with the 98/se/me defragger, then examined the state of fragmentation with Diskeeper again. After defraggine w/ 98/se/me's default defragger, there was a massive increase in fragmentation. The 98/se/me defragmenter seemed to fundamentally sort files and data completely differently than Diskeeper, which I believe is where xp got their default defraggmenter.

[djt]

djt,

it's unlikely that the benchmarks that were run represented the tactical state of an HDD after a large scenery install has been done -- and that's the situation of real interest -- the massive "damage" done by the dynamics of the scenery installation process, which involves creating large number of files on the HDD and therefore in the MFT.

Furthermore, I very much doubt that Vista's built in defragger has an alpha sort feature, which can make a BIG difference to the performance of an FSX installation that's exhibiting unacceptably frequent scenery stutters ...




Yes, this “massive "damage" done by the dynamics of the scenery installation process” is what I remember going back to the FS2004 days, after a MegaScenery installation and the reason why I started to use O&O Defrag to begin with.

[djt]

There could be a big improvement in the design of the default defrag program going from xp to vista,

The built in defrag program in Vista for me still leaves a lot to be desired, even if it is doing a satisfactory job at the defragmentation process. It has no graphical presentation of the defrag process when it’s running, I’d like to see some kind of indication of progress. The other issue is it seems that in Vista’s quest for the defrag process to be transparent to the user; it gets very low priority while running. This equates to extremely long defrag times and I’m using 10,000 RPM drives in RAID 0.

Let’s hope Microsoft includes some decent maintenance utilities with Windows 7 (Blackcomb/Vienna).

[angels355]

The built in defrag program in Vista for me still leaves a lot to be desired, even if it is doing a satisfactory job at the defragmentation process. It has no graphical presentation of the defrag process when it’s running, I’d like to see some kind of indication of progress. The other issue is it seems that in Vista’s quest for the defrag process to be transparent to the user; it gets very low priority while running. This equates to extremely long defrag times and I’m using 10,000 RPM drives in RAID 0.

Let’s hope Microsoft includes some decent maintenance utilities with Windows 7 (Blackcomb/Vienna).

7 is supposed to be very advanced and greatly changed from vista with I believe skinnier processes for higher performance, which if I recall from the zdnet.com article some time ago, was an effort to reverse software bloat which has been the grand tradition up to this point.

If I recall the designer of NT4 is working on "Cloud", the definition of which eludes me, like it's not actually an OS but some sort of database or something, I dunno. Massive parallel processing capability?

Any way, regarding the vista defrag program, wow, no visual display of the defrag process, and running at low priority, can't believe it, what's next dancing gummy bears during the defrag process? Being able to watch the defrag process is a long tradition, and a valuable tool to be able to analyze the fragmentation, and defrag effectiveness. I first watched the defrag process on a mini computer my physics prof/boss was running while I was running an organic chem group of analysis machines in 3rd yr honors level org chem. That was back when computers were for running scientific calculations. Went for years believing just mathematics and scientific calculations were all that mattered, wound up being labeled "pc illiterate"! Had to put down the calculator and cruise the web, then had to put that on my resume!

[loki]

You're thinking of Cloud Computing I suspect.

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/nov2007/tc20071116_379585.htm

[xxmikexx]

Folks,

I promised a report on the behavior of the free AusLogics defragger ...

My findings are that it did a complete job of defragging the folders/files but that it made no attempt to consolidate free space. Therefore, while it does defrag, it leaves behind the very conditions that are most conducive to causing fragmentation of newly created files.

I was moving very quickly so it's possible that I missed some kind of optional setting that would address the free space consolidation issue. It's also possible that AusLogics contains some kind of offline defrag capability for the system metafiles. I didn't investigate because all of my metafiles are already completely defragged, according to Ultimate Defrag.

So maybe somebody has information regarding options -- I don't and won't because I've deinstalled the program. But absent the hoped-for relevant options, I can't recommend this program even though it's free.

If you want a freeware defragger that does do free space consolidation you should try PowerDefragmenter available here http://www.brothersoft.com/power-defragmenter-gui-download-62222.html. As I recall, it's a GUI sitting on top of the SysInternals defragger written by Mark Russinovitch.

SysInternals is now owned by Microsoft so the underlying defragger can be trusted. In fact, PowerDefragmenter is what I used prior to getting involved with payware defraggers.

[djt]

Folks,

I promised a report on the behavior of the free AusLogics defragger ...


Mike,

Thanks for reporting your experience with Auslogics Disk Defrag; this was also one of the defragmentation utilities tested in the Maximum PC article.

Another free utility is JKDefrag -

http://www.kessels.com/Jkdefrag/

There is also a Graphical User Interface that goes along with it -

http://www.emro.nl/freeware/

I have not tried this utility yet but was thinking of installing it on one of my Vista setups.

[angels355]

Thanks very much guys.

Working outside the box, to better what's inside the box: Often it is beneficial to use linux (or a Mac also) and linux antivirus programs to scan windows, for example this is standard procedure for the Mocmex trogan which hides from windows and windows antivirus programs (Maximum PC magazine). So I started thinking, it would be extremely beneficial if there were a linux live disk that has a defragmenter in it. This then would or could defrag the c drive extremely efficiently as if it were like a slave drive, with windows completely OFF. Slave drives get great defragmentation. But I don't know if linux defrags the same way as windows would like?

I'm a little new to linux, so I don't know if there is a defragmenter in any live disks, I have not come across one.

I think that sysinternals came up with too many ways to improve Windows and its' functions, so I think that MS bought out sysinternals just to shelve them and get rid of them. For example I think their rootkitrevealer.zip file just sits on the shelf. They were one of the first, but now there are rootkit scanners that have been developed and advanced over the old style that not only scan but remove threats, and one is extremely easy to use by AVG although I don't see it any more I believe available for download. I think it simply got incorporated into AVG 8, AVG 8 and Spybot both have rootkit scanners now that are so easy to use that you don't even know that they are there.

Cloud sounds like Beowulf, but commercialized. MS, they're always commercializing something! One scary thought is paranoia leading to restrictions to individual's rights of computer ownership. I mean, what could happen if citizens just start computing wildly out of control? As one person said it on these forums "your government doesn't trust you so they take away your guns", I'm paraphrasing so might not be an exact quote. And in a likewise manner what should happen if paranoid governments want to restrict our freedom to use computers? One paranoid person was asking me what I do with my computers, he had given me several, so I told him I have a stack of five computers (emachines sx) that he gave me that are all burned out, a couple he gave me work and I use linux on them and type away on openoffice. So why the paranoia? Who's business is it? Do such nimrods believe there should be restrictions on citizens' rights to own and use computers?

Everything's relative but in a few years by today's standards we'll be able to do super computing on our desktop.

Loki I'm sending you a Vista question, you guys don't get paranoid on me or anything!

[loki]

Microsoft bought out Sysinternals to hire Mark Russinovich. He knew as much about the internals of Windows as Microsoft did, maybe even a little more. And all of the Sysinternal apps are still available with many being updated regularly. Maybe the rootkit one doesn't need anymore updates, or they figured there are plenty of other options out there now?

http://blogs.technet.com/markrussinovich/about.aspx
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-ca/sysinternals/default.aspx
http://blogs.technet.com/sysinternals/

Microsoft is not the only one getting into Cloud Computing. Google, Yahoo, IBM and others are all moving that way.

[djt]

Microsoft bought out Sysinternals to hire Mark Russinovich. He knew as much about the internals of Windows as Microsoft did, maybe even a little more. And all of the Sysinternal apps are still available with many being updated regularly. Maybe the rootkit one doesn't need anymore updates, or they figured there are plenty of other options out there now?

http://blogs.technet.com/markrussinovich/about.aspx
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-ca/sysinternals/default.aspx
http://blogs.technet.com/sysinternals/

Microsoft is not the only one getting into Cloud Computing. Google, Yahoo, IBM and others are all moving that way.


Thanks for the links. The video on the tools was particularly interesting.

We can only hope that Microsoft puts this guy in charge of creating maintenance utilities for Windows 7.

[loki]

I suspect that he has a part in far more than just maintenance utilities. There aren't that many "Technical Fellows" at Microsoft. These are the top employees in their area of expertise and are among the best in their fields among all high tech companies.

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/techfellow/default.mspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_fellow

I do believe Mike knows at least one of the other people listed there...

[djt]

I suspect that he has a part in far more than just maintenance utilities. There aren't that many "Technical Fellows" at Microsoft. These are the top employees in their area of expertise and are among the best in their fields among all high tech companies.

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/techfellow/default.mspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_fellow

I do believe Mike knows at least one of the other people listed there...


Interesting to say the least, especially when you take into consideration his relationship with Microsoft in the very beginning.

[angels355]

I think Mike's friend is one of the chief designers on the Cloud program. Do you think Cloud will be a product affordable to small business? They mention immersive video games. The processing power would be hard to imagine, but with the capability of such total immersion for online games, there would have to be a way for gamers to interact in such immersion, maybe a 3d goggle and headphone setup? Most of my game friends in my area like games such as World of Warcraft, and other role playing games. The success of online World of Warcraft is incredible, and I think a clear sign that more of that type of thing will be developed in the future. I think that gaming is exceeding Hollywood and tv.

[xxmikexx]

loki and djt and angels355,

I know Dave Cutler. I don't know any of the others. Interesting story about Cutler ...

He and I were drinking buddies at DEC. He was the architect of DEC VMS for the VAX, which begat Win NT at Microsoft, which begat Win2000, which begat XP, which begat Vista. I don't know for sure but I assume that Cutler is still driving the whole issue of the exec -- everthing that sits underneath the shell, which is the user and application interface to the exec.

Anyway, came the time for DEC to fund version five of VMS ... Only the company balked and cancelled the project. Whereupon Cutler made a phone call climbed on the next plane to Seattle and had a meeting next day with Gates and his senior technical staff.

Cutler explained his vision for the future of VMS. This took all day or whatever. Anyway, my understanding is that Gates made Cutler a job offer on the spot, and that Cutler accepted on the spot.

So VMS V5 became WNT. Now ...

Another DEC friend of mine is Richard Lary, a corporate resource at DEC before DEC was eaten alive by Compaq, who were eaten alive by HP. Anyway, Richie (as he hates to be called :)) and I ended up in a meeting together at MCI in Colorado Springs, a meeting in which DEC was trying to sell us (MCI) some VAX computers for a mission-critical application.

Well, it was a lost cause. There was no way I was going to recommend DEC in a situation like that, even though IBM was expecting me to do it. So the meeting was a complete waste of time, and all parties knew it. Over lunch Richie gave me some information ...

"I called Cutler the other day" he said. "I did it because I just last week noticed that just as the letters IBM were changed into HAL for the "2001" movie, so VMS can be changed into WNT by adding one to each letter, so to speak".

Richie went on ... "So I called Cutler and let him know what I had noticed. 'Of course' said Cutler. 'What took you so long?'" :D

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EDIT: Richie and I became white water rafting partners. (We both lived in Colorado Springs at the time of the MCI meeting described above.) On one trip we had to pull off a white water rescue of some novice rafters who had exceeded their capabilities and were in the water, hypothermic, within just minutes of drowning.

But that's another story for another day. I've known Richie since he was a 17-year-old student at Stuyvesant High in NYC. He is the smartest person I have ever met, and one of the nicest. What a guy.

[xxmikexx]

P.S. ...

Regarding IBM-->HAL and VMS-->WNT, in the mid-60s I was riding with a business colleague who was on one of the NSA contracts my company was involved with. Anway, we were on our way to Philadelphia, with him driving ...

"Look at that" he said at one point. "Camden ... D follows C, E follows A, N follows M." I knew immediately what he meant because my brain works that way too, though I hadn't seen it for myself. NSA likes brains that work that way.

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EDIT: No, I didn't work for NSA. In fact, I never worked on any of our NSA contracts. However, because everybody around me WAS doing NSA stuff, I had to be cleared for it, and Top Secret clearances in those days were a Big Deal, second only to the Q clearance required to work on nuclear weapons.

Anyway, to get the clearance I was polygraphed and fingerprinted and interviewed by the FBI ... Who wanted the names of five people, not relatives, who knew me well. The went and visted all of those five people, and asked each of them for the names of five more people who might know me. Then they went to all 25 of those people and asked each of THEM for five names.

So if we don't try to eliminate duplicates they talked to 1+5+25+125 people, asking all kinds of questions, some of them very personal in nature.

It wasn't long before phone calls started coming in, from friends and from friends of friends. "Did you know that the FBI is asking questions about you? What's going on?"

I couldn't tell them. At the time it was even a crime to mention the name "National Security Agency" when with people who weren't suitably cleared. That's how it became known as "No Such Agency" -- because saying that wasn't technically a crime, though for all practical purposes it was the same thing.

So we never said any of those names in our facility because it just didn't seem right. What people said instead was "I'm going south." (We were in Princeton NJ. NSA was and is at Fort Meade in MD.)

[angels355]

"Look at that" he said at one point. "Camden ... D follows C, E follows A, N follows M." I knew immediately what he meant because my brain works that way too, though I hadn't seen it for myself. NSA likes brains that work that way.


So if we don't try to eliminate duplicates they talked to 1+5+25+125 people, asking all kinds of questions, some of them very personal in nature.



Reminds me of the piano.

They spoke to me also, I told them "I knew it! I knew he robbed that bank!!" :)

The outfit I'd like to join is the "Men in Black". And date supermodel alien chicks! :cool:

[loki]

Looks like you can download the original Ultimate Defrag app for free now.

http://www.neowin.net/news/software/08/05/23/ultimatedefrag-freeware-edition-172

[xxmikexx]

I'll give that free version a try since mine is V1.32 and that one is V1.7something ...

I hope it works -- runs to completion -- because Ultimate Defrag has an important feature that none of the others do and that is not only to alpha sort the files and folders but (I think) to put folders right next to the MFT.

This is potentially important because folders are, among other things, effectively local extensions of the MFT, so this can affect file search times -- as when (drum roll) FS is trying to prefetch scenery files, which requires that it search its own scenery file indexes, which are VERY large in the case of FSX because of the massive amount of terrain mesh data.

I forget the details of how this feature interacts with the others but I'll check it out. However, I won't be able to test its offline defrag capability -- the metafiles on both my development and flight systems are already defragged.

Again, if nothing else, you now have a free utility for checking on the health of your metafiles. Select local drive C, then Analyze, and when the analysis is complete, right click on the local C symbol. After that do VolumeInfo and then LockedFiles.

So maybe somebody else could a) check the status of their metafiles, b) try the UD offline defrag algorithm, c) recheck the metafiles status and then d) let us know what happened.

[SPOFF]

Hey Mike: You got anything for us ding dongs who don't know nothin about nothin. Whata I know about "Alpha Sorts" and other techy stuff. I just downloaded "O&O Defrag.. (FREE)". I havn't installed it yet. I want to be sure. When I get really bored..and nothin else is grabbin my attention, and I really need more...Aggravation: maybe I'll install it. :) :) SPOFF

PS: If I didn't have the need to get FSX running acceptably...consistently...(I'm obsessed with this).....And.... I KNOW it WILL RUN on my system because I SEE IT RUN ...every now and then, I would probably be out in the yard doing something my wife would find useful.
.............................
DELL 8300 P4 3.0 Ghz 800 Mhz FSB/HT (2004)
Windows XP Pro (SP2)
EVGA (Nvidia) 7600 GS 256 Mb (PC Power & Cooling [Dell] Upgrade 410W PSU)
Corsair 1.0 Gb x 2: PC 3200 400Mhz Dual Ch DDr SDRAM
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Gamer, Altec Lansing 2.1
120 Gb Sata HD (55% Free)
Samsung SyncMaster 213T (TFT) 4:3 21" Digital (1024x768x32)
Microsoft Force feedback 2 Joystick
FS9.1, FSX (SP1 only)

[xxmikexx]

SPOFF,

You can read about the alpha sort stuff in an article series I wrote shortly after FSX came out. Read the articles in reverse order starting with this one ... http://www.flightsim.com/cgi/kds?$=main/op-ed/ed394.htm By the way, Phil Taylor recently read the series and blessed what I had to say about alpha sorting.

If things are still not clear after that I'll take another run at it here in this forum. The articles also talk about the concept of a balanced system and I'll be willing to write about that too here in this forum. However, Phil Taylor didn't comment on that aspect of what I wrote so I don't know whether he approved or disapproved.

Let me know how it goes for you, okay?

EDIT: Not knowing does not make you a ding-dong. None of us was born knowing this stuff. You are way ahead of the game because a) you asked, and b) you want to learn. Most people just go with majority opinions instead of trying to come to understand the issues.

By the way, I hope you've been noticing that I try to make sure that everybody gets to see all sides of an issue. I hold strong opinions, and I can state why I hold them, but at the same time there are other valid positions, and anyway I don't know everything -- I too am still learning, just as everybody with an open mind continues to learn.

So ask away. That way we'll have threads with a lot of contributions from some really knowledgable people, and collectively we'll cover all sides of the various issues so that folks can make their own minds up about what's best for their individual situations.

[angels355]

Looks like you can download the original Ultimate Defrag app for free now.

http://www.neowin.net/news/software/08/05/23/ultimatedefrag-freeware-edition-172

Thanks loki,

Are there any objections to it? It sounds better than the stock defragmenter, what do you recommend? I was impressed by Diskeeper, but I wonder if this is better as you can for example designate flight simulator for higher performance.

I haven't had a chance to look at the other defragmenters, I wonder if they are 98se/me compatible. The Ultimate defragmenter is xp/vista only. 98se/me really need a better defragmenter, it seems that the default defragmenter might actually defrag wrong. It at least defrags completely differently than Diskeeper which I believe was the designer source for the xp default defragmenter.

I picked up win 2000 pro today. I like to have only the very latest cutting edge technology on my computers. Ties are extra wide this year, right? Awww, I'l just wear my SR-71 t-shirt!

[xxmikexx]

Folks,

I just downloaded and ran the freeware version of Ultimate Defrag. It did not work for me though it might work for you ...

The first thing I tried to do was to analyze the C drive (this worked) followed by getting the volume information report required to see the state of the system metafiles.

This action caused a UD crash. I did not attempt to do anything else with the freeware version of UD, and I have rolled back to my older payware version since, while that too is broken, it will at least report on the state of the metafiles.

[angels355]

Folks,

I just downloaded and ran the freeware version of Ultimate Defrag. It did not work for me though it might work for you ...

The first thing I tried to do was to analyze the C drive (this worked) followed by getting the volume information report required to see the state of the system metafiles.

This action caused a UD crash. I did not attempt to do anything else with the freeware version of UD, and I have rolled back to my older payware version since, while that too is broken, it will at least report on the state of the metafiles.

When programs fail to run like that on my computers, if it gets seriously bad, I start suspecting hdd and/or mobo failure. Perhaps, just in case, back up your data, get the hdd diagnostic tool from the hdd manufacturer and give it the short and long test, both of them. I hope it's not an emachine, w/ "Mission Impossible" psu, "this psu will self destruct and take the mobo with it, in 10 seconds!'

I hope your windows is not corrupted, perhaps run a thorough chkdisk on startup.

My 98se/me computers would not defrag in normal mode, not enough resources, haven't tried w/ me and a 2.53 ghz celeron however. (98/se/me have the worst defragger ever.) So since then it has just been my personal habit to defrag in safe mode, my computers traditionally have been too weak for normal mode defragging.

I might not be able to try out UD or O & O for a while, so perhaps you other guys can report your findings on using them.

[xxmikexx]

angels355,

You wrote "I might not be able to try out UD or O & O for a while, so perhaps you other guys can report your findings on using them." ...

You might try reading the entirety of the thread you're in. Also, you might search for related posts and threads elsewhere in this forum. All three major programs, UD, O&O and PD, as well as the more important firmware defraggers, have been discussed at great length in this thread and in this forum.

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You also wrote "When programs fail to run like that on my computers, if it gets seriously bad, I start suspecting hdd and/or mobo failure."

Suspect all you want. The program failed, my system is fine, my hard drive is fine, my file system is in great shape.

The failure may or may not have something to do with the program's ability to online defragment the online file structure. I don't know because I didn't get that far and didn't test that stuff. What I do know is that in previous versions of UD, on several systems, including all four of my own, the program installation would degrade with use and in fairly short order the program would fail to run to completion, rendering it useless as a defragger ...

... And leaving it useful only as a tool for determining the fragmentation state of the metafiles, which is the very feature of the freeware version that failed for me. So I've rolled back to my obsolete payware version, but only for purposes of metafile health determination.

This problem also was not my MoBo -- it was documented on the DiskTrix website. Whether it applies to the freeware version I don't know because I don't read their website -- it took six months for them to acknowledge that people were having the problems I was having. When they did acknowledge it they made another release, claiming that the problem had been fixed. It may well have been fixed for everybody else in the world -- but it still didn't work for me, not on two of my computers. (This time I didn't bother to test on the other two.)

So somebody else will have to tell us whether the freeware version will run to completion twenty times in a row. Either that or you'll all have to wait till I get a round tuit, which may not be for several months.

[angels355]

I have read the thread in its' entirety,




So somebody else will have to tell us whether the freeware version will run to completion twenty times in a row. Either that or you'll all have to wait till I get a round tuit, which may not be for several months.

that is what I meant, how well the free UD runs for others, and if SPOFF tries out the trial version of O & O.

Myself, I don't have enough disk space, and plus, that psu might be failing so I'm not going to turn it on until I get another psu.

From the sound of my previous post you might suspect that I've had a few hardware failures--actually inundated with hardware failures, situation normal!

[SPOFF]

I tried this program last night. It was designed for Windows NT/2000. It doesn't specifically mention anything newer..but it also mentioned the 486. That goes back aways. So anywho, I ran it and it takes awhile. I ran it a total of three times. I didn't "time it" the first time. The next TWO times it took about 26 minutes each. It took me awhile to figure out what was going on because the "Graphical Presentation" is much different than the stock XP Pro Defrag.

O&O has a "percentage complete" indicator up on the top. When O&O was finished, I ran the stock XP Pro Defrag and it took 45 Seconds. I've never seen it take that short a time. "Normally" it takes anywhere from 3 to 5 minutes.

After I Re-Installed FSX and SP1 at the end of March, the Stock XP Pro Defrag took 29 minutes. My HDD is 120Gb with 55% free space.

My impression is that O&O is very thorough, :) ...although SLOW. I can live with Slow if it does a superior job to XP Pro Defrag. SPOFF

PS: I usually Defrag every couple of weeks.. or more often if I'm using Add/Remove.

[greggerm]

On the original poster's question (and subsequent conversations...)

I wonder if the reason the original poster's system was taking forever and a day to defragment was due to both the lack of enough free space, AND running in Safe Mode. Depending upon the driver and system configuration, it could be that safe mode drops back to the "most compatible" hard drive system driver (not unlike how it drops back from accelerated video)... this driver slow the access to the drive down, and with a demanding task like defragging, simply be getting overwhelmed.

Kristofer, try the defrag in normal mode to see if you get a speed improvement. If possible, you may wish to move off a portion of your data to another drive to make a little extra space for the defrag task to work with...

Back to your regularly scheduled Sysinternals discussion... :)
-Greg

[angels355]

On the original poster's question (and subsequent conversations...)

I wonder if the reason the original poster's system was taking forever and a day to defragment was due to both the lack of enough free space, AND running in Safe Mode. Depending upon the driver and system configuration, it could be that safe mode drops back to the "most compatible" hard drive system driver (not unlike how it drops back from accelerated video)... this driver slow the access to the drive down, and with a demanding task like defragging, simply be getting overwhelmed.

Kristofer, try the defrag in normal mode to see if you get a speed improvement. If possible, you may wish to move off a portion of your data to another drive to make a little extra space for the defrag task to work with...

Back to your regularly scheduled Sysinternals discussion... :)
-Greg

I don't think that would be a valid test because he's already defragged the hdd, and so the following defrags will naturally be faster. I believe the overriding factor in the length of time is firstly how fragmented the hdd was to start with combined with the amount of data involved. Before I deleted xp, I had 30 gb's on a 160 gb sata on a p4 2.8 ghz system w/ 512 mb's ram. In safe mode it took around 4 or 5 hours? But it was very fragmented to start with. I can't remember if I defragged right after that, I usually do about 3 times at least, but now just can't remember. Then I did a zero fill on the hdd, then used Sabayon 3.4 to make a new ntfs partition for the whole hdd (easy), and have been using Sabayon 3.4 on that computer to this point.

Has anyone checked to see who provided the Vista default defragger, whether it was Diskeeper and company, or could it be O & O?