Defragmenting under Windows 7

I went directly from XP to Win 7 and have a question about defragmenting the my hard disk. Under xp if I chose to defragment, as I recall, the process would not start until the next reboot. Under Win 7, defragmenting takes place imediately and from what I read I can continue to use the computer while it does so.

Have I misinterpreted? It sure is a nice feature.

Thank you.

You would be slowing defrag down somewhat by continuing to use the PC----but at any rate the general consensus on Win 7 defrag is to set it on a schedule (maybe once a week) and forget it.

I haven't manually defragged since I installed Win 7 14 months ago and have never had over 5% fragmentation, with a weekly schedule.

But you may be obsessive a bit and can't resist? I understand that.

ignatzatsonic said:

You would be slowing defrag down somewhat by continuing to use the PC----but at any rate the general consensus on Win 7 defrag is to set it on a schedule (maybe once a week) and forget it.

I haven't manually defragged since I installed Win 7 14 months ago and have never had over 5% fragmentation, with a weekly schedule.

But you may be obsessive a bit and can't resist? I understand that.

Thank you. I still wonder why the defragging of the system drive can take place immediately and not wait until the next boot. This is a major change from previous Windows I think.

Thanks again.

Joules said:

It's not defragmenting system files that's why, and windows doesn't support that feature deframenters like raxco, diskeeper, ultimate defrag and many other have a boot-time defragmenting feature for files that are being used while the operating system is running thats why these files are defragged before the system starts using them.

That explains it.

Thank you very much.

Joules said:

It's not defragmenting system files that's why, and windows doesn't support that feature deframenters like raxco, diskeeper, ultimate defrag and many other have a boot-time defragmenting feature for files that are being used while the operating system is running thats why these files are defragged before the system starts using them.

Windows 7 defragments the MFT and other system files.

Disk Defragmentation

quoting from the article:

Among the other changes under the hood in Windows 7 are the following:

• Defragmentation in Windows 7 is more comprehensive – many files that could not be re-located in Windows Vista or earlier versions can now be optimally re-placed. In particular, a lot of work was done to make various NTFS metadata files movable. This ability to relocate NTFS metadata files also benefits volume shrink, since it enables the system to pack all files and file system metadata more closely and free up space “at the end” which can be reclaimed if required.

jsquareg said:

Joules said:

It's not defragmenting system files that's why, and windows doesn't support that feature deframenters like raxco, diskeeper, ultimate defrag and many other have a boot-time defragmenting feature for files that are being used while the operating system is running thats why these files are defragged before the system starts using them.

That explains it.

Thank you very much.

Actually, even the default XP utility defrags immediately when you click on 'Defrag'. It's manual defrag behavior is no different from 7's...both can be started at will (for XP, only for one drive).

The W7's defrag can now defrag more system files and is easier to schedule, but I don't think it can still defrag all metadata like some (not free) commercial utilities.

For me, the lack of a proper GUI, lack of defrag options for individual drives, and the fact that it's so slow (in fact much slower than XP's was even when no other apps are running) is disappointing. YMMV ofcourse.