How Windows 7 defrag schedule work

Same here; I just use the built-in Win 7 defragger without the task scheduler. I have it set to run at 2AM every Wednesday. Even if I am up at the time and using the computer, I can't tell it's operating but, every time I've checked, it had been working just fine. If I manually check the day before it is scheduled to defrag, I've never had any more than 3% defragmentation; 1-2% is the norm. Can't beat that with a big stick.

Yup, I leave it at default too, works great. Do you turn your PC off on Wednesday, or is that a rhetorical scenario?

Britton30 said:

Yup, I leave it at default too, works great. Do you turn your PC off on Wednesday, or is that a rhetorical scenario?

Nope and that is the schedule. My PC stays on 24/7 with occasional reboots, roughly one a week. There is no need to do a shutdown just to do a defrag.

Edit: Just for excrement and merriment, I checked my HDDs and both are at 0% fragmentation.

Jeannie, I was referring to the OP saying if "computer is close in the night of wednesday to Thursday".

Britton30 said:

Jeannie, I was referring to the OP saying if "computer is close in the night of wednesday to Thursday".

Oopsie!

pominator said:

Is there any particular reason you are using Task Scheduler or the idle setting??

I just use the built-in Windows 7 settings, without Task Scheduler. It runs once a week completely in the background. I never notice it at all.

I haven't manually defragged in several years. Both of my hard drives are shown as 0 percent fragmented.

Britton30 said:

Yup, I leave it at default too, works great. Do you turn your PC off on Wednesday, or is that a rhetorical scenario?

The task scheduler settings are not a custom one but the fine tuning options of the default defrag in Windows 7. It explain the logical behind the schedule within the task scheduler, yet I do not fully understanding it.

It start defrag at wednesday 1 am if it is idle since at least 3 minutes. If the computer is close or in use, it will start the defrag next time it can, so the next time the computer will be idle 3 minutes. Like I said in my first post, what happen if one idle 3 minutes, the defrag start, then start using the computer again, way before the defrag have ended ? I don't have problem with fragmentation, I just want to understand how it works.

Where are you finding these fine tuning options? I'm unable to find them in my Win 7 defragger. This is the screen I get when I hit the Windows key and type defrag:



The reason the C: drive is showing such a high defragmentation is it is a SSD and I do not defrag it; defragging a SSD can shorten the life of it with excessive writes. SSDs can handle defragmentation just fine with no loss of performance.

Clicking on the Configure Schedule button gives me this:



Clicking on Frequency just gives me a choice of Daily, Weekly, or Monthly. Clicking on Day gives me a choice of any one day Sunday through Saturday. clicking on Time just gives me a choice of any one hour of the day. Clicking on Disks gives me this:



Note only my spinners are shown and the C: drive has been excluded. Win 7 will automagically exclude SSDs as long as the Automatically Defragment New Disks box is left unchecked. Curiously enough, checking just both of the spinner's boxes will cause the Select all Disks box to automagically be selected.

Clicking OK closes the Select Disks for Schedule and Modify Schedule windows. Clicking Close in the Disk Defragmenter window will close the window and finish the scheduling process. Nowhere did I see anything about three minute delays, etc.