Windows 7: How Do I Defragment Virtual Machines?

On one of my computers, I use XP Mode and on my other computer, I use Windows XP on VMware Player. I'm not sure how I would go about defragmenting these virtual machines since I heard that it's not a good idea to use defragmenting programs inside virtual machines. From what I've been told, using defragmenting programs inside virtual machines will write data on all of the space designated to the virtual machines. Is this true? If so, then how do I improve the performance of my virtual machines? I know VMware Player has a tool that can be used to defragment the virtual machine when it's not running, but how do I defragment XP Mode?

Klaw117, if you installed the integration utilities then you should have a cdrom
attached such as:


you can compact the drive by running the precompact cdrom.


Rich

Is compaction the same as defragmentation for Windows Virtual PC?

No, defrag for virtual PC is not the same as compaction. As the virtual PC can grow in size as you need more space, compation moves all the data to the front of the drive and frees up the slack space. So it then can grow as you need more space. But Defragmentation just moves all the data around in your virtual drive to make the files contigious and does not free up unused space.


If you look at the layout of a virtual disk when you first creat it, it only is as big as the space needed. It will automatically add more space as you create new data or install other programs.

Rich

Ok, thanks a lot.