Defrag won't start

[McDougal]

Hi all,

Today I decided to do a defrag with the default Windows 7 defagger. I went to run and typed dfrgui.exe to open it, and nothing happened, no error messages, nothing. I thought, maybe my Auslogics Disk Defrag is conflicting, so I used Revo Uninstaller to uninstall that, and still the same results. I tried searching disk defrag in start menu and selecting it from there, and still won't open. I am very confused as to why this is happening and I don't remember changing any settings.

Thanks for the help!

-McDougal

 

[richc46]

As a suggestion why not stay with Auslogics or defragger. Just as good or better than the native defrag.

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Hello McDougal.





I put dfrgui.exe into either run or the start search and defrag opens.



Does your system consist of only a Solid State Drive (SSD)?

 

[McDougal]

The reason why I switched from Auslogics is I like the idea of a scheduled defrag in the background. And no, I do not have a SSD, I have a 250GB HDD (see system specs). I am still unable to open the Windows defragger, I tried again.

 

[gonediscin]

I am having the same problem. I built my machine a couple months ago, and finally got around to do a defrag. I have no other defrag programs. I do have an SSD as my boot and adobe software drive, but am trying to defrag my data HDD. This has stumpted me big time . The only thing I can think of is that I moved some default locations to the D drive to prevent needless read/wrights to my SSD and maybe that screwed things up, maybe. Windows 7 ultimate 64b is my OS and I want my index over 7 again, please help!

 

[gonediscin]

¿Any suggestions for me and McDougal? I can't even open it when I go to it's file location and run as admin. Im on the admin account, my only account. I am using MS security essentials, if that matters.

 

[madtownidiot]

open up services.msc and check the disk defragmenter service .. it may have been disabled to prevent defragmenting of the SSD

 

[McDougal]

Oops wow lol I didn't even realize there was a Disk Defragmenter service. I went to services.msc and it was stopped and set on Manual, I set it to Automatic (Delayed Start) and started the service, and I can confirm that it works!

 

[madtownidiot]

the defragmenter service is not something you want starting automatically. Unless you plan to defrag every time you boot, set it to manual... glad I could help

 

[gonediscin]

Thank you awesome it works now! I am about to defrag since the program started! I set it to manual. I guess I followed so many instructions to protect my SSD i forgot what I turned off, lol! Thank you Madtownsmartguy, can't call you an idiot after what I did!

Can I leave this on manual and disable accidentally defragging my ssd?

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Hello again.







Windows 7 will not defrag an SSD, it's off by default for SSDs, so don't be concerned about that.

 

[GuccizBud]

( 1786 days later . . . )

So I came upon this thread looking for a solution to my particular situation, which is simply that I absolutely cannot run the Windows®7 defragger from the command line, despite everything looking to be normal and in place.

The specifics in my case:

• Firstly I do NOT have a file called defrag.exe in Windows®7; what I have is dfrgui.exe Well. I mention that because I have seen, on web pages that discuss the Windows®7 defragger, images where the author is clearly invoking defrag.exe from the command line, not dfrgui.exe. If it matters, this is Windows®7 Pro -x64.

• When I run dfrgui.exe from an elevated command shell absolutely nothing happens, by which I mean I just get another prompt. If someone were to open a cmd shell, type just a colon ( this→ : ) at the prompt, and hit Enter, they would see exactly what I see when I type dfrgui in place of a colon.

• The Disk Defragmenter service was, and is, set to Manual on my system, so that isn't the problem.

• The HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\MyComputer\DefragPath registry key is set to %systemroot%\system32\dfrgui.exe, so that's as it should be as well.

• If I try running the Windows defragger from the GUI, it does in fact run fine, in that if I point to a drive, call up its properties, select the｜Tools｜tab, and click the [ Defragment now… ] button, I get the little Windows®7 Disk Defragmenter pop-up window ( with Disk, Last Run, and Progress columns ), and all functions like [ Analyze disk ], [ Defragment ], and [ Configure Schedule… ] work fine.

It appears I simply cannot run it from the command line, but everything is in place as you can see, and it should also work from there.

I'm not expecting a plethora of answers (always wanted to use that word       :sarc:   ) because, somewhat understandably, I expect most folks to be of the "leave well enough alone" persuasion, but I still want to fix this, so if anyone has any ideas not already covered by my bulleted list above, I'd love to hear them.

* * * * * *
​

Message to the OP (McDougal)

You can, in fact, schedule defrags with the auslogics® defragger as well. And here's a secret : a lot of commercial defraggers are really just front ends for the Windows®7 defragger, meaning they give you a much nicer user interface to see what's going on, but use the Windows defragmentation "engine" to get the actual work done… and auslogics® is one of these. If you find this surprising or even hard to believe ( I did at first ), try this :

• open up the Windows®7 defragger and turn OFF the scheduler… make sure it isn't set to run automatically at any time on any day

• start up the auslogics® defragger, and configure that one to a schedule… doesn't have to be very involved, just set it to something specific like, say, having drive C: defragged daily at 2:00 AM… then close it, making sure your scheduled settings were saved

• lastly, open up the Windows®7 defragger again… you had turned off scheduling, right?… so why does it now say at the top Scheduled defragmentation is turned on… run at 2:00 am every day… next scheduled run: yyyy-mm-dd 2:00 am, lol  ?!?  :shock: Point being that, since scheduling exists in the Windows®7 defragger, all a 3rd party defragger has to do is include a menu for the user to set scheduling preferences, since those parameters will just be passed along to the Windows®7 defragger as well.   

 

[Callender]

Okay on my machine Windows 7 HP:

I have the following files:

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Note: I don't actually use the built in windows defrag.

However it would seem that defrag.exe exists in WINSXS so it's a missing system file on your machine (unless it's set to "hidden" view)

I'd suggest attempting to replace the file in system32 using the copy in WINSXS. I personally use software in order to replace system files so maybe wait for other suggestions on this. If nobody helps I can post the method that I use.

Note: dfrgui.exe would seem to be the Graphical User Interface (GUI) for windows defrag. That's my guess.