XP automatically defrags while idle?

[Gonad the Barbarian]

Is this so? Playing around with Cacheman I see an option to disable this. Anyone know the specific registry entry to turn this off? Occaisionally I'd hear chirps from my computer and it was driving me crazy. I figured it wasn't the hard drive because the system was idle and so I thought I had a noisey fan. But since I checked this option I haven't heard the noise, so I'd really like to know how to turn this off w/o Cacheman. Thanks.

 

[Sianath]

There is no such feature in Windows XP. You can't even schedule a defragment if you wanted to outside of command-line.

For those that are interested, you do so with the defrag.exe command-line utility.

283080 Description of the New Command Line Defrag.exe Included with Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=283080

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: Sianath
There is no such feature in Windows XP. You can't even schedule a defragment if you wanted to outside of command-line. For those that are interested, you do so with the defrag.exe command-line utility. 283080 Description of the New Command Line Defrag.exe Included with Windows XP http://support.microsoft.com/?id=283080

Mostly wrong.

Every three days (or so) while idle, XP optimizes the layout of recently used files based on the layout data stored in the prefetch directory. However, to be fair to Sianath this is not a 'full' defrag, just a partial against those apps.

Bill

 

[johnjkr1]

Windows XP definelty moves files around while its idle for better application performance, and yes, it's a feature.

 

[Twista]

Well yes it is. When xp first came out all you heard was "This is the 1st os to automaticlly defrag itself when idle" Was on tv computer shows and ect.

 

[dawks]

Originally posted by: bsobel

Originally posted by: Sianath
There is no such feature in Windows XP. You can't even schedule a defragment if you wanted to outside of command-line. For those that are interested, you do so with the defrag.exe command-line utility. 283080 Description of the New Command Line Defrag.exe Included with Windows XP http://support.microsoft.com/?id=283080

Mostly wrong.

Every three days (or so) while idle, XP optimizes the layout of recently used files based on the layout data stored in the prefetch directory. However, to be fair to Sianath this is not a 'full' defrag, just a partial against those apps.

Bill

Yes, this is most definatly not a full defrag. It only attempts to help programs launch a little quicker. Its by no means a replacement for a full 'manual' defrag. Full degfrags can do a much better job at optimizing program launch times.

Just a side note: Windows XP can also show additional disk activity while 'idle'. This is often related to the indexing service, which makes searching for files on the system faster.

 

[Sianath]

bsobel, documentation please?

227463 Disk Defragmenter Limitations in Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=227463

314848 How to Defragment Your Disk Drive Volumes in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=314848

On top of that, I actually support the product here at Microsoft. I can guarantee we do no defragmentation during idle times.

If you want to go beyond documenation in the KB, check out Windows XP, Inside Out. It lists the same things I stated above, as well as what is documented in the articles I listed.

For those of you watching this thread that work at MS, I also verified this with CPR.

 

[pitupepito2000]

is this a bug or a feature ?

 

[Sianath]

LOL, which part? The fact we don't defrag in the background during idle times, or the fact that some people think we do.

The first is by design. The second... a feature maybe?

 

[addragyn]

For trivias sake, OS X has something like what the poster is asking about, adaptive hot file clustering.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

Sianath, what is done during idle time then? Are files being moved around for any reason? If so how can I stop it? Thanks.

 

[CTho9305]

Originally posted by: Sianath
LOL, which part? The fact we don't defrag in the background during idle times, or the fact that some people think we do.

The first is by design. The second... a feature maybe?

Link

Prefetching is further improved if the files are located next to each other on the outer edge of the disk. Windows XP Professional optimizes the location of boot files and applications when the computer is idle. The optimization occurs in the background and lasts only a minute or two; you might hear the hard disk being accessed when optimization occurs. After the initial optimization takes place, subsequent optimization occurs, at most, every three days.

Tech support guys don't know everything about the product they support .

Just in case that one link isn't enough evidence... [l=this page] states:

Defragmentation

I/O performance is strongly influenced by the layout of files on disk. Files and directories that are heavily fragmented or dispersed across the disk will hurt performance. While Windows XP will automatically reposition some files to improve performance, this will generally be done infrequently and will usually include only a small fraction of the files on the disk. Therefore, it is a good idea to defragment the disk following an installation.

Once every three days, by default, Windows XP will perform a partial defragmentation and adjust the layout of the disk based upon current use. The files to be moved are written in the file Layout.ini (found in the Prefetch directory under the System Root directory).

Prefetching is further improved if the files are located next to each other on the outer edge of the disk. Windows XP Professional optimizes the location of boot files and applications when the computer is idle. The optimization occurs in the background and lasts only a minute or two; you might hear the hard disk being accessed when optimization occurs. After the initial optimization takes place, subsequent optimization occurs, at most, every three days.

Tech support guys don't know everything about the product they support .

Just in case that one link isn't enough evidence... [l=this page] states:

Defragmentation

I/O performance is strongly influenced by the layout of files on disk. Files and directories that are heavily fragmented or dispersed across the disk will hurt performance. While Windows XP will automatically reposition some files to improve performance, this will generally be done infrequently and will usually include only a small fraction of the files on the disk. Therefore, it is a good idea to defragment the disk following an installation.

Once every three days, by default, Windows XP will perform a partial defragmentation and adjust the layout of the disk based upon current use. The files to be moved are written in the file Layout.ini (found in the Prefetch directory under the System Root directory).

 

[wayliff]

Originally posted by: Sianath
bsobel, documentation please?

227463 Disk Defragmenter Limitations in Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=227463

314848 How to Defragment Your Disk Drive Volumes in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=314848

On top of that, I actually support the product here at Microsoft. I can guarantee we do no defragmentation during idle times.

If you want to go beyond documenation in the KB, check out Windows XP, Inside Out. It lists the same things I stated above, as well as what is documented in the articles I listed.

For those of you watching this thread that work at MS, I also verified this with CPR.

Funny how Microsoft contradicts itself.

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: Sianath
LOL, which part? The fact we don't defrag in the background during idle times, or the fact that some people think we do. The first is by design. The second... a feature maybe?

You claim to work for MS right, I can't believe your this clueless about your own product.
Bill

 

[CTho9305]

Originally posted by: bsobel

Originally posted by: Sianath
LOL, which part? The fact we don't defrag in the background during idle times, or the fact that some people think we do. The first is by design. The second... a feature maybe?

You claim to work for MS right, I can't believe your this clueless about your own product.
Bill

Tech support monkeys only need to be trained on user-observable stuff .

No offense to Sianath. I've seen other posts by you - you're helpful for a lot of people. You're just wrong this time.

 

[mee987]

the auto-partial-defrag, assuming it does exist, only happens once every 3 days. i bet what gonad is experiencing is the auto indexing. maybe someone can help him disable that?

 

[bsobel]

No offense to Sianath. I've seen other posts by you - you're helpful for a lot of people. You're just wrong this time.

Fair enough, my comment was probably a bit too harsh.
Bill

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

Originally posted by: mee987
the auto-partial-defrag, assuming it does exist, only happens once every 3 days. i bet what gonad is experiencing is the auto indexing. maybe someone can help him disable that?

I don't think it's indexing. I'm pretty sure I disabled that along with a lot of the other junk that XP tries to load/do by default when I installed. Whatever it was doing, that setting in Cacheman seems to have stopped it. I'd just like to know what it does and how to do it manually.

 

[Sianath]

Thank you for that article bsobel, I ran it by the dev group and they said it's somewhat correct, and redirected me to some internal docs that are better.

So I stand corrected (kind of).

For those that are internal, I pinged the Dev Lead for the Core File Services group... if you want the internal URL to the docs, send me a PM.

So yes, we do actually move a very small subset of files on disk.

 

[Antoneo]

I think you can turn this feature off with TweakUI (one of the powertoys available from Microsoft).
Go to: General>> Optimize Hard Disk While Idle (uncheck it).

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

Originally posted by: Antoneo
I think you can turn this feature off with TweakUI (one of the powertoys available from Microsoft).
Go to: General>> Optimize Hard Disk While Idle (uncheck it).

I'm looking and don't see it.

 

[Antoneo]

Originally posted by: Gonad the Barbarian

Originally posted by: Antoneo
I think you can turn this feature off with TweakUI (one of the powertoys available from Microsoft).
Go to: General>> Optimize Hard Disk While Idle (uncheck it).

I'm looking and don't see it.

Hrmm. General >> Settings >> Optimize Hard Disk While Idle.

It's not a separate branch entry, it's listed under the Settings when you click on General (bottom of the list).

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

Ok, I downloaded TweakUI again and it's there now. I must have had an old version. Thanks.

 

[Sianath]

Ignore this if you are using TweakUI (not positive how it does it, but I assume the same way mentioned here), but here is an answer from Dev on how you can disable the optimization without disabling the Prefetch component.

If you want to just disable the optimal file layout, we advertised the following registry value to 3rd party defraggers.

Create a REG_DWORD EnableAutoLayout with 0 as the value under
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\OptimalLayout

 

[zephyrprime]

As I recall, the application loading order thingie was originally made by Intel. It has been in windows since 98se but I think it was only added to the NT line as of XP. It's not actually a defragger at all. It works by purposely fragmenting your exe and dlls so they appear on the drive in the order that they load into memory.

Diskeeper offers background and screen saver defragging.