Controlling Defragmentation in Vista

Even though Vista defrags on its own, you can still watch it work if you want.

Q: I remember in Windows XP that you could analyze the disk usage of your computer's hard drive and see which parts of the drive were filled up. You would right-click on a drive, click Properties, go to the Tools tab, and choose Defragment. In the Defragment window you could right-click on a drive and select Analyze. Then a color image would appear at the bottom showing disk usage. Is there any way you can do that with Vista?—K. King

A: That's not the Vista Way. In Vista, defragmentation happens automatically in the background without your intervention. Microsoft says it removed the flashy analysis report because defragmentation just isn't something you have to watch. Makes sense to me!

But if you're desperate to get some kind of analysis even though Vista doesn't volunteer any, try this: Click Start and type cmd. You'll see cmd.exe up above in the Start menu. Right-click it and choose Run as administrator. User Account Control will require you to confirm this action (or supply an Administrator password). In the resulting window enter the command DEFRAG C: -A (that's A for Analyze). This will yield a simple analysis of drive C:'s fragmentation level, with advice about whether the drive needs defragging. In most cases you won't need it because defragmentation has already happened in the background.

If you really want to defragment the disk right away, even though DEFRAG has said it's not needed, you can do that from the same Command Prompt. Simply enter the command DEFRAG C: -F -V (that's F for Force, V for View). You still won't see the nice, familiar color image showing fragmented files, nonfragmented files, and free space. To get that display, you'll have to purchase a Vista-compatible third-party defragger such as Diskeeper or PerfectDisk.

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