User manual WINTERNALS DEFRAG COMMANDER PERSONAL EDITION

Defrag Commander Personal Edition User's Guide Winternals Software LP 3101 Bee Caves Road, Suite 150 Austin, Texas 78746 (512) 330-9130 (512) 330-9131 Fax www.winternals.com Copyright © 2002 Winternals Software LP Defrag Commander Personal Edition Table of Contents Table of Contents ................................................................................ i 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Introduction................................................................................... 1 Requirements................................................................................ 2 Licensing....................................................................................... 3 The Defrag Commander Window ................................................ 4 The Schedule Properties Dialog Box.......................................... 6 Scheduling a Defragmentation.................................................... 7 Frequently Asked Questions ....................................................... 9 Technical Support ...................................................................... 11 Winternals Software LP Rev 010820a Page i Defrag Commander Personal Edition 1 Introduction Welcome to Winternals Software's Defrag Commander Personal Edition (PE). Defrag Commander PE is a defragmenter for Windows 2000® and Windows NT® - and can schedule the built-in defragmenters of Windows Me®, Windows 98®, Windows 95®, and optionally Windows 2000 systems - so that you can define arbitrarily complex defragmentation schedules for individual volumes, or for all the volumes on your computer. Defrag Commander PE also makes it possible for you to view a log file of a volume's most recent defragmentation so that you can gauge the effectiveness of your defragmentation schedule. And, while the built-in Windows 2000 defragmenter snap-in does not allow you to manually initiate a defragmentation and then exit MMC, Defrag Commander PE does. Winternals Software LP Rev 010820a Page 1 Defrag Commander Personal Edition 2 Requirements Defrag Commander PE Defrag requires Windows NT 4 with the Microsoft Task Scheduler (included with the off-line browsing package for Internet Explorer 5.0 or higher), or Windows 2000, Me, 98, or 95. Winternals Software LP Rev 010820a Page 2 Defrag Commander Personal Edition 3 Licensing Defrag Commander PE is licensed by seat, and one license permits the user to install and run the software on one system. It is the responsibility of the user to insure that the product is not distributed or installed in such a way that the software license is exceeded When Defrag Commander PE is initially launched you will be prompted to activate your product with a license key. To receive a license key by email, have your license number available and click on the link in the Software Licensing dialog box or follow the link in your Winternals licensing email. To activate your product follow the instructions in the email that accompanies your license key. For help with licensing issues please contact customerservice@winternals.com with the details of your purchase. Winternals Software LP Rev 010820a Page 3 Defrag Commander Personal Edition 4 The Defrag Commander Window The Defrag Commander PE window (Figure 4-1) lists each of the volumes present on your computer, as well as an "All Volumes" entry that represents all the volumes on the system. For each entry, Defrag Commander PE shows you the last time a scheduled defragmentation ran for that entry, the next time one is scheduled to run, as well as the file system format, size, and free space of the volume when applicable. Selecting an entry results in the following actions being accessible, either from the MMC Action menu, or from the context-menu that appears when you right-click on an entry: · · · · Create or edit a defragmentation schedule View a log of the last scheduled defragmentation run Initiate a defragmentation Cancel an in-progress defragmentation Figure 4-1 Winternals Software LP Rev 010820a Page 4 Defrag Commander Personal Edition When you create or edit a defragmentation schedule a property-sheet dialog box appears that shows you the log file, if any, from the last scheduled defragmentation of that entry. The second and third tabs in the dialog box let you specify defragmentation schedules and execution parameters that are used when a schedule executes. Execution parameters allow you to configure a schedule so that it only runs when the computer is plugged in, and to limit the amount of time the defragmentation process can run before it is terminated, for example. The scheduling tabs of the dialog box are the same as those used by the Windows 2000 Task Scheduler. Winternals Software LP Rev 010820a Page 5 Defrag Commander Personal Edition 5 The Schedule Properties Dialog Box When you edit a defragmentation schedule a property-sheet dialog box appears with several pages. The LOG page lets you view the log of a computer's most recent execution of the schedule. The PRIORITY page of the property sheet allows you to set the priority of your defrag schedule. The SCHEDULE and SETTINGS pages allow you to schedule the dates and times when defragmentation will execute, as well as to configure a schedule so that it only runs when the computer is plugged in, and to limit the amount of time the defragmentation process can run before it is terminated, for example. Figure 5-1 Winternals Software LP Rev 010820a Page 6 Defrag Commander Personal Edition 6 Scheduling a Defragmentation 1) Open Defrag Commander PE 2) Click on the entry that you want to schedule 3) Select Schedule Properties from the Action menu or from the rightclick context-menu 4) Click on the Schedule tab in the dialog box that appears and configure a schedule 5) Click on the Settings tab to configure when (e.g. when computer is plugged-in) and for how long a defragmentation can run Figure 6-1 Winternals Software LP Rev 010820a Page 7 Defrag Commander Personal Edition Notes · If you are running Defrag Commander PE on Windows 2000 or NT you must be logged on as an administrator or a member of the Administrators group in order to complete this procedure. If your computer is connected to a network, network policy settings may also prevent you from completing this procedure. · To open Defrag Commander Personal Edition, click Start, point to Programs, point to Defrag Commander PE, and then click Defrag Commander PE. Defrag Commander PE is also accessible from the Computer Management snap-in, which is located in the Administrative Tools folder of the Control Panel. · To initiate an immediate defragmentation, select Defrag Now from the Action menu or the entry's context menu. · To interrupt a defragmentation, select Stop Defrag from the Action menu or the entry's context menu. · To view the log of a completed defrag, click Schedule Properties from the Action menu or the entry's context menu and click the Log tab. · You can independently define schedules for individual volumes and for all the volumes (the All Volumes entry) on the computer. · Scheduled defrags run sequentially. Defrags that are waiting to run are listed as Queued. You can cancel queued defragmentation the same way as you interrupt an in-progress defragmentation. · To configure the Winternals defrag engine to run on a Windows 2000 computer, select a volume and check Winternals Defrag in the Action menu or the entry's context menu. Winternals Software LP Rev 010820a Page 8 Defrag Commander Personal Edition 7 Frequently Asked Questions Why does the log file show that the defragmenter didn't do anything when there are fragmented files? If Defrag Commander PE has been configured to schedule the native Windows 2000 defragmenter (instead of using the Winternals defrag engine), a minimum amount of free space, usually around 10-15% of a volume's size, will be required to attempt to defragment files. To reconfigure Defrag Commander PE to schedule the Winternals defrag engine, right click on any Volume in the right pane of the console and check the Winternals Defrag menu item from the context menu. How do I delete a schedule? In order to delete a schedule that you've created you must check the Show Multiple Schedules check-box on the Schedule tab of the volume's scheduling dialog box. When the box is checked a Delete button appears under the schedule times drop-down list. Why doesn't the log show anything on my Windows 95,98 or ME system? The built-in defragmenter of Windows 95, 98 and Me do not produce a log of the defragmentation process, and because Defrag Commander PE utilizes the built-in defragmentation engines for these systems, it cannot know the status of the defragmentation. I've heard that paging file fragmentation is a problem on Windows 2000, but the built-in defragmenter doesn't defragment it. What can I do? Paging file fragmentation is only a problem if you size the system's paging file such that it starts out at a size that's too small and allow it to grow to a larger size. In order to prevent fragmentation of the paging file, specify paging files with the same minimum and maximum sizes. Microsoft recommends that you create a paging file that is Winternals Software LP Rev 010820a Page 9 Defrag Commander Personal Edition roughly 125% of the size of the system's physical memory. To automatically defrag paging files and the Registry you may wish to install the Sysinternals freeware utility PageDefrag (http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/pagedefrag.shtml). Why doesn't the Disk Defragmenter window update to reflect the results of a Defrag Commander PE defragmentation? Whenever Defrag Commander PE utilizes the built-in Windows 2000 defragmentation engine, it runs separately from the interactive defragmenter snap-in. Thus, the defragmenter MMC snap-in will not update its graphical view of a volume to reflect the fact that a scheduled defragmentation has completed since the view was initially presented. How can I schedule defragmentation of remote systems across my network? Try Defrag Commander, the networked version of Defrag Commander PE. Winternals Software LP Rev 010820a Page 10 Defrag Commander Personal Edition 8 Technical Support · If you encounter a problem while using Defrag Commander, that requires technical support, please e-mail us at: support@winternals.com · You can also view our Frequently Asked Questions and download free updates from our web site at: http://www.winternals.com/support · For urgent matters, please call the following number and request Technical Support: 512-330-9861 Before contacting technical support, please determine if the problem is reproducible and record the steps necessary to reproduce it. In addition, please have the following information about your system ready: · · · · · The service pack number (if any) that you've applied Version of Defrag Commander that you are running Operating systems on which you are running Defrag Commander The actions that lead to the problem Your Defrag Commander license number Winternals Software LP Rev 010820a Page 11