Windows Vista Defrag
<div class="IPBDescription">Microsoft has scrapped the Defragmenter display</div>So yeah, my g/f just bought a new computer (YAY!) with oodles of speed, space, a 19" LCD flatscreen, and Windows Vista Home Premium.
It came installed with loads of crap we didn't want or need, and a desktop full of shortcuts. I spent a couple of hours cleaning stuff up and tweaking, and then defragged it.
Imagine my surprise when I saw no display. I thought something was wrong, so I Googled it - seems this is a feature of Vista. <a href="http://news.softpedia.com/news/Insight-into-Windows-Vista-Defrag-46127.shtml" target="_blank">Insight into Windows Vista Defrag</a>.
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According to Microsoft, there's more than meets the eye as far as the defragmentation process in Windows Vista goes. Defrag was revamped in Windows Vista, and the overhauling has been met with criticism due to the fact that Microsoft has scrapped the Defragmenter display reducing user control and interference to a minimum, by automating the process.
Victoria House, one of the Microsoft Defrag developers explained Vista's defrag changes on The Filing Cabinet. “One change that’s not obvious to users is our
shadow copy optimization during defragmentation. Defrag has special heuristics to move file blocks in a way that will minimize the copy-on-write activity and shadow copy storage area consumption. Without this optimization, the defragmentation process would accelerate the deletion of older shadow copies,” said House.
Microsoft revealed that at the basis of its decision to not include a progress indicator in the Defragmenter display is the process not being a non-linear one. “Instead of trying to show estimates of how much longer the defragmentation process will take, we worked to reduce the impact of defragmentation on your computer, so that you can use the computer during defragmentation. This benefit is gained by using low-priority disk and CPU I/O,” stated House.
In Windows Vista, the defragmentation process will not touch certain fragmented files. In this regard, coalescing two extents larger than 64 MB will only produce a minimal performance increase. Microsoft has considered that the I/O load and free space requirements are simply not worth the CPU I/O and free space necessary to move the 64-MB fragmented file.
“Right now we are working on Defrag in Windows Server “Longhorn.” If you’re in the beta for Longhorn, you’ll have a chance to see what’s new in upcoming builds. We’re also working on improvements to decrease the amount of time it takes to defragment a volume and provide better defragmentation. Because the code base for Defrag is common for Longhorn and Windows Vista, the improvements we make in the server version will be added to Windows Vista SP1,” House added.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That first defrag took hours, btw... <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/confused-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="???" border="0" alt="confused-fix.gif" />
It came installed with loads of crap we didn't want or need, and a desktop full of shortcuts. I spent a couple of hours cleaning stuff up and tweaking, and then defragged it.
Imagine my surprise when I saw no display. I thought something was wrong, so I Googled it - seems this is a feature of Vista. <a href="http://news.softpedia.com/news/Insight-into-Windows-Vista-Defrag-46127.shtml" target="_blank">Insight into Windows Vista Defrag</a>.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
According to Microsoft, there's more than meets the eye as far as the defragmentation process in Windows Vista goes. Defrag was revamped in Windows Vista, and the overhauling has been met with criticism due to the fact that Microsoft has scrapped the Defragmenter display reducing user control and interference to a minimum, by automating the process.
Victoria House, one of the Microsoft Defrag developers explained Vista's defrag changes on The Filing Cabinet. “One change that’s not obvious to users is our
shadow copy optimization during defragmentation. Defrag has special heuristics to move file blocks in a way that will minimize the copy-on-write activity and shadow copy storage area consumption. Without this optimization, the defragmentation process would accelerate the deletion of older shadow copies,” said House.
Microsoft revealed that at the basis of its decision to not include a progress indicator in the Defragmenter display is the process not being a non-linear one. “Instead of trying to show estimates of how much longer the defragmentation process will take, we worked to reduce the impact of defragmentation on your computer, so that you can use the computer during defragmentation. This benefit is gained by using low-priority disk and CPU I/O,” stated House.
In Windows Vista, the defragmentation process will not touch certain fragmented files. In this regard, coalescing two extents larger than 64 MB will only produce a minimal performance increase. Microsoft has considered that the I/O load and free space requirements are simply not worth the CPU I/O and free space necessary to move the 64-MB fragmented file.
“Right now we are working on Defrag in Windows Server “Longhorn.” If you’re in the beta for Longhorn, you’ll have a chance to see what’s new in upcoming builds. We’re also working on improvements to decrease the amount of time it takes to defragment a volume and provide better defragmentation. Because the code base for Defrag is common for Longhorn and Windows Vista, the improvements we make in the server version will be added to Windows Vista SP1,” House added.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
That first defrag took hours, btw... <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/confused-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="???" border="0" alt="confused-fix.gif" />
Comments
<a href="http://www.trnicely.net/misc/vista.html" target="_blank">Windows Vista restricts GNU GCC apps to 32 MB</a>
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Executable images created for the DOS/Wintel environment (but not employing the Win32 API), using the GNU GCC compilers and language standards, are subject to failure (or performance degradation) when executed in Microsoft Windows Vista, because Vista arbitrarily restricts the memory space for the GCC executable to 32 MB (33,554,432 bytes). Attempts to allocate more memory than this using the malloc(...) function (or related functions, such as calloc(...)) will fail. This limitation applies whether the application is executed with the "Run" command, within a Command Prompt box (DOS box), or with the Start command. This limitation does not appear in Windows XP, Windows 98, or previous versions of Windows and DOS; the exact same executable, running under Windows XP SP2 or Win98SE, is capable of allocating several hundred megabytes of physical memory (if present on the machine). The limitation appears to apply to any compiler and linker not employing Microsoft's proprietary Win32 API.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Lovely "feature" there.
It would be nice if the user had the option "no, I want the disk completely defragged, even fragments bigger than 64MB."
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Use command line defrag.
It would be nice if the user had the option "no, I want the disk completely defragged, even fragments bigger than 64MB."
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you mean like going to www.google.com and searching for a different type of defragmentation software other than what comes with windows?
"Ohnoes, vista doesn't defrag the way I want it. I swear there aren't hundreds of 3rd party utlities that do what the vista one doesn't."
As for the GNU GCC thing, blah, now thats something to complain about.
If you know what you are doing, then you'll get arround this problem, like you always did. And if vista is to restrictive, just get something else. Though, if you are a gamer and want Dx10 anytime in the future, you'll have to sacrifice yourself. But then, you could just throw vista on a second disk and boot it only, if you want to play shiny games.
In the end I had to move those fragmented files to a different partition, defragment the games partition again, and move them back.
I had 19% (~53GB) of free space, so I don't see what the problem was with defragging a few 1-2gb files.
As for using 3rd party stuff. I really try to stay away from those ever since O&O fubar'ed my windows install during a boot time defrag a year or so back.
Why can't game development companies collaborate on a 3rd party, free GUI control like DirectX but that is um <i>free</i> and not owned by Microsoft. Oh wait that would mean that gamers would no longer need Microsoft OS'es to run their games. Damn. In fact, I would not be suprised if Mircosoft did something deliberate to block it and then use money to advertise to the stupid public why they are better while suing.
<img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/mad-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":angry:" border="0" alt="mad-fix.gif" />
There wouldn't be a problem with Microsoft OS'es if they didn't feel the need to pratically double the RAM requirements to run it with each new OS, and then make a whole bunch of new proprietary restrictions that you need the Microsoft platforms and APIs to run your program.
Again, I don't hate the Mircosoft OS'es (except for Millenium). I actually use XP Pro on my primary machine. But I don't like that because of the need of game developers to use MS API's and DirectX you have absolutely no choice. I have XP simply because if you're a gamer you <i>have to</i>. NS won't run on a Mac OS, and you all heard what Max said in regards to NS2 being on the Mac OS... <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index.php?s=1618118845691779584&showtopic=100318" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/index....howtopic=100318</a>
So isn't that a monopoly at it's core? Can nobody make a third party version of DirectX that can run on any OS?
On the defrag topic, I hear good things about PerfectDisk (pro). Especially the "PerfectDisk is now Certified for Windows Vista" bit might be the interesting part for you, PerfectDisk 8.0 build 50 in mind...
I've read that the GCC issue will be fixed with djgpp 2.0/gcc 4.
Diskeeper is what windows xp defrag is based off of. Not sure if it works on vista yet but I would suggest it. Cant go wrong with the people who built the windows defrag.
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Actually, for XP, Microsoft licensed an old version of Diskeeper and rebranded it.
OpenGL?
Actually, for XP, Microsoft licensed an old version of Diskeeper and rebranded it.
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Maybe I worded what I was trying to say wrong. I was going for the point that Windows Xp defrag is based on Diskeeper and that the full version of diskeeper is a good program for XP but Im not sure if it works for Vista.