As with most things in Vista, Microsoft has hidden any information when you run the built-in disk defrag, even putting it on a schedule so you never need to worry about it. While this is a noble effort, I like a little feedback when I run software, especially diagnostic or clean-up software. At least XP used a lite version of Diskeeper’s defrag software.
Since I had been reading about how crappy Vista’s defrag was, I figured I’d try a 3rd party alternative. I checked on Extremetech.com and they recommended a free choice – Auslogics Disk Defrag.
A promising sign that this software works well is that I tried to run Vista’s defrag and was told my C drive did not need to be defragmented at that time; then I ran Auslogics Disk Defrag and it ran for probably 20 minutes defragging a few thousand files. Go figure.
Auslogics Disk Defrag has a graphical picture of your drive and data shows things moving around while it works, as well as a progress bar and what file it is defragging currently. At the end of the cycle, it provides a basic report of what it did, then asks you to purchase their BoostSpeed software to further improve your computer’s performance. I guess that’s why they give Disk Defrag away for free. That one screen is well worth being able to use their software at no charge. Anyway, it sure beats uses Vista’s crappy defrag.