Figure 5-11. Defrag.exe lets you view reports and schedule more thorough defragmenting
than the Windows version
246 | Chapter 5: Performance
Enable automatic boot defragments
Here??™s a funny little setting in the Registry that seems as though it??™s supposed
to instruct Windows to defragment your hard disk automatically each
time it starts:
1. Open the Registry Editor (described in Chapter 3).
2. Expand the branches to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Dfrg\
BootOptimizeFunction.
3. Double-click the Enable value, and type Y for its data (or type N to disable
it).
The funny part is that this setting is probably already enabled on your system
(it??™s enabled by default on most Vista systems). Now, have you ever
seen Windows run Disk Defragmenter at startup?
The reason you don??™t see it is because it isn??™t a full defragment. Instead, it??™s
only a boot defragment, which affects only the files registered with Windows??™
Prefetch feature (see the upcoming ???Keeping an Eye on Prefetch??? sidebar)
and listed in the Layout.ini file (not a standard .ini file).
You can perform this boot defragment at any time by running the commandline
Defrag tool with the undocumented -b option, like this: defrag -b c:.
If in Doubt, Throw It Out
Parkinson??™s law states that work expands so as to fill the time available for
its completion. Along the same lines, it??™s safe to say that files will quickly
expand to fill the amount of available space on your hard drive.
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