[hiitsme]

Good Evening:

What is the best "free" (and safe) defragmenter utility for Windows XP (SP3)? Is the built-in Windows XP defragmenter just as good as the available free versions? Are the free versions safe to use?

Thanks,

John

[coastie65]

Hi John, I like to use Auslogics Defragmenter. It seems to do a good job and is easy to use. It is also free. They also have a registry Deframenter, but you really don't need to use that all that often, in fact rarely.

http://www.auslogics...efrag/download/

This post has been edited by coastie65: 24 November 2010 - 07:23 AM

[Car54]

Smart Defrag is also good, and as coastie mentioned, you only need to do it once in awhile, unless your moving, adding, deleting allot of large files, then you would want to run it more often. Otherwise maybe once every couple of months? Make sure the Auto Defrag is turned off in the settings, and the Scheduled Tasks, as it will run to often for normal users needs. The main thing you want to use more routinely is CCleaner, or Comodo System Cleaner, which is a little more intense and geeky than CCleaner.

This post has been edited by Car54: 24 November 2010 - 07:54 AM

[LincolnSpector]

I stopped using third-party defraggers years ago. The one that comes with Windows is as good as any of the others.

Lincoln

[Car54]

LincolnSpector, on 24 November 2010 - 08:13 AM, said:

I stopped using third-party defraggers years ago. The one that comes with Windows is as good as any of the others.

Lincoln

I've heard that before at other places too

It's just kind of nice with all the options some of the 3rd market apps give you, as far a just optimizing etc. Besides, I just like to watch all the pretty colors of the defrag screen

This post has been edited by Car54: 24 November 2010 - 08:34 AM

[SpiritWind]

Hi John :

The built-in Windows Defragger has a reputation of
being very slow when compared to other defragmenting
software .

Several years ago I began to use the FREE "Power
Defragmenter GUI 3.0....." developed by antispyware
Expert "RejZor" and available on his website at
http://www.rejzor.tk .

[AgentF]

I use Defraggler. It's developed by Piriform - the group that brought us CCleaner and Recuva. It is hours faster than the one built into Windows (at least Win XP). Afterward, the Windows Disk Defragmenter analysis shows Piriform's Defraggler did an excellent job.

Edit: It is free and I've never had any problems using it or that could be traced back to it's use.

This post has been edited by AgentF: 24 November 2010 - 03:26 PM

[cyberknight]

hiitsme, on 23 November 2010 - 09:44 PM, said:

Good Evening:
What is the best "free" (and safe) defragmenter utility for Windows XP (SP3)? Is the built-in Windows XP defragmenter just as good as the available free versions? Are the free versions safe to use?
Thanks,
John

In my opinion, smart defrag 1.5(review n download from cnet) will do just fine. I have been using it for quite a few years now without having any problems. It is free as well as safe to use! U can check out the user reviews on cnet, it has got a user good rating & is also the highest downloaded program among other defragmenters plus it got the editor's choice award. So u can give it a try as it is less than 2mb of download!!

Another good software is Auslogics Disk Defrag 3.1.9. It is a more than a 4mb download & has got a better user rating than smart defrag.

[crazy4laptops]

hiitsme, on 23 November 2010 - 09:44 PM, said:

Good Evening:

What is the best "free" (and safe) defragmenter utility for Windows XP (SP3)? Is the built-in Windows XP defragmenter just as good as the available free versions? Are the free versions safe to use?

Thanks,

John

I'm gonna go out on a limb and be different ;-)

IMO, the built-in windows defraggers aren't that good.

But in my tests, JKdefrag 3.36 is the smallest and lightest defragger out there http://kessels.com/jkdefrag/ (scroll down past Mydefrag)

It does a superb job, my Windows 7 and XP computers went from meh speeds to WOW that was fast!
JKdefrag requires no installation, just download the zip file and go.
JKdefrag is very safe and brilliantly easy to use, just double click on it and let it run, it will go through about 5 stages of defragmentation, each stage will take a good while if you have a very fragmented drive.

When it's done, your computer will run like it's a brand-new installation... Except for Vista on a laptop, that is something JKdefrag, Smartdefrag, and Auslogics cannot fix.

Note, If you decide to try out more than one defragger, only run one defrag per hour or day, never run more than one defrag program at the same time (bad things may happen)

This post has been edited by crazy4laptops: 28 November 2010 - 11:09 AM

[CrimsonHawk]

IMHO, the Windows defragger falls short on the speed, customizability, performance (low space and system files defrag) and GUI/reporting aspects. Unfortunately, the free defraggers also suffer from some issues afflicting the windows utility: most (if not all) cannot defrag system files, are not truly automatic, don't play well with Vista/Win7 etc. The only real upgrade from the Windows defrag utility are the commercial-grade auto defraggers which are usually full-featured. Ofcourse, they are definitely not free....

[cyberknight]

CrimsonHawk, on 30 November 2010 - 06:52 AM, said:

IMHO, the Windows defragger falls short on the speed, customizability, performance (low space and system files defrag) and GUI/reporting aspects. Unfortunately, the free defraggers also suffer from some issues afflicting the windows utility: most (if not all) cannot defrag system files, are not truly automatic, don't play well with Vista/Win7 etc. The only real upgrade from the Windows defrag utility are the commercial-grade auto defraggers which are usually full-featured. Ofcourse, they are definitely not free....

I'm guessing the system files are not meant to be defragmented. U cant do it if your OS is loaded. Better leave them alone if u dont want to affect your system stability! And yes most free defrag utilities dont mess with them.

[techie4fun]

hiitsme, on 23 November 2010 - 09:44 PM, said:

Good Evening:

What is the best "free" (and safe) defragmenter utility for Windows XP (SP3)? Is the built-in Windows XP defragmenter just as good as the available free versions? Are the free versions safe to use?

Thanks,

John

I quit using the built in Windows defragmenter because it was slower than some of the third party one's I've used. Auslogics and J Disk are pretty good, though.

[DanielChan]

I'll definitely vouch for MyDefrag which is found here ==> http://www.mydefrag.com/

it's an extremely lightweight software which produces quite fantastic results

This post has been edited by DanielChan: 01 January 2011 - 02:09 AM

[Car54]

DanielChan, on 01 January 2011 - 02:08 AM, said:

I'll definitely vouch for MyDefrag which is found here ==> http://www.mydefrag.com/

it's an extremely lightweight software which produces quite fantastic results

Hi Daniel, I had never heard of that one before, thanks for that info

[crazy4laptops]

Mydefrag is version 2.0 of JKdefrag, IMO Mydefrag is harder to use

[Car54]

crazy4laptops, on 02 January 2011 - 12:37 PM, said:

Mydefrag is version 2.0 of JKdefrag, IMO Mydefrag is harder to use

Thanks crazy4laptops When I went to the download link, it looked a little....shall we say "basic", and had me cause for concern. So I did a couple AV scans on the downloaded file, just for grins. Not to doubt Daniel...but that's just me

[crazy4laptops]

Car54, on 02 January 2011 - 02:18 PM, said:

Thanks crazy4laptops When I went to the download link, it looked a little....shall we say "basic", and had me cause for concern. So I did a couple AV scans on the downloaded file, just for grins. Not to doubt Daniel...but that's just me

They changed the site for Mydefrag, it is quite basic, the jkdefrag site looks much better and has more details about the defrag process

http://kessels.com/jkdefrag/

[Car54]

crazy4laptops, on 02 January 2011 - 02:43 PM, said:

Car54, on 02 January 2011 - 02:18 PM, said:

Thanks crazy4laptops When I went to the download link, it looked a little....shall we say "basic", and had me cause for concern. So I did a couple AV scans on the downloaded file, just for grins. Not to doubt Daniel...but that's just me

They changed the site for Mydefrag, it is quite basic, the jkdefrag site looks much better and has more details about the defrag process

http://kessels.com/jkdefrag/

Yes, very good, nice job and link crazy4, nice follow up

[LiveBrianD]

Auslogics Disk Defrag is a good one.

[snorg]

I use JkDefrag, it moves space hogs to the end of the drive and system files to beginning of the drive, that speeds things up a little.

I also disable the swap file then run JkDefrag in safe mode to defrag C drive, then make a fixed size swap file, that way the swap file is in one piece near the end of the drive.

running JkDefrag in safe mode also defrags system files that cant otherwise cant be defraged cuz they would normally be in use by windoze.