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Diskeeper User Manual

1. It is safe to restart your computer midway through the Boot Time defragmentation operation However if you do so you should use the Error Checking option in Drive Properties Tools on the volume that was being processed when you restarted your computer and enable both the fix and the scan options or if you are running from the Windows Command Prompt run CHKDSK using the F qualifier This ensures the files and free space on the volume are correctly allocated After running the Boot Time defragmentation use the Set It and Forget It option to keep the volume defragmented Running a Boot Time Defragmentation Select Set up a boot time defragmentation from the Set It and Forget It menu in the Command pane to display the Schedule Boot Time defragmentation dialog box This option is also available from the Action menu 62 Diskeeper Operation Schedule Boot Time Defragmentation Boot Time Scheduler 1 Choose a disk volume Available Yolumes System IC Archive D New Data E Old System N Old Data Y 2 Specify when you want it to run Schedule Boot Time Defragmentation On Next Manual Reboot At Scheduled Time Don t run boot time defragmentation 3 Choose your options C Put all folders together on the atame Run the system CHKDSE C Defragment the paging file C Defragment the Master File Table MFT C Pause to view screen after defragmentation C Produce
2. Event Logging Diskeeper can record information about its activity in a log file A wide variety of information can be saved for future reference Simultaneous Analysis or Defragmentation Operations Y ou can analyze and or defragment more than one disk volume at a time Different Diskeeper editions support different numbers of simultaneous operations See page 87 for more information Boot Time Defragmentation Defragment files at boot time that cannot be moved safely when Windows is running 64 bit Processor Support Diskeeper is compatible with 64 bit versions of Windows Server 2003 ae Things to Know When running Diskeeper in the Set It and Forget It or Manual Defragmentation modes you can run other tasks while defragmentation is occurring When Diskeeper runs at higher priority levels performance of other active processes will usually be affected When Diskeeper runs at lower priority levels defragmentation may take longer since Diskeeper backs off for higher priority processes including screen savers In the online mode Diskeeper runs as a Windows Service and it optionally logs useful defragmentation information into either the Windows Application Event Log under Windows NT Windows 2000 Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 or to a text file under Windows 95 98 Me Diskeeper can be uninstalled in the standard manner using the Add Remove Programs applet in the Windows Control Panel For more informa
3. Improved free space consolidation This defragmentation method performs additional free space consolidation This method performs a normal Diskeeper defragmentation but then additionally performs extra processing to further improve free space consolidation It is important to note this method requires additional processing and time and free space consolidation improvement will be gradual as the option is used over time Because of this the Improved Free Space option is only available for Set It and Forget It defragmentation jobs On Windows NT 4 0 systems you should run a boot time directory consolidation before using this option to make more contiguous free space available On Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 systems free space consolidation may be improved by running a boot optimization from the Windows Command Prompt before using this option See page 81 for more information about boot optimization and the command prompt Defragmentation Options Set the defragmentation method for each type of Diskeeper job below Scheduled Manual Max Disk Performance Recommended Quick Defragmentation Improved Free Space O To change the defragmentation method for either Set It and Forget It or manual defragmentation click the appropriate option button and then click OK Using Power Management The Power Management option is intended for users of laptop or portable computers Use the Set power management
4. can YAUser Archives Anticipated Workload doc a Add folder Add files V Include subfolders C Apply selection to all drives Exclusion List Directory Temp Directory D Dump File Y User Archives Anticipated Workload doc Remove Note Wildcard file specifications such as or are allowed The following controls are available in the Exclude dialog box Files Use this section of the Exclude dialog box to choose specific files by name to be excluded from defragmentation Highlight the file s to be excluded and then click Add Files to add the file to the exclusion list Diskeeper Operation 67 Path Use this section of the Exclude dialog box to choose specific directories to be excluded from defragmentation Select a directory by highlighting it and then click Add Folder to add the directory to the exclusion list When a directory folder is added to the exclusion list any subdirectories below the directory in the tree are also excluded Volumes Use this section of the Exclude dialog box to choose the disk volume from which you want to exclude files or directories from defragmentation Add Files Button Click Add Files to add the selected file s to the Diskeeper exclusion list Add Folder Button Click Add Folder to add the selected directory path to the Diskeeper exclusion list Exclusion List Box This box shows the files directories and volumes that will be e
5. Installation Installation Procedure Diskeeper can be installed from a CD ROM or it may be downloaded from the Web This procedure applies to both methods Before you start the installation please note the following Windows 95 machines must be OSR 2 or higher Windows NT 4 0 machines must have Service Pack 6 or higher installed On Windows NT 4 0 machines if you have previously installed Diskeeper Lite on your computer Executive Software recommends that you uninstall it before proceeding with the installation of Diskeeper If however you decide to leave Diskeeper Lite on your system be aware that uninstalling Diskeeper Lite after the installation will remove certain Windows NT registry entries used by Diskeeper and you will need to re install Diskeeper Use the Add Remove Programs applet in Control Panel to uninstall Diskeeper Lite On Windows 2000 Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 machines installing Diskeeper will not remove the built in defragmenter but Diskeeper will automatically become the default defragmenter The built in defragmenter will be restored if you uninstall Diskeeper To install Diskeeper on Windows NT Windows 2000 Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 systems you must be logged into an account that is a member of the Administrators group This installation procedure assumes you are installing from CD ROM If the Diskeeper software was downloaded from the Web double click the executable file in the dire
6. Use this section of the Set It and Forget It pane to specify how often Diskeeper should run on the selected disk volumes You can specify any of these run frequencies One Time Continuously Every 2 hours Every 4 hours Every 8 hours Every 12 hours Every 24 hours Every 48 hours Every 72 hours Smart Scheduling see the description of Smart Scheduling later in this chapter Screen Saver see the description of Screen Saver mode later in this chapter Select which days to run Use this section of the Set It and Forget It pane to specify days the Diskeeper job will or will not be allowed to run on the selected volumes You can specify any of these time periods to control when Diskeeper is allowed to run Everyday Except Everyday Weekends Except Weekends Weekdays Except Weekdays Mondays Except Mondays Tuesdays Except Tuesdays Wednesdays Except Wednesdays Thursdays Except Thursdays Fridays Except Fridays 46 Diskeeper Operation Saturdays Except Saturdays Sundays Except Sundays Select a starting time Use this section of the Set It and Forget It pane to specify the beginning of a time period the Diskeeper job will or will not be allowed to run on the selected volumes You can specify any of these time periods to specify the beginning of a Diskeeper schedule period All Day 12 00 midnight through 11 00 P M in one
7. Average File Size This section of the Fragmentation pane or event log entry shows the average size of all the files on the disk volume This number does not include any zero length files or paging files Total Fragmented Files This section of the Fragmentation pane or event log entry shows the total number of fragmented files on the disk volume Total Excess Fragments This section of the Fragmentation pane or event log entry shows the total number of file fragments on the disk volume Contiguous files are not counted in this total but each additional piece of any fragmented file is counted Average Fragments per File This section of the Fragmentation pane or event log entry shows the average number of fragments per file on the disk volume This is a good index of how fragmented the files on the volume are If the average fragment per file figure is 1 00 the files are contiguous If the figure is 1 10 then 10 of the files on average are in two pieces 1 20 means 20 1 30 means 30 etc A figure of 2 00 means the files average two fragments each 1 00 is the best figure attainable indicating that all files or nearly all files are contiguous Paging File Fragmentation Section Paging Swap File Size This section of the Fragmentation pane or event log entry shows the size of the paging file or swap file on Windows 95 98 Me systems on the disk volume This section displays zero when no paging file is present 38 Diskeeper O
8. Setting Diskeeper Priorit Select the Set defragmentation priority option from the Change your settings menu in the Command pane to select the Windows priority at which Diskeeper defragmentation jobs run This option is also available from the Action menu You can set the priority independently for both Set It and Forget It and Manual Defragmentation defragmentation jobs By default scheduled Set It and Forget It defragmentation jobs run at the lowest possible Windows priority Also by default manual defragmentation jobs run at the normal Windows priority The priority for either type of defragmentation job can be changed with the Priority option Running at the lowest priority minimizes the system performance impact when Diskeeper is defragmenting a disk volume However defragmentation jobs running at the lowest priority can take substantially longer to complete than those running at higher priorities since Diskeeper backs off for any process running at a higher priority even screen savers For this reason you may have occasions where you want to run Diskeeper at a higher priority Keep in mind though that your system performance may be impaired when Diskeeper is run at higher priorities Diskeeper Operation 69 Priority Set the run priority for each type of Diskeeper job below Set It and Forget It Manual Defragmentation Highest Highest O High O High O Normal Normal Low O Low Low
9. informing them that a scheduled reboot is about to take place and requesting them to log off If at the scheduled time someone is still logged on and Perform boot time defragmentation even if this drive is being used by remote users is cleared the computer will not reboot but will instead perform the Boot Time defragmentation the next time the computer is rebooted manually If this option is set however the machine will reboot at the scheduled time regardless of whether or not any users are logged on Don t run boot time defragmentation Use this option to clear a previously scheduled boot time operation This option is useful for cases where you ve scheduled a boot time defragmentation then decided to postpone the operation Put all folders together on the volume Check this box to defragment and consolidate the directories of the selected volumes next time your computer starts up Run the system CHKDSK utility before defragmentation Use this control to specify whether the Windows CHKDSK disk error checking utility is run using the F qualifier before the Boot Time operation Running CHKDSK adds time to the Boot Time defragmentation operation but it can correct disk errors that otherwise would hamper effective directory consolidation Note Enabling the CHKDSK option will cause CHKDSK to run on each selected volume before the Boot Time defragmentation process The time increase can be considerable and Executive Softwa
10. A collective word for the physical material on which computer based information is stored such as a CD ROM or floppy disk Media is the plural of medium but like data is often used in the singular form medium See media memory The computer s temporary working storage where program instructions and data are kept permitting the CPU to process the instructions MFT See master file table Microsoft A computer software company with its head office in the state of Washington creators of the MS DOS and Windows operating systems MMC Microsoft Management Console MMC can be used to create save and open administrative tools called snap ins such as Diskeeper MMC provides a common user interface for system tools as well as a system for managing hardware software and network components MS DOS Microsoft Disk Operating System An operating system designed for a small computer with a single user running one application program at a time multitasking A feature of an operating system where the computer can work on more than one task at a time See also background processing network A group of computers that are connected together and capable of exchanging data with each other See also server client NTFS New Technology File System A file system designed specifically for use with Windows NT Windows 2000 Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 OEM Acronym for original equipment manufacturer The term is misleading beca
11. After you have read and accepted the license agreement click Next to continue As an option you can change the destination location for the Diskeeper files By default Diskeeper is installed here Program Files Executive Software Diskeeper You can choose a different disk volume or directory for the installation as follows a Click Change b Make the desired changes to the destination and click OK to accept the new destination If the directory you specify does not exist a new directory will be created c Click Next If Internet Explorer 4 01 or higher is not installed on your computer another installation program is started and a package of necessary components is installed on your computer Microsoft Management Console MMC which is the interface for Diskeeper requires these components These components are a small subset of Internet Explorer not the complete Internet Explorer product Installing these components hhupd exe 5Ocomupd exe and wintdist exe will not affect your current web browser Note that you must restart your computer after installing Diskeeper if these components are installed If the MMC is not installed on your computer the MMC Setup program is started automatically After the MMC files are installed the Diskeeper Setup program resumes The Setup program checks to confirm DCOM is installed on your computer If it is not the DCOM Setup program is begun After a short period of copying files t
12. contiguous manner This also helps make Diskeeper more effective when it is tun in either the Set It and Forget It or manual defragmentation modes Note that on NTFS volumes on Windows 2000 Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 systems directories can be moved and defragmented online which makes directory consolidation on these volumes unnecessary This is also why directory consolidation is not necessary on Windows 95 98 Me systems In most cases you should run Boot Time directory consolidation shortly after the first time you use Diskeeper defragmentation on a volume or after any operation such as installing a new application that creates multiple directories By moving all the directories together you create more contiguous free space for file defragmentation 60 Diskeeper Operation Master File Table MFT Defragmentation defragments the Master File Table MFT The MFT is a critical section of Windows NTFS disk volumes The MFT is used by the NTFS file system to locate files on a volume so fragmentation of the MFT slows the retrieval of files on the disk whether these files themselves are fragmented or not Defragmenting the MFT will improve the overall performance of the volume Note that on Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 systems most but not all of the Master File Table can be defragmented by Diskeeper online during normal Set It and Forget It or manual defragmentation operations The boot time process is still requir
13. greater Internet integration and supports recent hardware developments Windows Me Short for Windows Millennium Edition an operating system released by Microsoft in September 2000 Successor to Windows 98 and designed for home use Windows Me offers enhancements in the areas of digital media user interface home networking and the Internet Windows NT An operating system released by Microsoft in 1993 NT stands for New Technology It has a similar graphical user interface to Windows but it does not run over MS DOS and has been designed specifically for computer network environments Windows Server 2003 An operating system released by Microsoft in 2003 as the follow up version to Windows 2000 Server Like its predecessor it has a similar graphical user interface to Windows but it does not run over MS DOS and has been designed specifically for computer network environments Windows Server 2003 is available in Standard Web Enterprise and Datacenter editions 116 Glossary Windows XP An operating system released by Microsoft in 2001 as the follow up version to Windows 2000 Like its predecessor it has a similar graphical user interface to other Windows versions but it does not run over MS DOS and has been designed specifically for computer network environments Windows XP is available in several editions for different uses such as Windows XP Professional for corporate use or Windows XP Home Edition for home users workgroup
14. operations you should Schedule the Boot Time operation on weekends or other time when the machine is not needed immediately Perform the Boot Time operation on only one disk volume at a time On Windows NT directory consolidation MFT defragmentation and paging file defragmentation are done at boot time because the directories the MFT and the paging file cannot be moved safely while Windows NT is active Note that under Diskeeper Operation 61 Windows 2000 Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 directories on NTFS volumes can be moved and defragmented online which makes directory consolidation on these volumes unnecessary Several points about Boot Time defragmentation Keep in mind that for maximum efficiency the Boot Time defragmentation operation concentrates only on files that cannot be defragmented online It is not intended to defragment all the files on your disk Boot Time defragmentation relies on having a contiguous free space into which to move the directories and or paging file on your volume Therefore it is important to run Diskeeper in either the Set It and Forget It or Manual Defragmentation mode before running Boot Time defragmentation Boot Time defragmentation is a one time operation After it runs on a volume it is not automatically set up to run again You must set it each time you want it to run on a volume It is usually not necessary to run Boot Time defragmentation repeatedly on a volume
15. v Set It and Forget It 1 Select the disk s to schedule 6 0008 S Starting Time Ending Time Set Smart Schedule Set Smart Schedule after hours Next Defragmentation p Da Set to ronievery night Smart Scheduled all day B Scheduled 08 2 2 Select the type all day Set to run on weekends only Not Scheduled of schedule Set Screen Saver Mode 12 00 midnight 12 00 midnight Set a custom schedule Clear a schedule gt Analyze selected drive gt Defragment si ad drive Performance Reliability A f 3 Select which j days to run effe Smart Scheduling mode the fetation runs can be as little as 2 of as 1 week 4 Select the starting time gt Change your settings To set a custom schedule 1 Select one or more drives from the list above or _ select all drives 2 Choose from the schedule options below 3 Click the Set Schedule button below gt Help Select type of schedule Smart Scheduling Select which days to run every day Select a starting time Select an ending time Set Schedule Clear Schedule 5 Select the ending time Old Data Y 6 Click the Set Schedule button Diskeeper Operation 45 The following controls are available in the Set It and Forget It pane Select type of schedule
16. A request to have the computer or its peripherals perform some activity In relation to Diskeeper it is a request to have a disk defragmented log file A file that keeps track of certain events as they occur The Windows NT 2000 XP operating system maintains several log files that can be viewed with the Event Viewer On Windows 95 98 Me systems Diskeeper uses a specially created text file for the same purpose See also Event Logging logical drive That portion of the space on a disk drive that is considered by the software to be a single unit In this context logical means conceptual because there is no direct relationship between the name and a physical object See also partition volume long filenames In the DOS operating system filenames were limited to a maximum of eight characters followed by a period and up to three characters to indicate the type of file This is also referred to as the 8 3 file naming convention The Windows 95 98 Me Windows NT Windows 2000 Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 operating systems allow filenames that are over 200 characters long In addition these filenames may contain a mixture of upper and lowercase characters and embedded spaces master file table MFT On an NTFS volume the master file table is a file which contains information about all other files in that volume This includes the name of each file its physical location on the disk and other information Glossary 111 media
17. Current read tints Overall the data on drive C takes 1 10 times longer to read thus slowing down your computer read all files on drive C Optimum read Coe ESA and click Start I Red Current read time BB Green Optimum read time System C Analyzed ees 0 Complete The files that are fragmented are the cause of this slowness and if you are using only those files you will experience a drastic slowdown Click to fi f Values shown are estimated You can also use the Defragment button gt to start defragmenting the selected volume When you are defragmenting a disk the Command pane displays options to Pause Resume or Stop the defragmentation You can also perform these functions with the equivalent toolbar buttons 54 Diskeeper Operation Change Your Settings Menu Click the Change your settings menu in the Command pane to expand it and reveal the different options available Here s an example gt Set It and Forget It gt Analyze selected drive gt Defragment selected dr v Change your settings Exclude selected files and folders Set defragmentation priority Set event logging options to access these options Set defragmentation method Set power management options Set a boot time defragmentation Set performance data options Exclude selected files and subfolders Diskeeper allows you to specify files and directory folders that you do not wa
18. Event Properties Event Date 8 21 2003 Source Diskeeper Time 5 25 03 PM Category None Type Information EventID 16 User N Computer MOCKINGBIRD Description Diskeeper Message File Information File information for volume E Total Files 111259 Fragmented Files 1051 Excess Fragments 3265 Avg Fragments File 1 02 Avg File Size 135 8 KB On Windows NT Windows 2000 Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 When this option is enabled an entry is made to the Event Log at the end of each defragmentation run showing information about the files on the disk volume that was defragmented This appears in the Windows Event Viewer as Diskeeper Event 16 When you double click Diskeeper Event 16 in the Event Viewer information similar to this example is displayed This option is not enabled by default On Windows 95 98 Me When this option is enabled an entry is made in the Diskeeper EventLog txt file containing the information shown in the example above This option is not enabled by default For a description of information contained in the Description box see page 35 Diskeeper Operation 77 Paging File information Event Properties Event Date 8 21 2003 Source Diskeeper Time 5 25 03 PM Category None Type Information EventID 17 User N Computer MOCKINGBIRD Description Diskeeper Message Paging File Information Paging Swap File information for volume E Paging Swap
19. File Size OMB Paging Swap File Fragments 0 On Windows NT Windows 2000 Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 When this option is enabled an entry is made to the Event Log at the end of each defragmentation run showing information about the paging file on the volume that was defragmented if it exists on the volume This appears in the Windows Event Viewer as Diskeeper Event 17 When you double click Diskeeper Event 17 in the Event Viewer information similar to this example is displayed This option is not enabled by default On Windows 95 98 Me When this option is enabled an entry is made in the Diskeeper EventLog txt file containing the information shown in the example above This option is not enabled by default For a description of information contained in the Description box see page 35 78 Diskeeper Operation Directory information Event Properties Event Date 8 21 2003 Source Diskeeper Time 5 25 03 PM Category None Type Information EventID 18 User N Computer MOCKINGBIRD Description Diskeeper Message Director Information Directory information for volume E Total Directories 1930 Fragmented Dirs 358 Excess Dir Frags 6637 On Windows NT Windows 2000 Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 When this option is enabled an entry is made to the Event Log at the end of each defragmentation run showing information about the directories on the volume that
20. Reliability pane displays information for a single disk volume at a time The disk highlighted in the disk volume pane is the disk shown in the Reliability pane Overall fragmentation is calculated by dividing the time required to read the fragmented files on the volume by the time required to read all the files on the volume and multiplying the result by 100 34 Diskeeper Operation Here is an example of the Reliability pane view after analysis of a disk that needs corrective action OE a Performance Reliability Fragmentation Drive Map Set It and Forget It Reliability analysis results for drive C Understanding the effects of fragmentation on reliability Warning The computer s reliability is i Ry 7 degraded on drive C Fragmentation often occurs with important files that are used frequently by Windows When the fragmentation of The reliability level is at Warning level for the Following these files gets beyond a certain level Windows begins to EA have trouble doing its normal everyday work Crashes and hangs can occur leaving you open to loss of data and productivity 1 The volume is heavily fragmented 11 fragmentation Diskeeper will check for fragmentation on certain critical files used by Windows It will then make an assessment a Fan iiee E as to how vulnerable your computer is and will make S recommendations For fixing the problem 1 Defragment drive C now using Diskeeper Click to find out m
21. Set It and Forget It option on the Command pane includes several commonly used defragmentation schedules pre configured and ready to use See page 50 for more information about the Set It and Forget It option in the Command pane Screen Saver Mode When enabled Screen Saver mode automatically starts defragmenting the selected disk volume s any time the screen saver starts on your computer The defragmentation operation is paused whenever keyboard or mouse activity is detected on the computer This option is available under the Select type of schedule drop down list in the Set It and Forget It pane Note that you must have a screen saver enabled for this option to function If you only have a single disk volume selected for Screen Saver mode the defragmentation operation is re started at the logical beginning of the volume each time the screen saver re starts after being interrupted by keyboard activity for example When more than one disk volume is selected for Screen Saver mode the volumes are handled in a round robin manner If a defragmentation pass is stopped the operation resumes on the next volume when the screen saver starts again For example if you select volumes C and D for Screen Saver mode when your screen saver starts Diskeeper begins a defragmentation pass on volume C If that pass is interrupted and then the screen saver starts again Diskeeper will begin a pass on volume D If the screen saver has not been interru
22. a summary log file Perform boot time defragmentation eve fis drive is being used by remote users The following controls are available in the Schedule Boot Time Defragmentation dialog box Available Volumes Use this section of the Schedule Boot Time Defragmentation dialog box to specify the volume s upon which you want to consolidate the directories and or defragment the paging file and Master File Table MFT You can select more than one volume at a time but be aware that the volumes will be processed one at a time and your Diskeeper Operation 63 computer will be restarted automatically after each volume is processed This will substantially increase the time needed to complete the operation Always select at least one volume before choosing any of the other options in the Schedule Boot Time Defragmentation dialog box Schedule boot time defragmentation Use this section of the Schedule Boot Time Defragmentation dialog box to specify when you want the boot time defragmentation operation to occur You can choose from any one of these options On next manual reboot The boot time operation will take place the next time the computer is rebooted At scheduled time Use the Date and Time controls to specify when you want the computer to be automatically rebooted About one hour before a scheduled Boot Time defragmentation is due a message is broadcast at regular intervals to all users logged on to the computer
23. are losing due to fragmentation and shows the results in the Performance pane when you run an analysis or defragmentation Allowing this scan to take place improves the accuracy of the performance data displayed by Diskeeper after the analysis or defragmentation of a disk When this option is disabled Diskeeper uses default disk performance values when calculating your performance loss due to fragmentation This performance scan may take as much as to 10 minutes per volume to perform an accurate scan and may temporarily slow down your computer but only while the scan is running Click the Help menu in the Command pane to expand it and see the different options available Here s an example gt Set It and Forget It gt Analyze selected drive gt Defragment selected dris gt Change your settings Help topics ae to access these options About Diskeeper View Readme Diskeeper FAQs Help Topics Click this option to open the main Diskeeper Help system The Diskeeper Help provides quick access to useful information about Diskeeper About Diskeeper Click this option to see information about the specific version and build number of the Diskeeper version installed on your computer View Readme Click this option to read the Diskeeper Readme txt file This file contains the most current information about the version of Diskeeper installed on your computer and gives information that may not be include
24. coherency file security and permissions information and file content integrity no matter how fragmented the files on the disk are The foremost design goal for Diskeeper is to make sure that no data is ever lost To accomplish this goal Diskeeper uses the following criteria for accessing files the contents of data files are never modified under any circumstances only one file is processed at a time not the whole disk each processing pass is independent of the other passes no information is stored on any other device or in a scratch space Diskeeper accesses a file in such a way that no user access can conflict with Diskeeper during the critical portion of the relocation process file relocation is aborted if any error is encountered leaving the file in its original state Diskeeper was designed to err on the side of caution In other words it only moves a file on the volume when it is absolutely certain that no data will be lost including file attributes The only change to file attribute type information is the physical location of the file on the volume None of the file dates are changed and no other fields in the file record header are used to store Diskeeper information Diskeeper never defragments or moves files that are specifically stored at a specific physical location on the volume If anything causes your computer to crash while Diskeeper is running or if you abort the Diskeeper defragmentation run in th
25. data on drive C is now read in 8 less time are defragmentation Optimum read time 8 improvement 0 3 6 9 12 15 read time minutes Equal graph bars mean optimum performance Values shown are estimated Diskeeper Operation 33 All the information on the Performance pane is dynamic it changes based on the condition of the disk The Reliability Pane The Reliability pane gives a reliability analysis and rating the reasons for that rating and recommendations for improving or maintaining the reliability of the disk volume Executive Software has done extensive research into the causes of disk performance and reliability problems This research has shown these factors play a significant role in regards to disk performance and reliability Overall fragmentation MFT fragmentation Paging file fragmentation a Available free space Diskeeper uses these factors to determine a disk reliability index each time it analyzes or defragments a disk volume Disk reliability is rated into three categories Healthy Warning and Critical This table shows the Warning and Critical levels used in determining the reliability index l Reliabilit Factor il Warni ig Level i Critic 11 Level l Overall Fragmentation gt 10 fragmentation gt 50 fragmentation MFT Fragmentation gt 250 fragments gt 2000 fragments Paging File Fragmentation gt 250 fragments gt 1500 fragments lt 15 free space lt 5 free space The
26. do Is there a problem with Diskeeper Diskeeper has a built in list of files that it will not move under any circumstances This list is referred to as the Diskeeper internal exclusion list The most common reason for a file existing on the Diskeeper internal exclusion list is safety The file cannot or should not be moved in order to maintain the integrity of your system For example the file memory dmp is on the Diskeeper internal exclusion list This file is on the exclusion list because the disk locations where this file is stored are loaded by the kernel when the system boots and stored in memory These disk locations are then used to write the dump file should it need writing If Diskeeper were to move this file then the system failed the dump file would be written over other files or in space considered to be free space This could result in a very corrupted disk The same situation applies to hiberfil sys When your system goes into hibernation mode the pre fetched disk locations are overwritten with the hibernation data If Diskeeper moved hiberfil sys out and moved other files into those disk locations then disk corruption would occur Why doesn t Diskeeper move all of the files into one place on the volume Our primary philosophy with Diskeeper is improving and maintaining the performance of your computer The disk drives are the primary bottleneck in your computer s performance Diskeeper restores the disks to top speed by
27. find which version of Diskeeper have installed Open Diskeeper click the Action menu then select About This tells you which Diskeeper edition version and build is installed Answers to Frequently Asked Questions 97 Support Services 99 Appendix C Support Services U S Support Services Registered users are entitled to 90 days of free telephone support as well as special upgrade pricing from Executive Software Our free U S technical support is available Monday through Friday during the first 90 days from 7 00 A M to 5 30 P M Pacific time If you have not yet registered your Diskeeper for Windows purchase use the registration card in your Diskeeper box and do so now Or register your purchase online via our Web site at http www executive com Most technical support questions can be answered from the Technical Support section of our Web site at the address shown above You can also contact our technical support team via the Internet at tech_support executive com Or via FAX at 818 252 5514 If you are within your 90 day free support period or have purchased telephone support you can call 818 771 1600 When your 90 day free support period has expired you can purchase the support plan which best suits your needs Executive Software offers 24 hour 7 day support plans Contact Executive Software to find out which support options suit you best Executive Software s address is Executive Software 7590 Nor
28. from accessing it As mentioned previously file permissions must allow SYSTEM to have full control of a file in order for Diskeeper to defragment it See page 93 for more information about setting access permissions Here again enabling this option can cause the Event Log to fill quickly This option is not enabled by default Diskeeper Operation 75 Disk information Event Properties Event Date 8 21 2003 Source Diskeeper Time 5 25 03 PM Category None Type Information EventID 15 User N A Computer MOCKINGBIRD Description Diskeeper Message Volume Information Disk information for volume E File fragmentation 30 On Windows NT Windows 2000 Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 When this option is enabled an entry is made to the Application Event Log at the end of each defragmentation run showing general information about the disk volume that was defragmented This appears in the Windows Event Viewer as Diskeeper Event 15 When you double click Diskeeper Event 15 in the Event Viewer information similar to this example is displayed This option is not enabled by default On Windows 95 98 Me When this option is enabled an entry is made in the Diskeeper EventLog txt file containing the information shown in the example above This option is not enabled by default For a description of information contained in the Description box see page 35 76 Diskeeper Operation File information
29. hour increments Select an ending time Use this section of the Set It and Forget It pane to specify the end of a time period the Diskeeper job will or will not be allowed to run on the selected volumes You can specify any of these time periods to specify the end of a time period Diskeeper will or will not be allowed to run 12 00 midnight through 11 00 P M in one hour increments Set Schedule Click Set Schedule to accept the specified run schedule for the selected volumes You must click Set Schedule for each schedule you specify Any defragmentation job previously started on a volume will complete the current run through the volume before the new schedule takes effect Clear Schedule Click Clear Schedule to clear the currently active Set It and Forget It defragmentation schedule on the selected volumes If Diskeeper is in the process of defragmenting a volume at the time the Clear Schedule button is clicked it will run to completion Smart Scheduling With Smart Scheduling you no longer have to decide how often to defragment your disks Diskeeper will automatically determine the optimum defragmentation schedule for each of your disk volumes and adjust it accordingly The method used to determine how often Diskeeper should run is elegant in its simplicity When Smart Scheduling is enabled Diskeeper keeps track of the number of files moved every time it runs on each disk volume When the number of fragmented files moved du
30. i effects Ofnai i Fragmentation pane cece Fragmented file examinations Fragments eliminated eee Free Space CONSOLIALION eee eeeeeeeeeeeeteeeeeees 92 mismatch in reporting 94 Frequently Asked Questions FAQs OpPllO a REET 57 Getting Started psss esis 11 Getting the most from Diskeeper 26 GIOSSALY erroi AES 105 Help Button niseni Aos 59 Help Topics Option 56 Information pane s s s 30 Installation before the meseci antenne 1 details ino cirai ea 3 OVETVIEW droiata nare Ra mote short version Installing Service Packs ccccccsccccseecessseeees 6 Interface Logging Application Event Log7 22 25 71 94 Defragmentation start and stop 73 Defragmented files c cee 74 Directory information 00 78 Disk information 7 Diskeeper activity cece File information eceeeeeeeees MFT information c ceeeeeeeees Moved files cece seceteeecreeeeeeeeee on Windows 95 98 Me Paging File information vi Service start and stop eee Specifying What Gets Logged 72 Logical drives cceeeeseeseeseeeeecteeneeee 2 Master File Table MFT eee 91 Master File Table Defragmentation 60 Menu Set It and Forget It eee 50 MMC wistesrevestasthietin nonar aas 2 5 23 Most Fragmented Files eee 39 NTFS ciii ix 1 22 36 37 42 89 Paging File Defragmentation 24 60 91 Partitions extended e
31. not enabled by default This option does not exist on Windows 95 98 Me machines as MFT files are unique to Windows NT through Windows Server 2003 For a description of information contained in the Description box see page 35 80 Diskeeper Operation Terabyte Volume Engine Some editions of Diskeeper include the Terabyte Volume Engine TVE which is a specialized defragmentation engine for very large disk volumes 100 GB or larger in size The TVE is designed to efficiently handle volumes containing millions of files The TVE operates differently from the standard Diskeeper defragmentation engines since it is designed specifically for very large volumes For example when the TVE is defragmenting a disk the graphic display usually shown in the Drive Map pane is replaced with numerical data showing the progress of the defragmentation operation This reduction in system resource usage pays off in lower CPU consumption and faster defragmentation of very large volumes Also the TVE may or may not examine the whole volume in a single process This saves system memory resources Here is a description of the information displayed in the Drive Map pane when the TVE is defragmenting a disk volume File record examinations This is the number of times a file record MFT record was examined and is basically used to show that progress is occurring The number may be larger than the number of file records on the volume if a full job runs bec
32. of this the figure shown in the Diskeeper post analysis and post defragmentation summaries on NTFS volumes will not match the total free space figure displayed in the Diskeeper Fragmentation pane or other utilities like Disk Properties in Windows Explorer Should use Diskeeper on RAID arrays Yes Diskeeper supports all levels of software and hardware based RAID arrays RAID arrays are often used to increase system performance In a RAID array of four disk drives for example a file can be accessed up to four times as fast as on a single drive This is because the file is spread between the four drives and all four drives can be accessed at the same time so the file can be retrieved much faster However like the files on a single disk drive these file parts can become fragmented on the individual drives which reduces the speed advantage of RAID In fact the effects of fragmentation can be more obvious in a RAID array than in a single disk drive Diskeeper defragments RAID arrays just as it does single disk drives Diskeeper improves the speed and performance of a RAID environment by eliminating wasteful and unnecessary I Os from being issued by the file system In our four drive array example it would defragment the pieces of the file on each separate drive as though they were separate files and as directed by the RAID controller Answers to Frequently Asked Questions 95 Why do get an incorrect excess fragment count after defr
33. security requirements If the root level directory folder does not have SYSTEM and ADMINISTRATOR set for full control as seen in the Permissions section under the Security tab in the Properties dialog box Diskeeper will not display the disk volume in the Volume list under some circumstances How do determine how often to run Diskeeper on my volume Answers to Frequently Asked Questions 93 This depends on many factors including the level of file activity the sizes and types of files used and the amount of free space available on the volume While there are no set rules on how often to defragment your disk volumes here are some guidelines Of course the first suggestion is to let the Diskeeper Smart Scheduling feature automatically and dynamically determine the optimum run frequency for your particular disk volumes Smart Scheduling monitors the fragmentation levels of your volumes and adjusts the defragmentation schedule to best fit your needs even as those needs change See Smart Scheduling on page 46 Disk volumes on busy file servers should be defragmented more often than those on single user workstations You may need to run Diskeeper on a server volume as often as every two to four hours to maintain optimum system performance while on a workstation you may only need to run Diskeeper once a day or less As a general rule the busier the disk the more often it will need to be defragmented To determine how often to r
34. sit and watch the display as Diskeeper defragments your drive but it is a very big deal to large corporate data centers and people who depend on their computers for their work They need all the performance they can get and can t hold up production while the defragmenter works to enhance the look of the disk but not improve its performance This is why Diskeeper is designed to run in the background at the lowest possible priority giving way to any other program that needs to run And it is also why Diskeeper stops defragmenting when maximum performance has been achieved Can Diskeeper move directories Windows NT 4 0 does not allow directories to be moved because of data integrity issues related to how Windows NT maintains directory information Since Diskeeper runs while other processes are active on the system it does not attempt to move directories online However directories on Windows NT 4 0 volumes can be moved safely while your computer is being started a time when Windows has not yet taken complete control of the files and directories on your disk For more information on how to consolidate Windows NT 4 0 directories see Boot Time Defragmentation on page 59 On Windows 95 98 Me computers and NTFS volumes on Windows 2000 Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 systems Diskeeper can safely move and defragment directories which makes consolidation unnecessary Can Diskeeper defragment paging files Diskeeper does not defrag
35. there was no method for completely correcting the problems of file and free space fragmentation on Windows NT computers or in a mixed Windows network Design Goals In designing Diskeeper for Windows the following goals were established The product must be completely safe to use It must improve Windows system performance It is not designed to make the disk look pretty it is designed to improve disk performance and as a result overall system performance It should process live disks without interfering with user access to files It should run without operator intervention 84 Theory of Operation It must defragment all possible files and consolidate free space into the smallest possible number of large spaces Diskeeper defragments files and free space on a disk allowing access to the files on the disk at any time while Diskeeper is running Safety Diskeeper is designed with safety as the highest priority To ensure the safe movement of files on Windows NT Windows 2000 Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 systems Diskeeper uses mechanisms built into the operating system that were developed and implemented by Executive Software and fully incorporated into Windows NT Windows 2000 Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 by Microsoft On Windows 95 Windows 98 and Windows Me systems Diskeeper uses similar mechanisms used by Microsoft and others By using these built in mechanisms Diskeeper maintains cache
36. to open the file the file did not allow the SYSTEM process Full Control The file was open for exclusive use by another process Free space was no longer available when the move was attempted The Windows application event log stores the reason s for the first fifty files that could not be processed Running Diskeeper From the Command Prompt In addition to its Graphical User Interface GUI Diskeeper supports commands from the Windows command prompt This provides an alternative method of defragmenting disk volumes The single command supports several optional command qualifiers To use this command follow these steps 1 Open the Windows command prompt window 2 Type Diskeeper at the command prompt followed by a drive letter and any of the optional command parameters The Diskeeper command defragments the files of the selected volume Use the command in this form Diskeeper lt volume gt b Parameters lt volume gt This is a required parameter that will accept any valid drive letter A colon after the drive letter is not required 82 Diskeeper Operation Ib Boot On Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 systems this option causes specific files that are critical to booting your system to be moved adjacent to each other into a contiguous piece of free space and defragments them if necessary Using this option can decrease the time needed to boot your computer 1 Help Displays the command pro
37. used by the operating system such as directory files and the Master File Table but not reported in Used Space Cluster Size This section of the Fragmentation pane or event log entry shows the cluster size for the volume A disk cluster represents a number of disk sectors treated as a single unit The entire disk is divided into clusters each one a minimum increment of storage 36 Diskeeper Operation Used Space This section of the Fragmentation pane or event log entry shows the total amount of disk space in kilobytes currently occupied by files This does not include zero length files or certain files used by the operating system such as directory files and the Master File Table Free Space This section of the Fragmentation pane or event log entry shows the total amount of free space on the disk volume Percent Free Space This section of the Fragmentation pane or event log entry shows the percentage of space on the disk volume that is free This includes the free space in the area reserved for the Master File Table MFT on NTFS volumes Fragmentation Percentage Section Volume Fragmentation This section of the Fragmentation pane or event log entry shows the overall percentage of fragmentation on the disk volume The Volume fragmentation figure gives you an overall view of the fragmentation on your volume by taking both the file fragmentation level and the free space fragmentation level into account These two v
38. volumes Keep in mind the primary purpose of a defragmenter is not to make your disks look pretty but to improve the operating condition of your disk volumes So while Diskeeper does provide a graphic view of your disks and any fragmentation found more importantly it shows you performance measurements and reliability data that you can apply to proactively keep your disk volumes in top shape Diskeeper performs a comprehensive analysis of the fragmentation on your disk volumes After analyzing a disk Diskeeper shows you the amount of performance improvement you will get by defragmenting the disk and rates the reliability of the disk based on the analysis results Diskeeper also provides multiple methods by which to see the extent of the fragmentation several graphic displays giving a graphic representation of the fragmentation on your volumes and a fragmentation report view showing statistical information about the fragmentation on your volumes After installing Diskeeper you are ready to start Diskeeper and begin defragmenting your disk volumes In order to see the actual gains from defragmentation analyze the condition of your volumes before you begin defragmenting them By reviewing the Diskeeper displays both before and after running Diskeeper you will be able to see the actual reduction of file fragmentation and improvement in performance and reliability 12 Getting Started When you start Diskeeper for the first time after
39. with only one hard disk drive can have a single volume often called drive C or it can have several volumes such as drive C drive D and drive E See also drive letter logical drive partition volume set In Windows a single logical drive which is composed of up to 32 areas of free space on one or more disk drives Volume sets can be used to combine small areas of free space on one or more disk drives into a larger logical drive or to create a single large logical drive out of two or more small disks Windows A family of operating systems first introduced by Microsoft in 1983 with a graphical user interface and which ran on MS DOS based computers See also Windows 95 Windows 98 Windows NT Windows 2000 Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 Windows 2000 Originally named Windows NT 5 0 Windows 2000 is a family of operating systems for desktop computers and network servers announced by Microsoft in 1998 Windows 2000 resembles Windows NT 4 0 and Windows 98 but has many enhancements and new features Windows 2000 is available in several editions ranging from Windows 2000 Professional to Windows 2000 Advanced Server Windows 95 A version of Windows released in 1995 New features in Windows 95 with regard to its predecessor Windows 3 1 include a new user interface and support for 32 bit applications See also OSR 2 Windows 98 Successor to the Windows 95 operating system Windows 98 features support for the FAT32 file system
40. 000 Server all Windows XP editions Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition Windows Server 2003 Web Edition Windows 2000 Server w Server Appliance Kit and Windows Server 2003 w Server Appliance Kit Diskeeper Server Enterprise Edition for systems running Windows 2000 Professional Windows 2000 Server Windows XP Professional Windows XP Media Center Edition Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition Windows Server 2003 Web Edition Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition Windows 2000 Server w Server Appliance Kit and Windows Server 2003 w Server Appliance Kit Diskeeper Server Datacenter Edition for systems running Windows 2000 Server Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition Windows Server 2003 Web Edition Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition Windows 2000 Datacenter Edition and Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition Preface ix In addition to these versions the Diskeeper family of products also includes Diskeeper Home Edition for home users and Diskeeper Administrator Edition an administrative console for controlling Diskeeper installations throughout your network Diskeeper Home Edition incorporates simplified controls and does not support the network defragmentation capabilities available in the other Diskeeper editions Diskeeper Administrator Edition is not a defragmenter but an application that provides a single point of control by which you can control all the Diskeeper 8 0 installations on your network See Appendix A
41. B Free space 5 018 MB Directory fragmentation Percent free space 30 Total directories Fre directories Fragmentation percentage Excess directory Fragments Volume fragmentation 5 Data fragmentation 7 Master File Table MFT fragmentation Total MFT size File fragmentation MFT records In Use Total files 103 459 Percent MFT in use Average file size 170 KB Total MFT fragments Total Fragmented files 1 322 Total excess fragments 12 224 Average fragments perfile 1 11 Useful information about the disk volume is shown in the Fragmentation pane Note that most of the information here can also be recorded in the Diskeeper Event Log For more information see Logging Diskeeper Activity on page 69 18 Getting Started Now we ll look at a picture of the fragmentation on drive C Click the Drive Map tab to open the Drive Map pane shown here J r amp Diskeeper fx File Action View Help gt Set It and Forget It 630008 Free Space Analyzed gt Analyze selected drive gt Defra selected drive File System Capacity Free Space Drive Map gt Change your settings 2 180 MB 123 MB Uep 3 20 002 MB 6 467 MB Em 8 738 MB 1 605 MB 18 QO Data Y 2 172 MB 278 MB 12 Drive Map Performance Reliability Fragmentation Set It and Forgetit gt Color legend H Blue defragmented files E Red Fragmented files E Yellow paging f
42. BOOK VII INTRODUCTION VII ABOUT FRAGMENTATION IX OTHER IMPORTANT PRODUCTS X DISKEEPER INSTALLATION BEFORE THE INSTALLATION WINDOWS VERSIONS AND PLATFORMS SUPPORTED FILE SYSTEMS SUPPORTED DISKS SUPPORTED RESOURCE REQUIREMENTS ADDITIONAL SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS INSTALLATION PROCEDURE THE SHORT VERSION INSTALLATION PROCEDURE THE DETAILS INSTALLATION OVERVIEW INSTALLATION PROCEDURE AFTER THE INSTALLATION CHECK FOR UPDATE REGISTERING DISKEEPER ABOUT WINDOWS SERVICE PACKS REPAIRING WINDOWS SYSTEMS ABOUT THE DISKEEPER SERVICE THE WINDOWS APPLICATION EVENT LOG EVENT LOGGING UNDER WINDOWS 95 98 ME REMOTE INSTALLATION UNINSTALLING DISKEEPER SMA MOAAYAYANDADAADA RWWWNHNNN eK j n GETTING STARTED j j INTRODUCTION QUICK TOUR N m N OVERVIEW OF DISKEEPER N j DISKEEPER FEATURES OTHER THINGS TO KNOW N N iv Contents DEFRAGMENTATION MODES EXCLUSION LIST PRIORITY DEFRAGMENTATION METHODS EVENT LOGGING COMMAND LINE INTERFACE GETTING THE MOST FROM DISKEEPER DISKEEPER OPERATION THE DISKEEPER INTERFACE INFORMATION PANE THE PERFORMANCE PANE THE RELIABILITY PANE THE FRAGMENTATION PANE VOLUME SECTION FRAGMENTATION PERCENTAGE SECTION FILE FRAGMENTATION SECTION PAGING FILE FRAGMENTATION SECTION DIRECTORY FRAGMENTATION SECTION MASTER FILE TABLE MFT FRAGMENTATION SECTION MOST FRAGMENTED FILES SAVING A FRAGMENTATION REPORT PRINTING A FRAGMENTATION REPORT DRIVE MAP PANE WHA
43. In Windows NT Windows 2000 Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 a workgroup consists of one or more computers that do not participate in a domain and are therefore responsible for their own security and administration workstation A computer that has been set up for use by an individual typically connected to a network The term is also used to indicate a client computer in contrast with a server x86 Symbol to represent a series of CPUs manufactured by Intel and others including model numbers 8086 80286 80386 80486 and 80586 Pentium All of the CPUs in this series have certain characteristics in common which permits software to be written that will run on any of them Index 117 About Diskeeper option ee 56 About the Diskeeper Service 7 Access permissions S LEING tac sies vais dasedeecebocveersteacitelacaceees 93 Additional software requirements 2 Analysis fragmentation eceeeeeeeeeteeeeeees 11 Analyze Button eee eeeeeeseeteeeeees 58 Analyze selected drive ceeeeeeee 52 Application Event Log See Logging Automating Diskeeper AutoPlay eeeeeeeeeeee Average File Size ceeceeeeeseseeees Average Fragments per File 37 Background process 7 20 23 43 85 Before the Installation aids Boot time defragmentation Boot Time defragmentation 24 26 Directory Consolidation 24 59 60 Master File Table defr
44. T THE COLORS MEAN SET IT AND FORGET IT PANE SMART SCHEDULING SCREEN SAVER MODE COMMAND PANE SET IT AND FORGET IT MENU ANALYZE SELECTED DRIVE DEFRAGMENT SELECTED DRIVE CHANGE YOUR SETTINGS MENU HELP MENU DISK VOLUME PANE TOOLBAR BUTTONS BOOT TIME DEFRAGMENTATION OVERVIEW RUNNING A BOOT TIME DEFRAGMENTATION SETTING AN EXCLUSION LIST DISKEEPER INTERNAL EXCLUSION LIST SETTING DISKEEPER PRIORITY 25 25 25 25 26 26 29 29 30 30 33 35 35 36 37 37 38 38 39 4 4 41 42 43 46 48 49 50 52 53 54 56 57 58 59 61 65 68 68 23 Contents USING DIFFERENT DEFRAGMENTATION METHODS USING POWER MANAGEMENT LOGGING DISKEEPER ACTIVITY WINDOWS NT 2000 XP SERVER 2003 EVENT LOG WINDOWS 95 98 ME EVENT LOG SPECIFYING WHAT GETS LOGGED TERABYTE VOLUME ENGINE RUNNING DISKEEPER FROM THE COMMAND PROMPT PARAMETERS EXAMPLES THEORY OF OPERATION INTRODUCTION DESIGN GOALS TABLE OF DISKEEPER EDITIONS ANSWERS TO FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS SUPPORT SERVICES REMOTE INSTALLATION DISKEEPER PUSHINSTALL DISKEEPER AS A CLUSTER AWARE APPLICATION ON A CLUSTER SERVER REQUIREMENTS SETTING UP THE CLUSTER RESOURCE AND BRINGING IT ONLINE GLOSSARY INDEX 69 70 71 71 72 72 80 81 82 83 83 83 87 99 101 101 103 103 103 105 117 Preface Vii What This Book is About Welcome to the Diskeeper User Manual We realize software manuals tend to be one of the least favorite piec
45. To find out how fragmented files are affecting r Understanding the problem of fragmentation your machine s performance Fragmentation means that the pieces of a file are 1 Select a drive From the list above scattered all over the disk making it difficult for the 2 Click Analyze selected drive From the menu on the computer to access the file The more pieces a file is in left the more difficult that file is to access Also when many 3 Click Start files are fragmented the computer will become much slower making common tasks like opening e mail and Diskeeper will determine the lost performance on the drive pictures take longer bw analyzing how long it takes to read the volume in its t state and haw long it will take to read the volume Diskeeper not only finds out how badly the files are Com m a n d the files have been defragmented fragmented but it finds out how much your computer is slowed down because of it More importantly Diskeeper ill see how much the performance of your computer can eliminate the Fragmentation on the volume and keep g degraded and using Diskepeer you will be able it eliminated without you having to do anything jain the lost performance and keep it that way for i Click to find out more about fragmentation 0 Complete The Command pane is made up of these parts Set It and Forget It Menu Gives you several pre configured defragmentation schedules with just a few mouse clicks or gives y
46. Until it is found you can 1 avoid using NTFS disk compression or 2 perform a subsequent disk analysis to get the correct information Does Diskeeper support Windows clustering Diskeeper is certified for Windows clustering To run Diskeeper in a clustered environment perform the following steps 1 On the system that has control of the clustered disk s install Diskeeper and schedule it 2 Fail the clustered disks over to the other system install Diskeeper and schedule it After you perform these steps Diskeeper will run on the clustered system that remains in operation after the other clustered system has experienced a system failure Diskeeper will also run on the clustered disk partition in an active active cluster defragmenting the clustered disk partition on the system that currently has control of the disk partition Note the Diskeeper Boot Time Defragmentation will not run on clustered partitions 96 Answers to Frequently Asked Questions How can I run Diskeeper from an account that is not a member of the Administrators group If the account you are using is not a member of the Administrators group you will not be able to install or operate Diskeeper We recommend that you simply use the Set and Forget It feature to set a schedule to allow Diskeeper to run in the background on all systems Since the Set It and Forget It operation runs under the SYSTEM process there is no need for an administrator to be logged in whe
47. User Manual Diskeeper for Windows August 2003 This document describes the installation and operation of Executive Software International s Diskeeper The Standard in Entire Network Defragmentation for Microsoft Windows It is intended primarily for Windows system administrators and managers Revision Update Information Software Versions Operating Systems This is a new manual Diskeeper 8 0 Professional Edition Diskeeper 8 0 Server Standard Edition Diskeeper 8 0 Server Web Edition Diskeeper 8 0 Server Enterprise Edition Diskeeper 8 0 Server Datacenter Edition Windows Server 2003 Windows XP Professional Windows XP Home Edition Windows 2000 Server Windows 2000 Professional Windows NT 4 0 Server SP 6 or higher Windows NT 4 0 Workstation SP 6 or higher Windows Millennium Edition Me Windows 98 Windows 95 OSR 2 or higher Executive Software International Inc Burbank California USA Ar gP Stitware Focused Development of System Management Tools August 2003 2002 2003 by Executive Software International Inc The Software described in this document is owned by Executive Software International Inc and is protected by United States copyright laws and international treaty provisions Therefore you must treat the Software like any other copyrighted material e g a book or musical recording except that you may either a make one copy of the Software solely for backup or archiva
48. a successful installation you ll see this welcoming message WELCOME Diskeeper is The Standard in Entire Network Defragmentation for Windows Server 2003 Windows XP Windows 2000 Windows NT Windows Me Windows 98 and Windows 95 To find out how badly fragmented pour drive is simply highlight it in the Diskeeper display then click the Analyze button in the Diskeeper toolbar You can then save the analysis for later comparison To save the analysis click the Fragmentation tab then click Save Report Once you know how bad the problem is you can handle it To run a manual defragmentation of a drive highlight the drive and click the Defragment button in the Diskeeper toolbar To schedule Diskeeper to run in Set It and Forget It mode click Set It and Forget It in the Command pane and select a schedule If this is your first time using Diskeeper check out the Getting Started section in the Help for an overview of Diskeeper functions and controls Read the message tt contains simple instructions on how to start using Diskeeper After you have read the message you can prevent it from displaying in the future by clearing the check box in the bottom left corner Click OK to continue Getting Started 13 After the Welcome screen is displayed Diskeeper checks to see if a more recent version is available Diskeeper Checking for product updates Click OK to check For updates or click Cancel to conti
49. agmentation 60 OVEIVICW wss efszivarirnesalddecan itis 59 Paging File Defragmentation24 60 91 TUNMING 8 0 cece eeceeeeeeceeeneeeseeeeeeaes scheduling cache coherency 0 eeeeeseeeeereeeeeeeee 84 CD ROM 1 cecseeeeeseeeeseeeeeeeeeeteeneeeeaes 3 4 Check for updates cee eeeeeeeeeeees 6 CHKDSK program cee 61 63 Clear a schedule ceeeeeeeeeeeteeeees 51 Cluster Server i Colors what they mean 42 Command Line Interface 0 0 26 Command pane cccceceseeeeeeeeeeeee 49 Command prompt operation 81 Consolidating free space tet Control tabbed cccccccceceesseceenees Custom schedule 0 eeeeeeeeeeeeeees DCOM Koger 2 5 23 Defragment Button eee 58 Defragment selected drive 53 Defragmentation and the Master File Table 91 at boot time 0 0 See Boot Time boot time s ae changing the method 55 Directory ConsolidationSee Boot Time files not moved to beginning of disk92 free space consolidation 92 how often to TUM eee eee eee 93 incompletes sritan rni 89 jobs not starting at the same time 94 manual method MODES sis S E of paging file See Boot Time power management 55 70 POTY osare re aT 68 Set It and Forget It eee 23 using different methods 25 69 Design GoalSs sissi 83 Directory Consolidation See Boot Time Disk space required eseeeeee
50. agmenting an NTFS drive under Windows 2000 Under Windows 2000 NTFS files that have been compressed then decompressed accumulate excess space allocations that Diskeeper cannot move The defragmentation APIs can only move actual data not unused allocated space in the file Microsoft states in knowledge base article Q228198 Disk Defragmenter Analysis Shows More File Fragments Than File Size Suggests that the excess allocation is released when the file is closed Experiments performed in our labs show that this is not the case The disk must be dismounted and remounted or the system rebooted followed by an open and a close of the file for the excess allocation to be released Therefore when this condition exists on an NTFS volume Diskeeper moves the data portion of a file and if the file has an excess allocation it can actually fragment the file one piece being the data just moved the other piece being the excess allocation left behind Diskeeper notes this properly in its statistics However sometime after the file movement is completed and the file is closed the excess allocation is released by Windows 2000 Thus a subsequent analysis shows the fragmentation figures reported at the end of the defragmentation run to be wildly wrong This excess allocation phenomena was introduced in Windows 2000 but is not present in Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 Diskeeper engineers are working on a solution for this inconsistency
51. alues are weighted depending on the ratio of free space to used space on the disk The formula is Fragmented space on the volume 100 Total space on the volume Where Fragmented space on the volume is the summed cluster count of all fragmented files times the bytes per clusters Data Fragmentation This section of the Fragmentation pane or event log entry shows the percentage of file fragmentation on the disk volume File fragmentation is calculated like this Volume Fragmentation Total Space on the Volume Used Space on the volume Note The calculations are for both Data fragmentation and Volume fragmentation are done based on the uncompressed size of the files If a volume has a large number of fragmented compressed files these values can exceed 100 This is similar to looking at files in Windows Explorer if a large number of files are compressed the total size of the data can exceed the volume size This is why you can compare the Diskeeper Operation 37 volume size in Disk Management to the total number of bytes on a volume and they don t add up File Fragmentation Section Total Files This section of the Fragmentation pane or event log entry shows the total number of files on the disk volume This number does not include zero length files or in most cases files less than one cluster in size on NTFS volumes Files less than one cluster in size may be included depending on the file size and the cluster size
52. and Forget It from the Command pane to select from several commonly used schedules This option is also available from the Action menu For more information see page 43 Boot Time Defragmentation The Boot Time defragmentation feature is useful for the occasional times when you need to defragment files that cannot be safely moved when Windows is running Note that Boot Time defragmentation is not available when running Diskeeper on Windows 95 98 Me The Boot Time option is accessed by clicking the Change your settings option in the Command pane then selecting Set a boot time defragmentation Or you can access this option from the Action menu Boot Time defragmentation has three main parts Directory Folder Consolidation In Windows NT and FAT volumes in Windows 2000 Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 a directory or folder is actually a file which cannot be moved safely while the operating system is active These directory files are usually scattered over the disk volume presenting a barrier to effective defragmentation Directory Consolidation done at boot time before Windows starts up moves directories together to a single location on the disk which frees up larger portions of the disk for defragmenting In Windows 2000 Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 NTFS directories can safely be moved online but FAT file system directories still need to be defragmented at boot time Paging File Defragmentation The paging f
53. aph display shows a good before and after picture of your drive s performance 20 Getting Started Next check the reliability rating or index after defragmentation Click the Reliability tab to open the Reliability pane You ll see a display similar to this la C E File Action View Help gt Set It and Forget It Defragmented amp gt Odeo o drive ted drive Volume Session Status R HH jacity Free Space o Free Space eliability gm gt Change your settings ed y 5M8 508MB TA 0 Tab lo MB 123 MB 5 UT New Data E MB 6 452 MB 32 Old System N 7738 MB 1 605 MB 18 amp Old Data 2 172 MB 278 MB 12 Performance Reliability Fragmentation Drive Map Set lt and Forgetit Defragmentation results for drive C Recommendations for drive C Healthy The computer s reliability is not Continue to keep fragmentation under control using Set It currently affected by fragmentation and Forget It on drive C due to the low level of fragmentation Click to Find out more about fragmentation gt Color legend Critical AN Warning Healthy System C Defragmented 0 Complete Now that drive C has been defragmented its reliability index is Healthy A quick review of the Fragmentation pane and the Drive Map pane will also show improvement to the condition of the disk Keep in mind that badly fragmented disks may nee
54. ation Drive Map Set It and Forget It To find out how fragmented files are affecting Understanding the problem of fragmentation your machine s performance Fragmentation means that the pieces of a file are 1 Select a drive from the list above scattered all over the disk making it difficult for the 2 Click Analyze selected drive From the menu or computer to access the file The more pieces a file is in the more difficult that file is to access Also when many files are fragmented the computer will become much slower making common tasks like opening e mail and Diskeeper will determine the lga formance on the drive pictures take longer by analyzing how long it 6 read the volume in its current state and gt Fit will take to read the volume Diskeeper not only finds out how badly the files are once the files gt N defragmented fragmented but it finds out how much your computer is left 3 Click Start slowed down because of it More importantly Diskeeper Gn much the performance of your computer can eliminate the Fragmentation on the volume and keep graded and using Diskepeer you will be able it eliminated without you having to do anything fain the lost performance and keep it that way for of your computer Click to find out more about fragmentation Information L Complete One of the main reasons for defragmenting a disk volume is to restore or maintain the performance of the disk As files
55. ause a file record may be examined more than once or it may be smaller than the number of file records on the volume if the job didn t run to completion Fragmented file examinations This is the number of the above file record examinations that located fragmented files Again a file may be examined more than once during a defragmentation job so this number will not match the number of fragmented files reported in the Fragmentation pane report Fragments eliminated This is the number of fragments that were eliminated by the TVE It may not match the number of fragments reported in the Fragmentation pane report because the job was only partially completed or because files became more or less fragmented as the result of other processes during the period when the engine runs Contiguous file examinations This is the number of the above file record examinations that located contiguous files that could be moved to help consolidate free space Not all files on the volume See the Table of Diskeeper Editions on page 87 for a list of the Diskeeper editions with the Terabyte Volume Engine Diskeeper Operation 81 are candidates for this action so the number will most likely be far less than the number of contiguous files in the Fragmentation pane report Files that could not be processed This is the number of times that a file couldn t be moved The most common reasons for a file not moving are Diskeeper was denied permission
56. become more and more fragmented it takes longer to read those files from the disk Measuring the length of time it takes to read a set of files from a disk known as read time is a common way of determining the anticipated performance level of that disk Each time you analyze or defragment a disk Diskeeper calculates the read time of the disk in two ways First it shows the predicted time to read all the files on the disk Secondly it shows the time to read only the fragmented files Additionally it determines the optimum fastest read time potential for the disk It should be noted that by default the performance analysis is based on pre determined disk performance values measured as a part of disk performance research done by Executive Software To get a more accurate performance measurement of Diskeeper Operation 31 your actual disks Diskeeper must scan your drives to measure their performance Since this measurement can briefly slow down your computer this scan operation is disabled by default but you can turn it on easily The Set performance data options option is described in the Change your settings menu section on page 54 When you first start Diskeeper the Performance pane gives instructions for analyzing your drives and also give you some background information about the effects of fragmentation After a disk has been analyzed or defragmented the performance pane changes to show a graph illustrating the performance chara
57. come much slower making common tasks like opening e mail and Diskeeper will determine the lost performance on the drive pictures take longer by analyzing how long it takes to read the volume in its current state and how long it will take to read the volume Diskeeper not only finds out how badly the files are once the files have been defragmented Fragmented but it finds out how much your computer is slowed down because of it More importantly Diskeeper You will see how much the performance of your computer can eliminate the fragmentation on the volume and keep is being degraded and using Diskepeer you will be able it eliminated without you having to do anything to regain the lost performance and keep it that way for the life of your computer Click to find out more about fragmentation Read the screen it tells you how to get started analyzing your disks and explains the effects of fragmentation 32 Diskeeper Operation After you ve analyzed a fragmented disk volume the Performance pane takes on a new look Here s an example Shows performance loss to read only the fragmented files Recommendations Performance Reliability Drive Map Set It and Forget It Performance Analysis results for drive Recommendations Time to read only fragmented files on drive C Defragment now to get the performance improvements Curent read tine e svowninthe graphs Use Smart Scheduling to keep performance loss at a Opt
58. cteristics of the disk based on current read times calculated by Diskeeper both for all the files on the drive and for only the fragmented files on the drive It also shows the expected optimum read time for all the files and for only the fragmented files This view gives you a detailed picture of your performance losses due to fragmentation and the expected improvement you will see after defragmentation The Performance pane displays information for a single disk volume at a time The disk highlighted in the disk volume pane is the disk described in the Performance pane Using the Performance pane you can see at a glance how much disk performance is being lost to fragmentation and equally important you can confirm that Diskeeper is keeping your disk performance at peak levels Here is an example of the Performance pane before running an analysis or defragmentation Performance Reliability Fragmentation Drive Map Set It and Forget It To find out how fragmented files are affecting Understanding the problem of fragmentation your machine s performance Fragmentation means that the pieces of a file are 1 Select a drive From the list above scattered all over the disk making it difficult For the 2 Click Analyze selected drive From the menu on the computer to access the file The more pieces a file is in left the more difficult that file is to access Also when many 3 Click Start files are fragmented the computer will be
59. ctory into which it was downloaded and go directly to step 3 1 2 Insert the Diskeeper CD ROM into the appropriate drive on your computer The Windows AutoPlay feature automatically displays a screen that allows you to install Diskeeper or choose from an assortment of trialware versions of Executive Software products If you have disabled the AutoPlay feature simply double click the Setup exe file in the root level folder on the CD ROM and follow the instructions displayed If you are installing an upgrade version of Diskeeper and do not have the previous version currently installed on your computer you will be asked to verify your previous version You can skip this step if you are installing a full or trialware version of Diskeeper If you do not have a full version installed but have an ESD Electronic Software Distribution version of Diskeeper on your system you will be asked for its location This must be the only file located in the folder 10 11 Installation 5 location When Setup has verified the version is valid the installation will continue If you do not have a full version installed but have a CD of a full version you will be asked to insert the CD After Setup checks the CD you will need to re insert the CD you are installing the new version from Press the SHIFT key when inserting the older CD as well as the newer CD to disengage the AutoPlay feature Click Next when the welcome message appears
60. d in the other published documentation The Diskeeper Readme file contains late breaking information that could not be Diskeeper Operation 57 included in other published documentation like this manual or the Diskeeper Help system Diskeeper FAQs Click this option to see to a list of Frequently Asked Questions FAQs about Diskeeper and the answers to them Check for update Click this option to check for a more recent version of Diskeeper If a newer version of Diskeeper is available you are given the option of downloading it When the download screen is displayed click Run this program from its current location to begin installing the update Otherwise click Save this program to disk to save the Diskeeper update installation package on your computer for later installation To install an update stored on your computer in this manner simply double click the file you download and follow the instructions displayed Disk Volume Pane The disk volume pane section of the Diskeeper display shows all the supported disks detected on your computer volumi amp rchive D NTFS 2 180 MB 123 MB 5 New Data E NTFS 20 002 MB 6 452 MB 32 Vo old System Ns NTFS 8 738 MB 1 605 MB 18 amp Old Data NTFS 2 172 MB 278 MB 12 The disk volume pane is a quick way to see Volume letter and name Session status shows what Diskeeper is doing or has done on the volume File system on the volume Capacity of the vol
61. d more than one defragmentation run to completely handle the fragmentation problem Now if you set up and start scheduled Set It and Forget It defragmentation jobs for your disk volumes Diskeeper can maintain your disks in optimum condition automatically by running occasionally in the background without further intervention from you For more information see page 43 Overview of Diskeeper 21 Chapter 3 Overview of Diskeeper This chapter provides important general information about Diskeeper Diskeeper Features The following list summarizes the most important Diskeeper features Wide Array of Diskeeper Editions Starting with version 8 0 the Diskeeper family of products has been expanded to offer specialized defragmentation of Windows operating systems ranging from Windows 95 through Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition See the tables on page 87 for the complete Diskeeper lineup New Descriptive Interface The Diskeeper interface has been completely re designed to be more intuitive and informative Common commands are grouped together in the Command pane and a group of tabbed panes show you a wide variety of information Diskeeper shows you the condition of your disks and provides suggestions for improving or maintaining your disks Performance and Reliability Analysis Diskeeper now collects and displays data regarding the performance and reliability of your disk volumes This information allows you to be more p
62. e computers in a network Diskeeper Pushinstall The preferred method for installing Diskeeper on computers across your network is the PushInstall feature available in Diskeeper Administrator Edition Using the Push Install feature Diskeeper Administrator Edition can install Diskeeper Professional Edition or Diskeeper Server Standard Edition simultaneously to multiple computers on a network from a single machine acting as an administrative console Diskeeper PushInstall can save you a tremendous amount of time and effort especially on large networks where the same software needs to be installed on hundreds or even thousands of computers To make use of the PushInstall feature you must install Diskeeper Administrator Edition on a computer that will act as the administrative console for all your Diskeeper installations network wide You must also be logged into a domain administrator account The receiving computers must be running a Windows version supported by Diskeeper Professional Edition or Diskeeper Server Standard Edition Refer to the Diskeeper Administrator Edition User Manual or Help system for detailed instructions on using the PushInstall feature Diskeeper as a Cluster Aware Application 103 Appendix E Diskeeper as a Cluster Aware Application on a Cluster Server Diskeeper can be run as a cluster aware application on a cluster server To do this you must set up the DkCluster exe executable image as a cluster resource a
63. e middle of the file relocation process no data is ever at risk Theory of Operation 85 Windows 95 98 Me Note Stopping or pausing a Diskeeper job through its menus or toolbars is completely safe Note however that in the event of a system crash or other non standard termination of the Diskeeper process while it is running it is possible for free space and file information to be stored incorrectly Executive Software strongly recommends running the Windows Scandisk error checking utility immediately when Diskeeper is stopped abnormally Scandisk will correct any potential file errors Performance When running in the Set It and Forget It mode Diskeeper is designed to run in the background without adversely affecting performance of your Windows computer Steps have been taken to assure that by default Diskeeper overhead has the lowest possible impact on system performance Diskeeper can be run at the lowest possible Windows priority using only otherwise unused CPU cycles Diskeeper was designed in such a way to ensure it will not interfere with other processes on your Windows computer However for cases where you want to defragment disks more quickly Diskeeper allows you to increase the defragmentation priority For more information see Setting Diskeeper Priority on page 68 Process Live Disks It is not acceptable to force users off the disk while performing routine defragmentation To do so would be a case of the cure bein
64. e volume Click the Set It and Forget It option in the Command pane to pick from one of several commonly used schedules or to create a custom schedule of times when Set It and Forget It defragmentation jobs will be forced to run or times they will not be allowed to run When you click the Set It and Forget It option the Set It and Forget It pane is displayed Schedules only affect Set It and Forget It defragmentation jobs Any active defragmentation job previously started on a disk volume will complete After it completes the new schedule takes effect When you use the Set It and Forget It pane always select one or more volumes in the disk volume pane before clicking any of the other Set It and Forget It controls You can select more than one volume by holding the CTRL key while clicking on the volumes listed in the disk volume pane Here is an example of the Set It and Forget It pane when you first start Diskeeper Performance Reliability Fragmentation Drive Map Set It and Forget It Setting up defragmentation schedules About Scheduling To create an automatic schedule to defragment your Scheduling defragmentation of your volumes is easy to do drives with Diskeeper Scheduling allows you to Set It and Forget It so that defragmentation becomes Diskeeper s 1 Select volumes From the list above problem not yours 2 Choose from the options in the Set It and Forget It menu on the left The scheduling options provided i
65. ed to fully defragment the MFT but it usually does not need to occur as often as it does on Windows NT and Windows 2000 Paging File Defragmentation defragments the paging file Fragmented paging files can slow Windows performance They can also hurt the effectiveness of Diskeeper since the unmovable paging file fragments break up the free space on the volume By defragmenting your paging file you can help maintain peak Windows performance and help Diskeeper run better at the same time After a paging file has been defragmented it should remain contiguous unless its size is changed Boot time defragmentation opens up larger areas of contiguous free space for new file creation and modification Important For best results with the Boot Time defragmentation feature Executive Software strongly recommends 1 Do a full backup of the disk volume before running any Boot Time operations This provides an additional level of safety in case of a disk drive failure 2 Make sure you have sufficient contiguous free space Delete unneeded files and perform one or more manual defragmentation runs to defragment the volume as much as possible 3 Enable the Run the system CHKDSK utility before defragmentation option This will help prevent vital files from being moved to bad disk sectors 4 Boot Time defragmentation can take a long time especially on very large disk volumes that are severely fragmented Therefore before running Boot Time
66. eeereeee 2 Disk Volume pane 57 Diskeeper before and after comparison 11 design goals rannicrensas iin 83 directories not moved FAQs option 0 0 eee features 00 we 2l getting started oo ee eeeeeeeeeeeees 11 getting the most from 26 how often to run Installation cccccesseecsseeeeesees 118 Index interface logging activity oi OVELTVIEW eons he aeara POY osne program group s eseseeeeeeeerserererrereeeee reinstalling seeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerereesenee running from the prompt operation 81 seeing reduction in fragmentation 11 SEL VICE sive eaa ea aai T uninstalling oe eee eeeceeeeeeenees 8 Diskeeper Lite eee seeeeseeteeeeeeeees 4 Disks supported ceceeeesseeeeeeeeeeees 2 DkEventLog txt ee ceeeeeeeeeeee 8 72 Drive Map pane eeeeeeeeseeteeeceees 41 Event Log eee See Logging Setting UP the eee eset eeeeeees 7 Event Logging setting OPtIONS eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee Event Viewer cceesssescsesseeeeeeeeees Exclusion List ce eeeeseeseeeeeeeeees dialog DOK eeceseeseeeeeeceseeneeeeees Inte Mal civess cekecesecteeaesettieiseed sees User defined Extended partitions FAQS OptiOn eeeceeeeeeeeteteeeeeeeeeeeeee 57 File record examinations 80 File Systems Supported eee 1 Files not moved to beginning of disk 92 Fragmentation analy SiS isanne definition Of eesseseeeeeeeeeeereeeee
67. eliminating fragmentation It is acommon misconception that a defragmented disk should look very neat and tidy in the Drive Map pane with solid blue bars all the way across the screen representing fragmentation free files and the rest white space representing consolidated space Clearly the speed of the disk meaning how fast you can access the data on it is more important than the prettiness of the display or the consolidation of all the free space into one place Free space consolidation might be important if the next file that you plan to create needs to be one gigantic contiguous file but it has no effect on performance Because of this Diskeeper uses algorithms that achieve the highest speed from your drive regardless of the arrangement of the free spaces on the drive and on the screen and it does so without wasting time on excessive consolidation of free space We simply go for the fastest possible file access times and then stop Even so you might ask why we don t continue and rearrange the files further to get a neat display Because it takes computer power to do so We long ago decided that it would be wrong for Diskeeper to consume more of your computer s performance Answers to Frequently Asked Questions 91 than it gives back So Diskeeper defragments until the disk is in top shape performance wise and then stops Any further work is a waste of your computer resources Now this might not be important to you if you like to
68. entation Improved free space consolidation Click this option in the Change your settings menu to select the method Diskeeper uses for both manual and Set It and Forget It defragmentation jobs This option is also available in the Action menu For more information see Using Different Defragmentation Methods on page 69 Set power management options This option is intended for users of laptop or portable computers When enabled this option prevents Diskeeper from running when the computer switches to battery power Click this option in the Change your settings menu to enable or disable this option This option is also available in the Action menu For more information see Using Power Management on page 70 Set a boot time schedule Use the option to set up the defragmentation of files that can only be moved safely at boot time before Windows up and is running See page 59 for full information about running boot time defragmentation Set performance data options Use this option to enable or disable the scanning your disk drives to gather disk performance data When enabled the scan runs one time on each disk volume detected and runs any time a new disk volume detected on your computer This option is disabled by default Diskeeper uses the data gathered during the performance data scan to measure the performance of each of your disk drives It uses this information to determine how 56 Diskeeper Operation much performance you
69. er purchase online You can also register Diskeeper by mailing or faxing the registration card that comes with the CD Be sure to register your Diskeeper purchase to receive the free 90 days of telephone support included with Diskeeper About Windows Service Packs Since Diskeeper uses mechanisms built into Windows NT Windows 2000 Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 that allow the safe movement of files on a disk that is actively being accessed by users there is no need to upgrade Diskeeper each time you install a new Windows Service Pack upgrade Installation 7 Repairing Windows Systems Performing an emergency repair of a Windows system can possibly change or disable certain system information or services which may make it necessary to reinstall Diskeeper after repairing your Windows system About the Diskeeper Service Diskeeper is primarily designed as a Set It and Forget It disk defragmenter In order to accomplish this goal it creates a Windows service The service allows Diskeeper to run in the background while other applications are running As long as your operating system is up and running Diskeeper can defragment your disks whether you are logged on or not After installation the Diskeeper service starts automatically each time your computer is restarted The Diskeeper service runs all the time whether or not defragmentation is occurring This service consumes negligible system resources and in most cases will n
70. erforms a specific function and is designed to work interactively with other components and applications See also applet COM DCOM Glossary 107 contiguous Adjacent placed one after the other A contiguous file is not fragmented that is it takes up a single chunk of disk space See also fragmentation defragmentation control file A file Diskeep ctl used by Diskeeper to keep track of and control scheduled defragmentation of disk volumes See also Set It and Forget It controller A specialized electronic circuit which serves as an interface between a device such as a disk drive and a computer See also IDE SCSI CPU see central processing unit data Information as processed by a computer Plural of the Latin word datum meaning an item of information database A collection of related information about a subject organized in a useful manner that provides a base or foundation for procedures such as retrieving information drawing conclusions and making decisions datum Singular of data DCOM Acronym for Distributed Component Object Model a version of the Component Object Model COM software developed by Microsoft to support objects distributed across a network For example the Set It and Forget It feature of Diskeeper uses DCOM to start a scheduled defragmentation defragmentation The reduction or elimination of fragmentation by making files and or free disk space more contiguous device A machine s
71. ers ccvcsscscssetssavie ens cinctseseantiet gt x Smart Scheduling eee 46 50 After hout S nyaa ate 50 Software additional requirements 2 Specifying What Gets Logged Stop Button 0 eee X Summary File ccsecsseteceneoseeceeres Support Services Europe SY eae ene ie ee eR Aer EA 99 Tabbed Control cee eeceeeereeeeeees 30 Terabyte Volume Engine 80 Theory of Operation Undelete s 3 ssc cncceecsecatedheendecdeeresscabeaens xX Uninstalling Diskeeper eee 8 Updates checking for 6 57 User Interface ee eeeeeeeeeesenereeeeeee 29 120 Index Versions supported essences 1 View Readme option eee 56 Volume Sets ornari 2 Windows Application Event Log 71 disks supported eee eeeeeeeee 2 file systems supported cee 1 priority registry repairing resource requirement 0 cece service packs versions and platforms supported Windows 95 98 Me Event Logging X86 processor family
72. erved for expansion of the MFT This space is reserved when a volume is formatted and cannot be used by applications including Diskeeper However the operating system will write files to this area when the volume becomes extremely full and no other free space is available Windows provides the capability for Diskeeper to move files out of this reserved area but does not allow Diskeeper to move files into it These areas appear only on NTFS volumes Yellow areas show the paging file for Windows NT Windows 2000 Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 or the swap file for Windows 95 98 Me if it exists on the volume Light blue areas show the directory folders on the volume and their fragments Diskeeper Operation 43 Red areas show fragmented files Dark blue areas show contiguous non fragmented files White areas show free space on the volume Set It and Forget It Pane The Set It and Forget It feature allows Diskeeper to run automatically in the background while users and other processes are active on the system The Set It and Forget It pane shows the details about any schedules you have set and it s where you set custom defragmentation schedules for your disk volumes A defragmentation schedule specifies the times or days of the week that Diskeeper will or will not be allowed to run You can specify separate defragmentation schedules for individual disk volumes or you can create a single schedule for more than on
73. es of reading material around so we intend to make this one as painless as possible This book will first help you get Diskeeper quickly installed and running Next it describes the various Diskeeper features and how to use them Finally it explains about disk fragmentation on your Windows system Structure of This Book Chapter 1 describes how to install Diskeeper Chapter 2 explains how to start using Diskeeper and how to see the amount of fragmentation on your disk volumes Chapter 3 gives a brief overview of Diskeeper Chapter 4 explains the various features of Diskeeper in detail Chapter 5 presents the theory of Diskeeper operation Appendix A has tables showing the different Diskeeper editions and the operating systems features and capacities they support Appendix B provides answers to frequently asked questions Appendix C explains how to contact your Executive Software Customer Service Representative for Support Services Appendix D discusses methods you can use to install Diskeeper network wide Appendix E explains how to run Diskeeper as a cluster aware application on a cluster server The Glossary provides definitions of technical terms used in this manual viii Preface Introduction Throughout its history Diskeeper has improved with each new version Diskeeper version 8 0 continues this tradition with the introduction of an expanded product line with innovative new features and approache
74. est O Lowest To change the priority setting for either Set It and Forget It or manual defragmentation click the appropriate option button and then click OK Using Different Defragmentation Methods Diskeeper allows you to choose different types of defragmentation algorithms or patterns to suit your needs Use the Set defragmentation method option in the Change your settings menu to open the Defragmentation Options dialog box shown below This option is also available from the Action menu Use this option to select the method Diskeeper uses for both manual and Set It and Forget It defragmentation jobs Diskeeper provides defragmentation methods that emphasize Maximum disk performance This is the default proven and balanced mix of file defragmentation and free space consolidation It is designed to gain the best disk performance without using excessive system resources This is the algorithm used by Diskeeper Professional Edition and Diskeeper Home Edition Quick defragmentation This method provides the fastest defragmentation It reduces the defragmentation time by placing the emphasis on defragmenting the fragmented files rather than free space consolidation since this returns the greatest system performance gain This defragmentation method will complete 70 Diskeeper Operation faster and use fewer resources but note that the free space consolidation will not be as thorough as the other methods
75. etwork has a unique name drive See disk drive drive letter In Windows and MS DOS operating systems the naming convention for disk drives consisting of a letter followed by a colon Drives A and B are normally reserved for floppy disk drives and C typically indicates the first hard drive See also volume encrypted file A file that has been scrambled and made unrecognizable by anyone who does not have the proper key to decode it The Windows 2000 Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 Encrypting File System EFS allows users to encrypt files and folders on an NTFS volume to prevent access by unauthorized individuals event logging The process of recording audit information when certain events occur such as services starting and stopping users logging on and off and accessing resources When running Diskeeper on Windows NT Windows 2000 Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 systems logged events can be viewed with the Event Viewer utility in Administrative Tools When run on Windows 95 98 Me systems Diskeeper logs events to a text file that can be viewed with a variety of text editor programs such as Notepad Event Viewer A utility available on Windows NT Windows 2000 Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 which permits the viewing of logged events See also event logging extended partition A type of partition that permits the limitation of four partitions per disk drive to be overcome A disk drive may be partitioned in
76. ever need to be disabled The Windows Application Event Log When running under Windows NT Windows 2000 Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 Diskeeper places messages in the Windows Application Event Log By default this log is 512 kilobytes in size except on Windows Server 2003 and is set to overwrite events older than 7 days old Diskeeper can quickly fill the log file if these default settings are used To prevent this perform these steps to change the size and overwriting characteristics of the Application Event Log On Windows 2000 and Windows XP 1 Right click the My Computer icon on your desktop and select Manage 2 When the Computer Management Console is displayed select System Tools and then Event Viewer 3 Expand the Event Viewer by double clicking it and select Application 4 Next click the Action menu and select Properties a Set the Maximum log size to 2048 KB b Enable the Overwrite events as needed option c Click OK Diskeeper allows you to specify what information is written to the Application Event Log For more information see Windows NT 2000 XP Server 2003 Event Log on page 71 8 Installation On Windows NT 4 0 1 From the Windows NT Start button choose Programs then the Administrative Tools Program Group 2 Inthe Administrative Tools Program Group choose the Event Viewer 3 Inthe Event Viewer open the Log menu and choose the Log Settings option 4 Inthe Event Log Settings dialog box
77. ffecting Understanding the problem of fragmentation your machine s performance Fragmentation means that the pieces of a file are 1 Select a drive From the list above scattered all over the disk making it difficult for the 2 Click Analyze selected drive From the menu on the computer to access the file The more pieces a file is in Com man d left the more difficult that file is to access Also when many 3 Click Start bes are freon tes the Sra will become much lower making common tas opening e mail an Pa ne Diskeeper will determine the lost performance on pA pictures take longer by analyzing how long it takes to read the volup current state and how long it will take to rey once the files have been defragmented You will see how much the performa is being degraded and using Dis to regain the lost performar f it that way for thelifacfweurcome Information Pane When you first start Diskeeper the Performance tab pane is displayed Like the other tab controlled panes this one gives quite a bit of information This pane gives instructions for analyzing your drives and also give you some background information about the effects of fragmentation Let s analyze a disk volume before we continue with the tour Select a disk volume and click Analyze selected drive then Start in the Command pane Ga You can also use the Analyze button to start the analysis of the selected disk Getting S
78. fferent names depending on your version of Windows Follow these steps to completely remove and uninstall Diskeeper from your computer 1 From the Control Panel double click Add Remove Programs On Windows 95 98 Me or Windows NT systems click the Install Uninstall tab 2 Highlight the Diskeeper entry 3 Click Remove or Add Remove Windows 95 98 Me and Windows NT This removes the Diskeeper program files from your computer In most cases the Diskeeper installation directory will not be removed 4 On Windows 2000 Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 systems the Windows Disk Defragmenter is restored to the state it was in before Diskeeper was installed 5 Manually delete the Diskeeper installation directory if it exists Note If DCOM and or the MMC have been installed on your computer they will not be removed when Diskeeper is uninstalled Getting Started 11 Chapter 2 Getting Started This chapter explains how to analyze the fragmentation on a disk volume save the results defragment the volume and do a before and after comparison Introduction Recent marketing research has shown that computer system performance and reliability are major concerns among system administrators Disk fragmentation is a major cause of these performance and reliability problems Diskeeper is designed to not only handle the fragmentation problem but to give you information about the performance and reliability status of your disk
79. for tables showing all the Diskeeper editions with the features and operating system versions they support About Fragmentation As used in this manual the term disk fragmentation means two things a condition in which pieces of individual files on a disk volume are not contiguous but rather are broken up and scattered around the disk and a condition in which the free space on a disk volume consists of little pieces of space here and there rather than a few large free spaces The effects of excessive fragmentation are twofold as well file access takes longer because a file must be collected in pieces here and there requiring several disk accesses instead of just one and file creations take longer because space for the file must be allocated in little pieces here and there instead of just one contiguous allocation The bottom line fragmentation slows Windows system performance The longer you wait to defragment your disk volumes the slower your computer runs With Diskeeper all the disks in a Windows operating system can be kept defragmented indefinitely Diskeeper cleans them up and keeps them that way This includes disks with compressed encrypted and sparse files on NTFS volumes Running either invisibly as a background job or as a manual defragmenter Diskeeper carefully rearranges files and free space on a disk volume so they consist of as few pieces as possible Because Diskeeper runs online there is no need to l
80. for the Master File Table MFT For more information see Why don t my files get moved to the beginning of the volume on page 92 Having all of the free space in a single contiguous piece provides very little if any performance benefit Free space fragmented into hundreds of pieces will affect disk performance but free space that s in a few pieces should not have any effect on the performance of your volume Why don t my files get moved to the beginning of the volume On NTFS volumes Windows NT Windows 2000 Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 reserve a portion of the free space on a disk volume for the Master File Table MFT This free space is usually most noticeable at the physical beginning of the volume easily seen using Drive Map pane but space is also reserved for use by the MFT in other areas of the volume Since this space is reserved for exclusive use Diskeeper will not move files into these areas of the volume but will move them out of these areas Why don t all of my NTFS volumes appear in the Diskeeper Volume List Both SYSTEM and ADMINISTRATOR must have full control over a file or the directory folder it is in in order for Diskeeper to have access to move the file This is because the Diskeeper service runs under the Administrator account and System access is necessary to defragment files safely This is a security feature governed by the Windows NT Windows 2000 Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 C2
81. g on the outside A device such as a disk drive printer keyboard or mouse connected to and used by a computer permission The ability of a user on a computer system to access or modify files especially those that he or she did not create Permissions exist for security reasons to prevent unauthorized access to sensitive information The system administrator assigns permissions or who has access to what platform The environment in which a computer system operates either based on the computer s CPU or its operating system For example the x86 platform or the Windows Server 2003 platform platter A disk drive consists of one or more platters each of which can receive magnetic recordings on both sides The platter spins like a phonograph record on a turntable primary partition In Windows and MS DOS operating systems the disk space on a disk drive may be divided into a maximum of four primary partitions or three primary partitions plus an extended partition which in turn can contain one or more logical drives priority On a Windows system several programs can appear to be running at once even though the CPU can only process one instruction at a time With the help of the operating system the CPU processes a few instructions from one program then a few instructions of the next program and so on over and over Without priority assignments each program would be given about the same amount of time in each t
82. g file system The collection of one or more computers and peripheral devices Sometimes used as a synonym for operating system or the combination of hardware and software as a logical unit system administrator The person in charge of maintaining a multi user computer system system file In general a file that is part of or accessed by the operating system The Diskeeper Drive Map display shows certain system files in green particularly the master file table MFT and several other files that cannot be moved safely by Diskeeper or any other defragmenter These are not the files that make up the Windows operating system but the files that make up the NTFS file system task A program or portion thereof that is run as an independent entity terabyte A measure of computer storage capacity equal to 2 to the 40th power or approximately a thousand billion bytes or a thousand gigabytes trialware A free software package from Executive Software such as Diskeeper that has the same functionality as the official version of the software but which works for a limited time period after which it expires Trialware allows you to try the software before making a buying decision utility A program that provides basic services or functions Glossary 115 volume A subdivision of the space on a disk drive that is treated as though it were a Separate physical unit or a combination of physical disks treated as a single unit A computer
83. g worse than the disease Access to fragmented files is better than no access at all The best solution is to defragment online with users active on the same disk volume Diskeeper was designed with this in mind During most of the time Diskeeper is processing a file it shares the file with any other users that may access the same file The last step of processing the file however involves locking the file for a very brief period a matter of milliseconds If another user requests a file that Diskeeper has locked that request is suspended for the brief period until Diskeeper releases the file Then the request is serviced There is never an interruption of either process as a result of this delay This solution allows Diskeeper to defragment open files safely regardless of whether they are open for read operations or for write operations Note Due to the Windows NT 4 0 design directories MFT and paging files cannot be moved safely on live disks NTFS directories can be moved on Windows 2000 Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 Therefore Diskeeper performs these operations at the only safe time while the computer is starting up 86 Theory of Operation No Operator Intervention In keeping with the design goals after Diskeeper has been started in the Set It and Forget It mode it runs automatically in the background without the need for operator intervention It runs indefinitely unless told otherwise by you Diskeeper Editi
84. get It and manual defragmentation jobs If you raise the priority defragmentation runs tend to complete faster but may also slow down the users on the system Lowering the priority will have the opposite effect Click Change your settings in the Command pane then select Set defragmentation priority to change the priority at which Diskeeper defragmentation jobs run This option is also available in the Action menu For more information see Setting Diskeeper Priority on page 68 Defragmentation Methods Diskeeper allows you to choose the type of defragmentation that best suits your needs Diskeeper provides defragmentation methods that emphasize Maximum disk performance Quick defragmentation Improved free space consolidation Click Change your settings in the Diskeeper Command pane then select Set defragmentation method to select the method Diskeeper uses for both manual and Set It and Forget It defragmentation jobs This option is also available in the Action menu For more information see Using Different Defragmentation Methods on page 69 Event Logging Diskeeper allows you to record information about its activity in a log file Click Change your settings in the Diskeeper Command pane then select Set event logging options to alternately enable or disable the logging of various events to the Diskeeper Event Log The logging method varies depending on the version of 26 Overview of Diskeeper Windows you are using This option i
85. have a fragmented MFT A White Paper describing the causes and effects of MFT fragmentation is available from the Executive Software Web site at http www execsoft com whats new whitepaper asp Use the Boot Time defragmentation option to defragment a fragmented MFT For more information see Boot Time Defragmentation on page 59 Another situation that can prevent complete defragmentation of a volume is the existence of a large number of directories on the volume For more information see Can Diskeeper move directories on page 91 Yet another cause for incomplete defragmentation on Windows NT Windows 2000 Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 systems can be a security access situation Both SYSTEM and ADMINISTRATOR must have full control over a file or the directory folder it is in in order for Diskeeper to have access to move the file This is because the Diskeeper service runs under the Administrator account and System access is necessary to defragment files safely This security feature is governed by the Windows NT Windows 2000 Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 C2 security requirements Included with Diskeeper is a batch file that sets the access permissions on a disk volume to allow Diskeeper to run properly See How do I set access permissions to allow Diskeeper to defragment my files on page 93 for information about using this batch procedure 90 Answers to Frequently Asked Questions Diskeeper won t move some files no matter what I
86. he DCOM installation is complete Setup detects and removes any previously installed Diskeeper software Any previous Diskeeper settings are not saved On a Windows 2000 Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 system after Setup is complete you can immediately start Diskeeper after clicking Finish 6 Installation On Windows 95 98 Me and Windows NT systems you may be required to restart your computer before running Diskeeper 12 To run Diskeeper click the Windows Start button select Programs and then Executive Software Diskeeper After the Installation Check for Update The first time you run Diskeeper it automatically checks to see if a more recent version of Diskeeper is available If so you are given the option to download and install the newer version When the download screen is displayed click Run this program from its current location to begin installing the update Or click Save this program to disk to save the Diskeeper update installation package on your computer for later installation To install an update stored on your computer in this manner simply double click the file you download and follow the instructions displayed You can check for Diskeeper updates any time you want Use the Check for update option in the Change your settings menu to see if a newer version of Diskeeper is available Registering Diskeeper After the Diskeeper installation is complete you may be given the option to register your Diskeep
87. he part of the computer hardware that controls the computer s overall operation and performs computations Most modern CPUs are built into a single integrated circuit or chip See also Pentium x86 chip See integrated circuit CHKDSK A program supplied with Windows NT Windows 2000 Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 that checks the integrity of a disk and corrects disk errors such as lost clusters See also scandisk client In a computer network a computer that uses the services of another computer called a server For example a client can ask a server to provide it with needed data or to print a file for the client See also server workstation cluster Smallest addressable unit of space on a disk A one byte file will actually use a cluster of disk space The minimum size of a cluster depends on the size of the disk volume The FAT file system allows a maximum of 65 536 clusters per volume which means that the cluster size on a 64 megabyte disk volume is one kilobyte while a 128 megabyte volume uses two kilobyte clusters Thus the FAT file system can be very wasteful of disk space on large volumes The NTFS file system does not suffer from this limitation COM Acronym for Component Object Model a specification developed by Microsoft for building software components that can be made into programs or add functionality to existing programs running on Microsoft Windows platforms component A small modular program that p
88. i iian hein eine primary Pause Button Pentium processor s sseeeseeeerereeeeereeeee 1 Performance e cee eeceeeecreeeeeeeeeeeeees 85 Performance data 0 cic eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee 55 Performance pane 30 Platforms supported 0 cceeeeeeeeeee 1 Power management Prefabs cesna Primary partitions cc ceeeeeeeees PHIOTit ys cea cece G05 1a ols tatetectege Set eee setting the Process Live Disks P shlnst lls sonrisas Quick Tour cccecccscessceeseeesseeeteeeee 12 RAID at tay ennenen genrerna Registering Diskeeper REBIS IYseeesie tsar lca atet ae Rae Reliability pane cee eeeeeeeeeeeeeee Remote Installation 3 Repairing Windows Requirements additional software 2 Resource requirements eeee 237 Resume Buttons sensone teniss 58 Run every night 51 Run weekends only ceeeeeeeeeeeeeee 51 Index 119 Safety ansi reser neir 84 Schedule clearing aonencterniinii ni 51 custom Scheduling Screen Saver mode s s s 48 Set It and Forget It eee 43 Smart Scheduling eee Screen Saver mode cece Select schedule type Service Pack x cicsceccpsertersiens denatee Service Diskeeper c eceeseeseeseeeees Set It and Forget It oo eee eee Patlees EAIA soot hs abe Set It and Forget It pane controls oo eeeeeeeeeeeeseceeeeecneeseeeeeee 45 Setting up the Application Event Log 7 SETUP EXE parenii 3 SIt kKeS P
89. ially defragmented Its fragments have been reduced in number but the file is not yet contiguous Diskeeper Operation 41 L D splayed File Descripti on After System Insufficient Terabyte NTFS There was insufficient free space Contiguous Volume Engine Only to defragment the file Free Space Defragmentation Only Move refused Terabyte NTFS Although Diskeeper requested the by OS Volume Engine Only file move the operating system Defragmentation denied the request This can Only happen when free space previously located by Diskeeper is overwritten by other file activity or if a file is deleted or extended during the defragmentation attempt Saving a Fragmentation Report Click the Save report link at the bottom of the Fragmentation pane to save the fragmentation report to a text file When you click the link a dialog box is displayed allowing you to specify the name of the report and the location where you want to store it The saved report shows all the information available from the Fragmentation pane Printing a Fragmentation Report Click the Print report link at the bottom of the Fragmentation pane to print the fragmentation report When you click the link a dialog box is displayed allowing you to specify the printer on which you want to print the report The printed report shows all the information available from the Fragmentation pane Drive Map Pane The Drive Map pane gives an overall view of
90. ile E Green system files C White unused space E Greenjwhite reserved system E Light Blue folders System C Analyzed COO O complete The group of horizontal bars in the Drive Map pane gives a graphic representation of the fragmentation of your disk volume The color legend in the Command pane shows what the colors in the display mean Of particular interest in this example the red areas show the fragmented files on the disk Next let s defragment drive C and see what type of improvement Diskeeper can provide Click Defragment selected drive then Start in the Command pane to start the defragmentation process Notice that drive C is still selected You can also use the Defragment button 53 to start defragmenting the selected volume You can watch the progress of the defragmentation if you keep the Drive Map pane open while Diskeeper is defragmenting your disk Note that in order to provide the fastest defragmentation possible the graphic drive map display is not available when the Terabyte Volume Engine TVE is used Instead the Drive Map pane shows numerical defragmentation information The TVE is available in selected Server editions of Diskeeper See Appendix A for a table showing the Diskeeper editions with TVE support Getting Started 19 After the defragmentation is complete it s time to see how Diskeeper has improved the condition of the disk Open the Perfo
91. ile is a file that the Windows NT Windows 2000 Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 operating systems use that cannot be defragmented safely while Windows is active but it can be defragmented at boot time using the Boot Time Paging File Defragmentation feature For more information see Boot Time Defragmentation on page 59 MFT Defragmentation The Master file Table MFT is another critical system file on NTFS volumes that cannot be defragmented safely while Windows NT Windows 2000 Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 are active but it can be defragmented at boot time using the Boot Time MFT Defragmentation feature For more information see Boot Time Defragmentation page on 59 Overview of Diskeeper 25 Exclusion List In some cases you may have files or directory folders you do not want to defragment For example you may not want to defragment temporary files that will soon be deleted Any files or directories can be excluded from Diskeeper processing by adding them to the exclusion list To use this feature click Change your settings in the Command pane and select Exclude selected files and folders or select the same option from the Action menu For more information see Setting an Exclusion List on page 65 The default priority for scheduled Set It and Forget It defragmentation jobs is Lowest while manual defragmentation jobs run at Normal priority You can change the priority independently for both Set It and For
92. ime slot but by assigning priorities the more important programs can be given longer time intervals than the less important ones allowing them to complete faster process A program along with the system resources the program requires to run A process represents a unit of resource ownership and work to be done The operating system creates processes to keep track of resources and to ensure the proper scheduling of tasks processor See central processing unit program A set of instructions that tell a computer what to do Synonym software Glossary 113 RAID Redundant Array of Independent Disks A method of combining several disk drives to make one large volume Typically used on a network file server to achieve faster access greater protection against disk failure or both record A collection of related data items treated as a unit For example in a file containing information about a company s customers one record would consist of the particulars name address phone number etc of one customer See also field registry A database that contains information about current hardware settings installed software user preferences and associations between file types and applications that access those files resource Any part of a computer system such as a disk drive printer or memory which can be used by a program scandisk A program supplied with Windows 95 Windows 98 and Windows Me that checks the integrity
93. imum read time _ 72 improvement minimum th tt tt 0 15 30 45 60 75 z What do the numbers mean read time seconds Currently it is taking the computer 3 6 times longer to Time to read all files on drive C read the fragmented Files than it should Current read time a Overall the data on drive C takes 1 10 times longer to read thus slowing down your computer Optimum read time m 8 improvement The files that are fragj ented are the cause of this Sr ee i e R 0 6 9 12 15 slowness and if you q using only those files you will read time minutes experience a drastic own Values shown are Summary of findings Shows performance loss to read all the files uneven graph bars mean performance is being lost After the fragmented disk has been defragmented by Diskeeper the Performance pane helps show the real gain from defragmentation Here s an example Performance Reliability Fragmentation Drive Map Set It and Forget It Defragmentation results for drive C Recommendations Time to read only fragmented files on drive C Maintain peak performance by defragmenting your A volumes frequently Current read time Use Smart Scheduling to keep performance loss at a Optimum read time 72 improvement minimum What do the numbers mean The fragmented files are now read in 72 less time than Time to read all files on drive C before defragmentation Current read time grall the
94. inistrator Smart Scheduling A feature introduced with Diskeeper 6 0 which has a built in mechanism to determine how frequently a disk volume needs to be defragmented With Smart Scheduling Diskeeper automatically schedules defragmentation runs to 114 Glossary occur more often when a disk volume becomes more fragmented or less often when it becomes less fragmented SMS System Management Server A software product from Microsoft which permits the system administrator on a Windows NT Windows 2000 or Windows Server 2003 network to do such things as install and run new software on different computers on the network all from a single location snap in A program such as Diskeeper that can be used with the Microsoft Management Console MMC For more information see the MMC Help facility software A generic term for computer programs taken collectively Contrast with hardware Software can be categorized into application software and system software sparse files A method of storing large files that contain mostly empty space and not much data in a way that uses much less disk space than would otherwise be used Sparse file support allows an application to create very large files without committing disk space for every byte swap file A file on a disk drive that Windows 95 98 Me uses to hold temporary data that will not fit into memory When needed the operating system moves data from the swap file to memory See also pagin
95. isks using the Smart Scheduling feature For more information see Smart Scheduling on page 46 Diskeeper Operation 29 Chapter 4 Diskeeper Operation This chapter describes how to operate Diskeeper The Diskeeper Interface As explained in Chapter 2 the Diskeeper user interface is made up of several distinct components These are in order of discussion Information Pane Shows information about your disks and lets you schedule defragmentation Command Pane Quick and easy access to commonly used Diskeeper features a Disk Volume Pane Shows all the detected disk volumes and information about them Toolbar Another fast way to access common Diskeeper controls Menu Bar Menv based access to Diskeeper features Status Bar Shows the status of any currently running Diskeeper operations 30 Diskeeper Operation Information Pane The Information pane section of the Diskeeper display is the main Operations Center for Diskeeper Each tab pane shows a different aspect of your disks condition or controls when Diskeeper runs eua Wo File Action View Help gt Set It and Forget It i gt i gt Analyze selected drive Tabbed amp gt Ode gt Defragment selected alive Controls gt Change your settings Help New Data E 20 002 MB 6 473 MB Old System N NTFS 8 738 MB 1 605 MB 18 Old Data Y 2 172 MB 278 MB 12 Performance __ Reliability Fragment
96. l purposes or b transfer the Software to a single hard disk provided you keep the original solely for backup or archival purposes You may not copy the user documentation provided with the Software except for your own authorized use RESTRICTED RIGHTS LEGEND The software and documentation are provided with RESTRICTED RIGHTS Use duplication or disclosure by the Government is subject to restrictions as set forth in subparagraph c 1 ii of the Rights in Technical Data and Computer Software clause at DFARS 252 227 7013 or subparagraphs c 1 and 2 of the Commercial Computer Software Restricted Rights at 48 CFR 52 227 19 as applicable Manufacturer is Executive Software International Inc 7590 North Glenoaks Boulevard Burbank California 91504 Executive Software Diskeeper Sitekeeper Undelete Set It and Forget It Smart Scheduling and Focused development of system management tools and The Standard in Entire Network Defragmentation are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Executive Software International Inc in the United States and other countries Microsoft Active Directory Windows Windows NT and Windows Server 2003 are either registered trademarks or trademarks owned by Microsoft Corporation in the United States and or other countries All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners Contents iii CONTENTS PREFACE VII WHAT THIS BOOK IS ABOUT VII STRUCTURE OF THIS
97. ment active paging files since paging files must be open for exclusive use by Windows at all times However Diskeeper can defragment paging files safely when your computer is being started a time when the operating system has not yet taken full control of the files and directories on your disk For more information see Boot Time Defragmentation on page 59 Can Diskeeper defragment the Master File Table The Master File Table MFT is the area on an NTFS disk volume where Windows NT Windows 2000 Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 keep the necessary information for retrieving files from the disk volume The MFT also contains information such as file creation modification and backup dates and times Because the MFT is held open for exclusive use by Windows Diskeeper does not move any pieces of this critical system file while Windows is running but can do so safely at boot time For more information see Boot Time Defragmentation on page 59 92 Answers to Frequently Asked Questions Why doesn t Diskeeper completely consolidate the free space on my volume Several factors can prevent the free space on a volume from being defragmented A fragmented paging file For more information see Boot Time Defragmentation page 59 A large number of directories on the volume For more information see Can Diskeeper move directories on page 91 On NTFS volumes a portion of the free space on the volume is reserved by Windows
98. mentation on certain critical files used by Windows It will then make an assessment as to how vulnerable your computer is and will make recommendations for fixing the problem Click to find out more about fragmentation System C Analyzed 0 Complete The Reliability pane gives a reliability analysis and rating the reasons for that rating and recommendations for improving or maintaining the reliability of the disk volume In this example the reliability analysis for drive C shows a considerable amount of fragmentation warranting a Warning rating The ratings are based on several factors You may see different conditions on your disks such as too little free space or a badly fragmented paging file Getting Started 17 Next click the Fragmentation tab to see the Fragmentation pane File Action View Help Set It and Forget It Analyze selected drive Defragment selected drive Fragmentation ho Bie system coi a hee Soc I Se Free Space Change your settings fe i bod be Ne a he i A NTFS 2 180 MB 123MB 5 nee NTFS 20 002 MB 6 468 MB 32 Old System NTFS 8 738 MB 1 605 MB 18 old Data NTFS 2 172 MB 278 MB 12 Performance _ Reliability Fragmentation Drive Map Set It and Forget It r Results of fragmentation analysis for the drive C Volume System C Paging File Fragmentation Volume size 16 315 MB Paging Swap file size Cluster size 4KB Total fragments Used space 11 297 M
99. metimes called applets application A computer program which causes a computer system to perform some useful work for the user AutoPlay A feature of some Windows applications on CD ROM that causes the program to start automatically when the CD ROM is placed in the drive background processing The execution of certain operations during momentary lulls in the primary foreground process An example of a background process is printing while a word processor is waiting for keystrokes binary From Latin bini meaning two by two and ary meaning of or pertaining to Computers use the binary number system which is a way of counting in which only two digits 0 and 1 are used Contrast with the familiar decimal number system in which we count with 10 digits 0 through 9 bit Short for binary digit The smallest unit of information handled by a computer Like a light switch a bit is either on or off which corresponds to a numerical value of one or zero Larger numbers are expressed by groups of bits See also byte boot Refers to the initial start up of a computer such as when you turn on the computer s power From the word bootstrap indicating the computer lifts itself by the bootstraps that is it gets itself going boot time The time during which a computer boots that is the computer is starting up and the operating system has not yet taken over control of the computer browser A software prog
100. mpt Help text Diskeeper D Defragments volume D Diskeeper D b Defragments volume D and performs a boot optimization Diskeeper Displays the following Help text Copyright c 2001 2002 by Executive Software International Inc Diskeeper lt volume gt b lt volume gt is a required parameter that will accept a valid drive letter The switches are b Boot On Windows XP systems defragments the files used to boot your computer if needed Help Displays this help message Theory of Operation 83 Chapter 5 Theory of Operation This chapter describes the Diskeeper design goals and how those goals were met Introduction As described in the introduction of this manual the term disk fragmentation means two things acondition in which pieces of individual files on a disk are not contiguous but rather are broken up and scattered around the disk volume and a condition in which the free space on a disk volume consists of little pieces of space here and there rather than a few large free spaces The effects of excessive fragmentation are twofold as well file access takes longer because a file must be collected in pieces here and there requiring several disk accesses instead of just one and file creation takes longer because space for the file must be allocated in little pieces here and there instead of just one contiguous allocation Before the introduction of Diskeeper
101. n NTFS volumes this section is not displayed on FAT volumes Percent of MFT In Use This section of the Fragmentation pane or event log entry shows the percentage of the Master File Table MFT in use Diskeeper Operation 39 The MFT grows as the number of files on the volume increases but is not reduced in size when files are deleted from the volume Since the MFT is only used on NTFS volumes this section is not displayed on FAT volumes Total MFT Fragments This section of the Fragmentation pane or event log entry shows the number of fragments the Master File Table MFT is broken into Since the MFT is only used on NTFS volumes this section is not displayed on FAT volumes Most Fragmented Files Click the most fragmented files link at the bottom of the Fragmentation pane to show a list of the most fragmented files on the disk volume For each fragmented file listed this option shows Fragments Shows the number of fragments associated with the most fragmented files on your disk volume File Size Shows the size of the most fragmented files on your disk volume File Name Shows the names of the most fragmented files on your volume If these files are ones that users access frequently the impact to your system performance may be worse than indicated by the Average Fragments per File figure In addition to the names of the most fragmented files the Most Fragmented Files report also shows information explaining rea
102. n it is running Do I need to have the Diskeeper service running all the time Yes DkService is the program that actually runs Diskeeper defragmentation jobs It monitors the Diskeeper schedule file and starts defragmentation jobs when they are needed If the Diskeeper service is disabled or not present you will not be able to run Diskeeper at all That said if you look at the DkService process using Task Manager you will see that it uses only a few seconds of CPU time each week The fact that it is running all the time is not going to use up system resources or cause any problems Since installing Diskeeper the number of disk errors I get has increased Why is that Diskeeper tends to increase disk activity and just by running it can make weak points in the system break In this case you have some disk error most likely in the free space where the Windows disk error checking utility CHKDSK cannot find it Run CHKDSK R on your operating system volume at least preferably on all volumes That should correct any errors CHKDSK F may not correct this issue If CHKDSK itself aborts when it reaches the bad block it indicates a disk problem which CHKDSK can t handle and which will likely cause more trouble in the future You should back up the volume and reformat or replace it to prevent the possibility of data loss due to drive failure If you are running Windows 95 98 ME run Scandisk Thorough instead of CHKDSK How can I
103. n job when it is running simply highlight the volume in the disk volume pane and click the Stop button in the toolbar 52 Diskeeper Operation Analyze Selected Drive This option on the Command pane is self explanatory select a disk in the disk volume pane then click Analyze selected drive then Start in the Command pane to see the extent of fragmentation on the disk After the analysis is complete click the different tab controls in the Information pane to see the condition of the disk fi Diskeeper eg Eile et It and Forget It Ss gt Q 2 File System Capacity Free Space Free Space face rca sshd oe ERE nar Analyzed Analyze snlected drive 2 172 MB gt Defragment gt Change your sets Performance i Performance A aot Se click here to open the menu ive Map Set It and Forget It gt Help Recommendations Defragment now to get the performance improvements shown in the graphs Use Smart Scheduling to keep performance loss at a minimum What do the numbers mean read time seconds Currently it is taking the computer 3 6 times longer to Wead all files on drive C read the fragmented files than it should Overall the data on drive C takes 1 10 times longer to read thus slowing down your computer The files that are fragmented are the cause of this 15 slowness and if you are using only those files you will experience a drastic
104. n of one or more selected volumes without closing the Schedule Boot Time defragmentation dialog box When a volume has been scheduled it will be noted in the Available Volumes box Also use the Apply button to change the characteristics of a previously set Boot Time defragmentation such as enabling disabling the Summary File option Boot Time defragmentation will be run as scheduled on any volumes that are set Cancel Click Cancel to close the Boot Time defragmentation dialog box without making any changes Help Click Help to view context sensitive help about using Boot Time defragmentation Setting an Exclusion List Diskeeper exclusion lists allow you to specify files and directories that will not be allowed to be processed by Diskeeper in the Set It and Forget It or manual defragmentation modes For example you might not want to defragment temporary files that will soon be deleted Keep in mind that fragmented files that are excluded from defragmentation can skew the analysis results displayed in the Performance and Reliability panes Choose the Exclude selected files and folders option from the Change your settings menu in the Command pane to open the Exclude dialog box shown below This option is also available from the Action menu 66 Diskeeper Operation ae At ate kload d jel Christina k Business Plan Outline d Jeanelle Directions to my house Lisa Good Evening doc iv i Guidelines For amp fter Heu gt
105. n the Set It and Forget Tt menu on the left will provide you with the most The options shown in the Set It and Forget It menu commonly used schedules except Set a custom schedule give you preset choices that make setting up a schedule easy Tf the schedule you need is not among these options choose the Set a custom schedule option 44 Diskeeper Operation And here s an example after choosing the Set a custom schedule option from the Set It and Forget It menu Performance Reliability Fragmentation Drive Map Set It and Forget It About this type of schedule r To set a custom schedule 1 Select one or more drives from the list above or select all drives 2 Choose from the schedule options below 3 Click the Set Schedule button below The Smart Scheduling option will allow Diskeeper to run when defragmentation is needed rather than according to a preset schedule In the Smart Scheduling mode the time between defragmetation runs can be as little as 2 hours or as much as 1 week Select type of schedule Smart Scheduling iv Select which days to run every day iv Select a starting time Select an ending time Set Schedule Clear Schedule Setting a custom schedule for one or more disks is easy Here are the basic steps after clicking Set It and Forget It in the Command pane and selecting Set a custom schedule Dog a Diskeeper File Action View Help
106. nd 4 00 am Keep in mind though since this is a Smart Schedule Diskeeper will only run as often as necessary to keep fragmentation minimized on the chosen disks Diskeeper Operation 51 Set to run every night Use this option to quickly set a schedule that runs every 2 hours but only between the hours of 10 00 pm and 4 00 am for any selected disk s in the disk volume pane Set to run on weekends only Use this option to quickly set a Smart Schedule which runs only on Saturday and Sunday for any selected disk s in the disk volume pane Set Screen Saver mode Use this option to quickly set defragmentation to run only when the screen saver is active on your computer Like the other options in the Set It and Forget It menu when clicked this option is set for any selected disk s in the disk volume pane See page 48 for more information about Screen Saver mode Set a custom schedule Use this option to set a custom schedule for any selected disk s in the disk volume pane You can set the days and times when Diskeeper will or will not be allowed to tun See page 43 for more information about creating a custom schedule Clear a Schedule Use this option to clear a previously set schedule for any selected disk s in the disk volume pane This option removes any schedule set for the selected volume s but any ongoing defragmentation jobs will continue until completion If you need to stop but not clear a scheduled defragmentatio
107. nd bring it online DkCluster exe is supplied with Diskeeper and is located in the directory where Diskeeper is installed Note This feature is only available on Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003 systems Diskeeper must be installed on all the nodes of the cluster upon which you want to run Diskeeper under the same drive names and directories Setting Up the Cluster Resource and Bringing it Online Follow these steps to set up the cluster resource and bring it online 1 Start the Cluster Administrator from the Start Administrative Tools menu 2 Create a new group by selecting New then Group from the File menu 3 Specify ESI for the group name optionally add a description for the new group and click Next 4 Select the nodes that Diskeeper is going to run on from Available nodes list and Add them to the Preferred owners list 5 Click Finish to create the new cluster group 6 Select the newly created group from the Groups tree 7 Create a new resource by selecting New then Resource from the File menu 104 Diskeeper as a Cluster Aware Application 8 Specify DkCluster for the name and optionally add a description for the new resource 9 Choose Generic Application for the Resource type and click Next 10 The Possible Owners dialog box will display the nodes chosen in step 4 shown in the Possible owners list box Click Next 11 Click Next on the Dependencies dialog box 12 Under Command line specify
108. nt moved Click this option in the Change your settings menu to create or modify an exclusion list This option is also available from the Action menu For more information about exclusion lists see Setting an Exclusion List on page 65 Set defragmentation priority You can select the Windows priority at which Diskeeper defragmentation jobs run Click this option in the Change your settings menu to set the priority for both Set It and Forget It and Manual Defragmentation jobs This option is also available from the Action menu See Setting Diskeeper Priority on page 68 for more information about setting the Diskeeper priority Keep in mind when Diskeeper runs at higher priority levels performance of other active processes will usually be affected Diskeeper Operation 55 Set event logging options Diskeeper allows you to record information about its activity in a log file Click this option in the Change your settings menu to alternately enable or disable the logging of various events to the Diskeeper Event Log The logging method varies depending on the version of Windows you are using This option is also available from the Action menu For more information see Logging Diskeeper Activity on page 69 Set defragmentation method With Diskeeper you can choose the type of defragmentation that best suits your needs Diskeeper provides defragmentation methods that emphasize Maximum disk performance Quick defragm
109. nue using Diskeeper This automatic update check only happens the first time you start Diskeeper To check for updates later see the Help menu Click OK to check to see if an update is available for Diskeeper Note that you must have an active internet connection in order for Diskeeper to check for a more recent version If a newer version of Diskeeper is available you are given the option of downloading it When the download screen is displayed click Run this program from its current location to begin installing the update Otherwise click Save this program to disk to save the Diskeeper update installation package on your computer for later installation To install an update stored on your computer in this manner simply double click the file you download and follow the instructions displayed You can also check for Diskeeper updates any time you want Use the Check for update option in the Diskeeper Help menu 14 Getting Started After checking for updates it s time to start learning about Diskeeper skeopes Pi GEIR Toolbar gt Set It and Forget It SS Q O O gt Analyze selected drive gt Defragment selected drive Session Status File System Capacity Free Space Free Space gt Change yrur settings na ee E L E B NTFS 2 180 MI NTFS 20 002 MB NTFS 8 738 MB Controls Volume NTFS 2 172 MB Reliability Fragmentation Drive Map Setit and Forget It r To find out how fragmented files are a
110. ock users off a disk while it is being defragmented Diskeeper is the complete Set It and Forget It solution to the loss in system performance caused by disk fragmentation x Preface Other Important Products Executive Software is known throughout the computer industry for its focused development of system management tools If you are running Windows NT Windows 2000 Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 you should also use Undelete for Windows Instantly recover files that have been accidentally deleted anywhere on your network Undelete sets up a Recovery Bin that caches all deletions even versions created between backups and saves you the time and money of wading through backups Undelete also includes a recovery tool for files that have been deleted before Undelete was installed Data is your business Complete your data protection solution with Undelete available from your local reseller or directly from Executive Software Sitekeeper System Management Software Get at a glance updates on every software version build update and patch Also see detailed hardware information including processor speed RAM hard drive size logical free space and asset management tags from the BIOS and motherboard Install uninstall programs with a few clicks of the mouse Installation 1 Chapter 1 Diskeeper Installation This chapter provides information you need before during and after installing Diskeeper Before the Ins
111. of a disk and corrects disk errors such as lost clusters See also CHKDSK SCSI Small Computer System Interface One of two common methods of interfacing disk drives and other devices to computers See also IDE server On a computer network a computer that makes resources available to other computers clients or workstations For example all the computers on a network can be set up to share a single high speed printer which is connected to the server Usually the server is faster and more powerful than the client computers connected to it service A process that performs a specific system function and often provides an application programming interface API for other processes to call Diskeeper uses a Windows service which allows Diskeeper to run in the background while other applications are running Service Pack A collection of software used to issue corrections and updates to software between major releases Usually refers to compilations of corrections and updates to a Windows operating system Set It and Forget It A term that was created by Executive Software which is a registered trademark and hallmark of the company A Set It and Forget It product can operate transparently unseen by the user and in the background concurrent with other applications After a schedule is set up for its operation it thereafter performs its functions at predetermined times without further intervention or attention from the user or adm
112. og For more information see Logging Diskeeper Activity on page 71 The Fragmentation pane displays information for a single disk volume at a time The disk highlighted in the disk volume pane is the disk shown in the Fragmentation pane Here is an example of the Fragmentation pane after analyzing a disk volume Performance Reliability Fragmentation Drive Map Set It and Forget It Results of fragmentation analysis for the drive C Volume System C Paging file fragmentation Volume size 16 315 MB Paging Swap file size 640 MB Cluster size 4 KB Total fragments 2 Used space 11 297 MB Free space 5 018 MB Directory Fragmentation Percent free space 30 Total directories 5 101 Fragmented directories 53 Fragmentation percentage Excess directory fragments 182 Volume Fragmentation 5 Data fragmentation 7 Master File Table MFT Fragmentation Total MFT size 106 MB File Fragmentation MFT records In Use 109 204 Total Files 103 459 Percent MFT in use 99 Average file size 170 KB Total MFT fragments 3 Total fragmented files 1 322 3 Total excess fragments 12 224 Print report Average fragments per file 1 11 Save report Click to view the most fragmented files The Fragmentation pane shows this information Volume Section Volume Size This section of the Fragmentation pane or event log entry shows the total amount of space on the disk volume This includes files and free space as well as disk space
113. ons 87 Appendix A Table of Diskeeper Editions The table below shows the different editions of Diskeeper available as well as the features and capabilities of each Diskeeper 8 0 Editions 88 Diskeeper Editions This table shows the different Diskeeper editions available and the Windows operating systems they support Diskeeper 8 0 Editions 4 4 sa 4 v Answers to Frequently Asked Questions 89 Appendix B Answers to Frequently Asked Questions Why won t my volume defragment completely This can be the result of several situations If your volume is extremely full there may not be sufficient free space to defragment the files completely In that case we recommend temporarily moving some of the files off the volume particularly large files This temporary measure often allows Diskeeper the working room it needs to complete the defragmentation process It also allows Diskeeper to defragment the free space on the volume increasing the possibility that the temporarily moved files can be moved back to the volume in a contiguous or less fragmented condition Another cause of incomplete defragmentation is a fragmented paging file For more information see Can Diskeeper defragment paging files on page 91 A volume that at some time has been filled to capacity may have a severely fragmented Master File Table MFT Volumes that have been converted from FAT to NTFS often also
114. ontrol over which disk volumes are defragmented when defragmentation is started and stopped and the priority at which manual defragmentation jobs run You can also choose between different defragmentation methods to emphasize system performance or defragmentation speed Highlight the disk volume of your choice then click Defragment gt in the Diskeeper toolbar to do a manual defragmentation Alternatively you can click Defragment selected drive then Start in the Command pane or right click the highlighted disk volume and select Defragment Click Pause Q i Resume orStop in the Diskeeper toolbar if you want to pause resume or stop manual defragmentation at any time These options are also available in the Action menu For more information see Toolbar Buttons on page 58 Set It and Forget It Set It and Forget It allows Diskeeper to run automatically in the background either after hours or while users and other processes are active on gt Boot Time defragmentation is not available when running Diskeeper on Windows 95 98 Me 24 Overview of Diskeeper the system according to a predetermined schedule you set As with manual defragmentation jobs you can select several different defragmentation methods to suit your needs You can also use the Smart Scheduling option to allow Diskeeper to automatically determine the optimum defragmentation schedule for your disk volumes WY Select Set It
115. operating system The Diskeeper setup process will automatically install DCOM and or the MMC on your computer if needed Installation Procedure The Short Version The Diskeeper installation is typically fast and simple Here are the basic steps Note On Windows NT Windows 2000 Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 make sure you are logged onto an account that is a member of the Administrators group 1 Insert the Diskeeper CD ROM into the appropriate drive on your computer If you are installing from a downloaded file double click the file you downloaded 2 Follow the screens displayed answering the questions asked as prompted That s it It would still be a good idea to read After the Installation on page 6 but you re done with the installation Installation Procedure The Details Installation Overview Diskeeper is installed by the SETUP EXE program supplied on the Diskeeper CD ROM The SETUP EXE program Confirms that you have Administrator privileges on Windows NT Windows 2000 Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 systems Determines which Windows version you are running Checks for sufficient space on the disk for the installation Detects and removes any previously installed Diskeeper software Copies the Diskeeper files to the destination directories updates the Windows registry starts the Diskeeper service and creates a link in the start menu for Executive Software Diskeeper 4
116. options option in the Change your settings menu to enable or disable this feature This option is also available from the Action menu Diskeeper Operation 71 Power Management Set Power Management option Stop defragmentation when running on battery power When this option is enabled and the computer is running on battery power any scheduled defragmentation jobs are postponed and a message noting this is written to the Windows Application Event Log If you manually start a defragmentation job when this option is enabled and the computer is running on battery power a message is displayed asking if you want to continue even though running Diskeeper on battery power may reduce the available battery time When this option is enabled and the computer switches from normal power to battery power any ongoing scheduled analysis or defragmentation jobs are safely stopped and a message noting this is written to the Windows Application Event Log If you are running Diskeeper manually and the computer switches to battery power when this option is enabled a message is displayed informing you that Diskeeper has stopped running Diskeeper Activit Use the Set event logging options option from the Change your settings menu in the Command pane to open the Event Logging dialog box This option is also available from the Action menu Use this option to enable and disable the logging of various Diskeeper events to the Windo
117. ore about fragmentation After analyzing a disk the Reliability pane shows reliability index and the reasons behind it and offers suggestions for correcting any problems found In this example the reliability analysis for drive C shows a high fragmentation level warranting a Warning rating Now here s an example of the Reliability pane after defragmentation showing a disk in good condition o Performance Reliability Fragmentation Drive Map Set It and Forget It p a Defragmentation results for drive C r Recommendations for drive C Healthy The computer s reliability is not Continue to keep fragmentation under control using Set It currently affected by Fragmentation and Forget It flair ae dill Click to find out more about fragmentation Notice that after defragmentation the Reliability pane again shows the reliability index but it changes to show the current condition of the disk Recommendations for maintaining the condition of the disk or for further improvement if necessary are also shown Like the Performance pane the information shown in the Reliability pane is dynamic changing as the conditions on your disks change Diskeeper Operation 35 The Fragmentation Pane The Fragmentation pane shows useful information about your disk volume after either analysis or defragmentation Note that most of the information shown in the Fragmentation pane can also be recorded in the Diskeeper Event L
118. ou the option to create your own custom schedules Analyze Selected Drive Start the analysis of the drive selected in the disk volume pane 50 Diskeeper Operation Defragment Selected Drive Start the manual defragmentation of the drive selected in the disk volume pane Change Your Settings Menu Change Diskeeper settings Help Menu Get help about using Diskeeper Set It and Forget It Menu Click the Set It and Forget It menu in the Command pane to expand it and reveal the different options available Here s an example v Set It and Forget It Set Smart Schedule Set Smart Schedule after hours Set to run every night to access Set to run on weekends only these options Set Screen Saver Mode Set a custom schedule Clear a schedule gt Analyze selected drive gt Defragment selected drive gt Change your settings gt Help Set Smart Schedule Use this option to quickly set a Smart Schedule for any selected disk s in the disk volume pane A Smart Schedule lets Diskeeper automatically determine when it should run on each disk See page 50 for more information about Smart Scheduling Set Smart Schedule after hours Similar to the Smart Scheduling option above this option also quickly sets a Smart Schedule for any selected disk s However this specialized schedule will only run after normal office hours When set this schedule will only allow defragmentation to run between 10 00 pm a
119. oused in a square protective envelope or cartridge Originally floppy disks really were floppy because they were enclosed in a paper envelope Also called a diskette which is a better name for the more recent design that uses a stiff plastic cartridge Contrast with hard disk formatting A method of preparing a disk surface for use by placing certain magnetic patterns on it which are used by the file system in storing and retrieving data fragmentation The word fragmentation means the state of being fragmented The word fragment means a detached isolated or incomplete part It is derived from the Latin fragmentum which in turn is derived from frangere meaning break So fragmentation means that something is broken into parts that are detached isolated or incomplete gigabyte A measure of computer storage capacity equal to approximately a billion bytes A gigabyte is two to the 30th power or 1 073 741 824 bytes graphical user interface GUI Pronounced gooey A user interface as used in the Windows operating systems which uses a mouse and graphic displays to interact with the user with the purpose to make the computer system easier to use than other operating systems such as MS DOS GUI See graphical user interface hard disk One or more rigid metal platters coated with magnetic material Contrast with floppy disk or diskette which is made of plastic Also used to refer to the phy
120. oved either because the files are on a Diskeeper exclusion list or the files cannot be opened Common causes preventing a file from being opened include access controls or permissions on the file being set to prevent Diskeeper from accessing it File permissions must allow SYSTEM to have full control of a file in order for Diskeeper to defragment it See page 93 for more information about setting access permissions This option is enabled by default 74 Diskeeper Operation Defragmented files When this option is enabled an entry is made to the Event Log listing each file that is defragmented by Diskeeper Note that enabling this option can cause the Event Log to fill rather quickly especially if Diskeeper defragments a high number of fragmented files This will be particularly likely when Diskeeper is first run on a volume since Diskeeper will probably be defragmenting a large number of files This option is not enabled by default Moved files When this option is enabled an entry is made to the Event Log each time a file is moved for reasons other than to defragment the file This would include cases where files are moved in order to create more contiguous free space This option also notes when files could not be moved such as files that are on a Diskeeper exclusion list or files that cannot be opened Common causes preventing a file from being opened include access controls or permissions on the file being set to prevent Diskeeper
121. peration Total Fragments This section of the Fragmentation pane or event log entry shows the number of fragments the paging file is broken into if it exists on the disk volume Directory Fragmentation Section Total Directories This section of the Fragmentation pane or event log entry shows the total number of directories present on the disk volume Fragmented Directories This section of the Fragmentation pane or event log entry shows the number of fragmented directories on the disk volume Excess Directory Fragments This section of the Fragmentation pane or event log entry shows the total number of directory fragments on the disk volume Contiguous directories are not counted in this total but each additional piece of any fragmented directory is counted Master File Table MFT Fragmentation Section Total MFT Size This section of the Fragmentation pane or event log entry shows the size of the Master File Table MFT Since the MFT is only used on NTFS volumes this section is not displayed for FAT volumes in the text analysis display and shows as zeros in the event log MFT Record Count This section of the Fragmentation pane or event log entry shows the number of individual file records found in the Master File Table MFT This figure will not necessarily correspond with the number of files presently on the volume since the file records remain in the MFT even after a file is deleted Since the MFT is only used o
122. perform these steps a Set the Change Setting to Application Log b Set the Maximum Log Size to 2048 KB c Enable the Overwrite Events as Needed option d Click OK Event Logging under Windows 95 98 Me When running on Windows 95 98 Me Diskeeper provides the option of logging Diskeeper events into a text file When Diskeeper logs an event the event and its message are appended to the Diskeeper log file These events are written as a text file which can then be viewed with Notepad or your choice of text editor programs The Diskeeper log file is named DkEventLog txt and it is stored in the directory folder where Diskeeper is installed The file is limited to 1 MB in size When it reaches this size the log is purged completely and the event log is started from scratch Remote Installation Diskeeper can be installed simultaneously on multiple computers in a network using Diskeeper Administrator Edition Remote installation can be a tremendous time saver for system administrators especially on large networks where they may have to install Diskeeper on hundreds or even thousands of computers For more information on remotely installing Diskeeper see Appendix D Uninstalling Diskeeper To uninstall Diskeeper on Windows NT Windows 2000 Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 systems you must be logged into an account that is a member of the Administrators group Installation Note that the controls may have slightly di
123. pted after Diskeeper completes the defragmentation pass on each of the selected disk volumes Diskeeper is automatically scheduled to re start the defragmentation operation in one hour Because of the start and stop nature of the Screen Saver mode it is not recommended on disk volumes that are heavily fragmented unless you expect the Diskeeper Operation 49 computer s screen saver to be on for several hours In cases where your screen saver activity is only for short periods of time a thorough manual defragmentation or scheduled Set It and Forget It defragmentation should be performed before running Diskeeper in Screen Saver mode Note Screen Saver mode is not recommended for servers Many servers spend a good deal of time with the screen saver active which could cause Diskeeper to run more often than necessary This can cause unnecessary system resource use on the server at times when it is under heavy demand The Command pane is where you ll find easy access to the commonly used Diskeeper features as well as several shortcuts for performing common tasks eper File Action View Help gt Set It and Forget It z i gt Analyze selected drive eS Q Q gt Defragment selected drive Session Status File System Free Space Free Space gt Change your settings fo gt Help 20 002 MB 6 473 MB 32 8 738 MB 18 2 172 MB 12 Performance Reliability Fragmentation Drive Map Setitand Forget It
124. r Optimum read time 8 improvement a ee ee The files that are Fragmented are the cause of this gt Color legend 0 a 6 9 12 15 slowness and if you are using only those files you will read time minutes experience a drastic slowdown Values shown are estimated Glick to find out more about fragmentation I Red Current read time I Green Optimum read time System C Analyzed 0 Complete As you can see the Performance pane now shows a performance analysis for drive C The upper bar graph shows the current read times for only the fragmented files on the drive and the lower graph shows read times for all the files on the drive The graphs also show the expected optimum read time for both cases based on drive performance measurements This view gives you a detailed picture of your disk performance losses due to fragmentation and the expected improvement you will see after defragmentation It should be noted that the first performance analysis is based on pre determined disk performance values measured as a part of disk performance research done by Executive Software To get a more accurate performance measurement of your actual disks Diskeeper must scan your drives to measure their performance Since this measurement can briefly slow down your computer this scan operation is disabled by default but you can turn it on easily The Set performance data options option is described in the Change yo
125. ram such as Microsoft s Internet Explorer designed to locate and view Web pages on the Jnternet In addition to displaying text modern browsers also can display pictures and play sounds byte A group of eight bits which can represent a number from zero through 255 a letter of the alphabet or a variety of other things cache From the French word cacher meaning to hide A temporary storage facility designed to speed things up by providing information to software that would 106 Glossary otherwise have to be obtained from a slower medium Caches exist for Web browsers disk drives and CPUs See also cache memory cache coherency A condition where the data contained in the cache memories ina computer with multiple processors is kept consistent at all times cache memory In computers a cache is a small amount of very fast memory that is placed close to or inside the CPU chip in order to improve performance The cache memory holds copies of recently accessed data Because computer programs often run the same instructions repeatedly many times the CPU will find the data it needs in the cache and therefore will run faster because it does not need to access the computer s main memory CD ROM Compact Disk Read Only Memory A stiff plastic disk commonly used by software manufacturers to distribute software to customers As the name implies the original contents of a CD ROM cannot be changed central processing unit CPU T
126. re for Boot Time defragmentation to consolidate move into one location any disk directories that are scattered all over your volumes and to defragment MFTs and paging files To do this use the Diskeeper Boot Time defragmentation feature Since directories or paging files cannot be moved while your operating system is up and running the Boot Time defragmentation operation defragments the paging file and or consolidates the directories on your volumes while your computer is booting After running the Boot Time operation once regular online defragmentation by Diskeeper can help prevent the MFT and paging file from becoming fragmented again It is recommended you run the Boot Time defragmentation operation on one disk volume at a time because it can be time consuming and the computer cannot be used for any other purpose while the boot time program is running Overview of Diskeeper 27 It is important to defragment your volumes before running the Boot Time defragmentation in order to create a contiguous free space for your directories and or paging files to be moved into For more information see Boot Time Defragmentation on page 59 When your directories have been defragmented schedule Diskeeper to run in the background in Set It and Forget It mode Running in the Set It and Forget It mode Diskeeper works quietly keeping your disks in prime condition You can even let Diskeeper establish the optimum defragmentation schedule for any of your d
127. re therefore recommends performing boot time defragmentation on one volume at a time 64 Diskeeper Operation Also Note After enabling the CHKDSK option you will not be able to run either Set It and Forget It or manual defragmentation on the disk until you reboot For this reason Executive Software recommends waiting to enable this option until just before you are ready to reboot your computer Defragment the Paging File Check this box to defragment the paging file of the selected volume the next time your computer starts up Defragment the Master File Table MFT Check this box to defragment the MFT of the selected volume the next time your computer starts up Pause to view screen after defragmentation When enabled this option causes the Boot Time operation to pause after completion It remains in this paused state until you manually restart your computer by either pressing the Reset button or turning off the power switch If this option is not enabled the Boot Time defragmentation operation pauses a short 15 seconds to allow you to read any messages on the monitor screen then automatically restarts your computer Produce a summary log file Use this option to cause a text file to be written that summarizes the Boot Time defragmentation operation When this option is enabled a default volume letter directory and file name are shown in the dialog box similar to this A DirCon txt By default the summary file is wri
128. ring a defragmentation run increases Diskeeper is Diskeeper Operation 47 automatically scheduled to run more often When the number of files moved decreases the time between defragmentation runs is increased The Smart Scheduling option is available within the Select type of schedule drop down list in the Set It and Forget It pane You can also set exclusion times when the Smart Scheduling option will be prevented from scheduling a defragmentation run When Smart Scheduling is selected the Select which days to run drop down option list will be limited to these times Except Everyday Except Weekends Except Weekdays Except Monday Except Tuesday Except Wednesday Except Thursday Except Friday Except Saturday Except Sunday You can use the starting and ending time drop down lists to further define times when the scheduling of automatic defragmentation runs will not be allowed For example a schedule set like this Smart Scheduling Except Weekdays Starting Ti ne Ending Ti 1e 1 00 am 3 00 am will allow Diskeeper to automatically determine how often to run but will also prevent it from running between 1 00 am and 3 00 am on weekdays i e when your nightly backup is running 48 Diskeeper Operation Here s another example showing a Smart Schedule that will run everyday but only between the hours of 7 00 pm and 7 00 am Smart Scheduling everyday 7 00 pm 7 00 am Tip The
129. rmance pane by clicking the Performance tab You will see a display similar to this nn Bile Action view Help S63 00080 Set It and Forget It Defragmented Analyze selected drive Defragment selected drive Session Status Performance ange your settings 3 nd Saar Heip New Data E Tab Sold System N Pp s730 TE amp Old Data 2 172 MB Performance Reliability Fragmentation Drive Map Setit and Forgetit_ Defragmentation results for drive C r Recommendations Time to read only fragmented files on drive C Maintain peak performance by defragmenting your Current read time eea Ri Use Smart Scheduling to keep performance loss at a Optimum read time minimum o 30 60 ae S gt readies aceon What do the numbers mean The fragmented files are now read in 72 less time than before defragmentation Current read time Overall the data on drive C is now read in 8 less time than before defragmentation Optimum read time 8 improvement _ _ Click to find out more about fragmentation gt Color legend 0 3 6 9 12 15 read time minutes IE Red Current read time I Green Optimum read time Values shown are estimated System C Defragmented St 0 Complete In this example you can see that defragmenting drive C has restored its performance back to the optimum level The dotted lines in the gr
130. roactive in the management and maintenance of your computers See pages 30 and 33 for more information about the Performance pane and the Reliability pane Terabyte Volume Engine A Diskeeper exclusive the terabyte volume engine TVE is designed to efficiently defragment extremely large larger than 100 GB disk volumes This feature is available in selected Diskeeper Server editions The table on page 87 shows the Diskeeper editions with TVE support and more information about the TVE is available on page 80 Set It and Forget It Operation Diskeeper is designed to operate without your intervention Set a schedule for the times you want Diskeeper to run then sit back and let Diskeeper take care of your disk fragmentation Of course you can also run Diskeeper manually But you probably have better things to do with your time that s what Set It and Forget It is for 22 Overview of Diskeeper Smart Scheduling This feature allows Diskeeper to automatically determine the optimum defragmentation schedule for each disk volume individually and adjust that schedule as disk usage changes Selectable Run Priority Y ou can select the Windows priority at which Diskeeper defragmentation jobs run Set the priority independently for both Set It and Forget It and Manual Defragmentation jobs Exclusion Lists Diskeeper exclusion lists allow you to specify files and directories that will not be allowed to be processed by Diskeeper
131. s The setdkacls bat procedure automates the following sequence of commands cd d x 94 Answers to Frequently Asked Questions cd cacls e t c g Administrators F System F For more information about the cacls command type cacls at a command prompt This batch procedure will only work if the account you are logged onto has been granted access to the file s you are wanting to defragment Why don t my defragmentation jobs all start at the same time Most editions of Diskeeper allow you to defragment more than one disk volume at a time However when the defragmentation of two or more disks is scheduled to begin at the same time Diskeeper will start each job separately in one minute intervals For this reason you will notice the start times for each Diskeeper job run in the Application Event Log can vary by several minutes This is no cause for alarm Why doesn t the free space reported by the post analysis or post defragmentation summary pop up screen match what the Diskeeper Fragmentation pane shows Several post analysis and post defragmentation summary screens include information about the amount of free space available on the volume for defragmentation This figure is based on the space available to Diskeeper which may be less than the total free space on an NTFS volume NTFS volumes reserve a percentage of the total volume for the Master File Table MFT which Diskeeper cannot use for defragmenting files Because
132. s also available from the Action menu For more information see Logging Diskeeper Activity on page 71 Command Line Interface Diskeeper can be run from the Windows command prompt To defragment your local disk volume C for example you would enter this at the command prompt diskeeper C Diskeeper informs you when the defragmentation starts and completes Press CTRL C if you want to stop Diskeeper before it completes the defragmentation run The Diskeeper command line interface supports optional control parameters See page 81 for more information about these options Getting the Most from Diskeeper Diskeeper provides a variety of features all of which are designed to help you get the best performance from your computer While there are no hard and fast rules governing the use of Diskeeper here are some general guidelines that will help you get the most from Diskeeper When you first install Diskeeper analyze all the disk volumes on your computer This gives you good information about the extent of fragmentation on your computer After you have analyzed your volumes defragment them by running Diskeeper in its Manual Defragmentation mode This provides the fastest method for defragmenting the files and free space on your volume For more information on how to analyze and defragment manually see page 11 If you are running Diskeeper on Windows NT Windows 2000 Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 you should next prepa
133. s to solving fragmentation problems for everyone from home users to huge enterprise IT departments Since the introduction of Diskeeper for Windows NT in 1995 disk capacities have increased significantly particularly in server environments Nowadays it is not uncommon to see disk volumes in the terabyte range approximately 1 000 gigabytes or approximately a thousand billion bytes with millions of files High capacity disks need a specialized approach to defragmentation since it can take a typical defragmenter days to analyze and defragment such a disk volume To address this specialized need Executive Software has expanded its family of defragmentation products to match the broad range of operating system choices now available from Microsoft particularly the Windows Server 2003 offerings Each Diskeeper edition in this expanded product lineup was specifically designed to maximize the potential of the operating systems it supports This User Manual describes the operation of these Diskeeper editions Diskeeper Professional Edition for desktop systems running Windows 95 Windows 98 Windows Me Windows NT Windows 2000 and all Windows XP editions Diskeeper Server Web Edition for systems running Windows NT Workstation Windows 2000 Professional All Windows XP editions and Windows Server 2003 Web Edition Diskeeper Server Standard Edition for systems running Windows NT 4 0 Server Windows 2000 Professional Windows 2
134. sical unit that makes up a disk drive hardware The physical parts of a computer system including devices such as printers and disk drives Contrast with software IDE Integrated Device Electronics One of two common types of interfaces between a disk drive and a computer where the controller is built into the disk drive which eliminates the need for a separate controller card in the computer See also SCSI 110 Glossary integrated circuit Also called a chip A collection of electronic parts with a specific purpose built into a single physical package See also central processing unit Intel Manufacturer of processor chips known especially for the Pentium and x86 processors interface The connection and interaction between hardware software and or the user For example a disk controller provides a physical interface between a computer and a disk drive The keyboard mouse and display are an interface between a computer and the user Internet A global network that links millions of computers One popular section of the Internet is the World Wide Web which allows computer users to view text and pictures with the aid of a browser such as Internet Explorer E mail electronic mail is another popular part of the Internet which allows computer users to send and receive written messages Internet Explorer A software package developed by Microsoft for browsing the Internet but increasingly used with other applications job
135. slowdown 3 12 gt Color legend 0 I Red Current read time I Green Optimum read time 6 9 read time minutes Values shown are estimated Click to fi f System C Analyzed C moe You can also use the Analyze button S to start the analysis of the selected disk When you are analyzing a disk the Command pane displays options to Pause Resume or Stop the analysis You can also perform these functions with the equivalent toolbar buttons Diskeeper Operation 53 Defragment Selected Drive This option on the Command pane is also self explanatory select a disk in the disk volume pane then click Defragment selected drive in the Command pane to runa manual defragmentation job on the disk After the defragmentation is complete click the different tab controls in the Information pane to review the condition of the disk wos gt Set It and Forget It Ss gt gt Q Q 2 Free Space Analyzed gt Analyze selected drive v Defragment selected drive it Free Space 2 172 MB gt Change your settin Drive Map gt Help Recommendations Defragment now to get the performance improvements graphs bcheduling to keep performance loss at a egon drive C Click here to open the menu e numbers mean Currently it is taking the computer 3 6 times longer to read the Fragmented files than it should
136. sons why certain files were not moved or defragmented The following tags may be added to specific filenames in the Most Fragmented Files listing 40 Diskeeper Operation Cannot Open D splayed After Defragmentation Only File System NTFS and FAT Descripti on This file cannot be opened and thus moved by Diskeeper This is often the result of the access controls permissions on the file being set to prevent Diskeeper from accessing it File permissions must allow SYSTEM to have full control of a file in order for Diskeeper to defragment it Excluded Defragmentation Only NTFS and FAT This file is listed on one of the Diskeeper exclusion lists This can be either the user specified exclusion list or the internal exclusion list Excess Allocation Analysis and Defragmentation NTFS Only With the NTFS file system a file can be allocated more clusters than its data is actually using On Windows NT 4 and Windows 2000 only the data portion of the allocation can be defragmented As a result even though a file is reported as fragmented the data portion of the file may in fact be contiguous This most commonly occurs with registry files and under Windows 2000 files that have been decompressed In some cases files of this type can be defragmented after a system restart Partially Defragmented Defragmentation Only NTFS and FAT This file has been part
137. t Explorer is not present on your computer some other needed files hhupd exe 50comupd exe and wintdist exe may be added Further your system may require a new or updated version of DCOM less than 3 MB and or MMC less than 6 MB Additional Software Requirements On Windows NT 4 0 computers Service Pack 6 is required for Diskeeper to function properly Diskeeper will not install on Windows NT systems running Service Pack 5 or lower Diskeeper relies on both the Distributed Component Object Model DCOM and the Microsoft Management Console MMC DCOM is used for communication between the various components that make up Diskeeper For example when a Diskeeper defragmentation operation is scheduled to begin the Diskeeper controller module uses DCOM to send a message to the defragmentation engine to begin the defragmentation process The MMC provides a single point of control for system utilities such as Diskeeper The MMC is used as a central location for a variety of Microsoft and third party administrative tools Note In most cases Windows 95 systems are not running either DCOM or the MMC by default On Windows 98 Me and Windows NT Windows 2000 Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 systems DCOM is installed by default when the operating system is installed The MMC normally has to be installed separately except on Windows 2000 Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 Installation 3 systems where it is already built into the
138. tallation Windows Versions and Platforms Supported Diskeeper runs on the Intel x86 platform including Pentium and compatible CPUs from other manufacturers running Windows Server 2003 Windows XP Professional Windows 2000 Professional or Server Windows NT 4 0 Workstation or Server Windows Me Windows 98 or Windows 95 OSR 2 File Systems Supported Operating System File Systems Windows Server Windows XP Windows 2000 Windows Server 2003 Windows NT SP 6 or higher NTFS and FAT16 Windows Me Windows 98 FAT16 and FAT32 Windows 95 OSR 2 or higher NTFS FAT16 and FAT32 Note that the 12 bit FAT file system is not supported The 12 bit FAT file system is used on FAT volumes smaller than 16 megabytes in size such as floppy disks In addition NTFS volumes formatted with a cluster size larger than 4 kilobytes are not supported except on Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 which support cluster sizes up to 64 KB 2 Installation Disks Supported Diskeeper supports a wide range of SCSI and IDE disks including Primary Partitions Extended Partitions Logical Drives Volume Sets RAID Arrays Mirrored Disks Resource Requirements The disk space requirements for Diskeeper depend on several factors On Windows Server 2003 Windows XP and Windows 2000 systems Diskeeper will need about 6 5 MB Allow about 10 MB of extra free space for temporary files during the installation If Interne
139. tarted 15 After Diskeeper analyzes or defragments a disk volume the Performance pane displays a graph showing the performance loss on that disk due to fragmentation Here s an example after analyzing drive C Diskeeper P o File Action View Help gt Set It and Forget It Kalya amp gt ooo gt Analyze selected drive gt Defragment selected drive Session Status File System Capacity Free Space Free Space gt Change your selange System Analyzed NTFS 16 315 MB 08 MB 80 Archive D NTFS 2 180 MB 123 MB 5 Help New Data E NTFS 20 002 MB 6 470 MB 32 Old System N NTFS 8 738 MB 1 605 MB 18 amp Old Data NTFS 2 172 MB 278 MB 12 i Performance Reliability Fragmentation Drive Map Setit and Forgetit Performance Analysis results for drive C Recommendations Defragment now to get the performance improvements shown in the graphs Time to read only fragmented files on drive C Current read time Use Smart Scheduling to keep performance loss at a Optimum read time 72 improvement minimum Heej oO 15 30 45 60 75 read time seconds What do the numbers mean Currently it is taking the computer 3 6 times longer to Time to read alll files on drive C read the Fragmented files than it should Current read time Overall the data on drive C takes 1 10 times longer to read thus slowing down your compute
140. th Glenoaks Boulevard Burbank California 91504 USA 100 Support Services European Support Services Registered users are entitled to 90 days of free telephone support as well as special upgrade pricing from Executive Software Our free European technical support is available Monday through Friday during the first 90 days from 8 30 to 17 30 GMT If you have not yet registered your Diskeeper for Windows purchase use the registration card in your Diskeeper box and do so now Or register your purchase online via our Web site at http www execsoft co uk Most technical support questions can be answered from the Technical Support section of our Web site at the address shown above You can also contact our technical support team via the Internet at tech support execsoft co uk Or via FAX at 44 0 1342 327390 If you are within your 90 day free support period or have purchased telephone support you can call 44 0 1342 327477 When your 90 day free support period has expired you can purchase the support plan which best suits your needs Executive Software offers 24 hour 7 day support plans Contact Executive Software to find out which support options suit you best Executive Software s address is Executive Software UK Inc Kings House Cantelupe Road East Grinstead West Sussex RH19 3BE England Remote Installation 101 Appendix D Remote Installation Here are some methods for installing Diskeeper on multipl
141. the Diskeeper toolbar or the Pause option in the Action menu to temporarily pause a fragmentation analysis or the manual defragmentation of the selected volume Resume Button Diskeeper Operation 59 Click Resume gt in the Diskeeper toolbar or the Resume option in the Action menu to continue a paused Diskeeper analysis or defragmentation operation Stop Button J Click Stop Q in the Diskeeper toolbar or the Stop option in the Action menu to stop a fragmentation analysis or the manual defragmentation of the selected volume Any file movement in progress will be safely ended as Diskeeper stops Help Button j Click Help in the Diskeeper toolbar or the Help option in the Action menu to access the Diskeeper Help system Boot Time Defragmentation Overview Note The Boot Time defragmentation option is only available in Diskeeper when running on Windows NT Windows 2000 Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 Boot Time defragmentation consists of three independent activities Directory Defragmentation and Consolidation moves directories to a single location Windows NT Windows 2000 Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 write directories into random locations all over a volume This in effect breaks up the free space on the volume By grouping all the directories into a single location on a volume larger areas of contiguous free space become available Therefore new files are more likely to be written to the volume in a
142. the fragmentation on your disk volume See below for an example of a typical Drive Map pane display This example shows a moderately fragmented volume 4 N Diskeeper Operation The Drive Map pane displays information for a single disk volume at a time The disk highlighted in the disk volume pane is the disk reflected in the Drive Map pane Performance Reliability Fragmentation Drive Map Set It and Forget It b di il hk lh i a hh kh i i a M i d What the Colors Mean The group of horizontal bars in the Drive Map pane gives a graphic representation of the fragmentation of your disk volume The colors of the display indicate the type and condition of the data on your volume Green areas show unmovable system files On Windows NT Windows 2000 Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 systems green areas particularly show the Master File Table MFT but also several other unmovable files These files cannot be moved safely by Diskeeper or any other defragmenter except at boot time Keep in mind however although these area are referred to as system files these are not the files that make up the operating system which Diskeeper can successfully defragment online Instead they make up the NTFS file system The green areas of the display appear only on NTFS volumes Green striped areas on Windows NT Windows 2000 Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 systems only show space on the volume res
143. the path for the DkCluster exe executable image which resides in the Diskeeper install directory 13 Enter the Diskeeper install directory path under Current directory 14 Check the Allow application to interact with desktop box and click Next 15 Click Finish in the Registry Replication dialog box 16 You can move the ESI group to the node on which you want to bring the DkCluster cluster resource online by right clicking on the ESI group in the Move Group option box 17 To bring Dkcluster exe online select the DkCluster resource and select Bring online from the File menu 18 Right click DkCluster and select Properties 19 Click the Advanced tab 20 Select Restart 21 Set Threshold to 0 fails over immediately or decide what value is wanted here The threshold value is the number of times the application will return to the same computer before it fails over to the next computer 22 Set Period to 1000 Period is the time interval in seconds during which the threshold count is tracked After that time has elapsed the threshold count starts over 23 Click OK Glossary 105 access To store data on or retrieve data from a disk drive or other peripheral device See also file administrator See system administrator applet A small application program that is usually built into an operating system or a larger application program For example the built in writing and drawing programs that come with Windows are so
144. tion see page Due to limits built into the Windows NT 2000 file systems in its online Set It and Forget It and Manual Defragmentation modes Diskeeper cannot defragment files on NTFS volumes with a cluster size greater than 4KB 4096 Overview of Diskeeper 23 bytes This limitation has been removed in Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 where Diskeeper can defragment NTFS volumes with cluster sizes of up to 64 kilobytes Note the boot time defragmentation operations are not affected by this limit You must be logged into an account that is a member of the Administrators group to run Diskeeper on Windows NT Windows 2000 Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 systems Diskeeper relies on both the Distributed Component Object Model DCOM and the Microsoft Management Console MMC both of which are available for Windows 95 and Windows 98 MMC is built into Windows 2000 Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 DCOM is built into Windows NT 4 0 Windows 2000 and Windows XP For more information about DCOM and the MMC see the Glossary Defragmentation Modes Diskeeper is designed to operate in three different ways The Manual Defragmentation and Set It and Forget It modes run while your disk volumes are online and available to other users The Boot Time defragmentation mode runs only when you restart your computer Manual Defragmentation Manual defragmentation gives you direct control over Diskeeper operation You have c
145. to a maximum of four primary partitions or three primary partitions plus an extended partition One or more logical drives may be created within an extended partition FAT See file allocation table FAT file system The file system used by MS DOS and adapted for Windows to store information on disks which makes use of a file allocation table There are three types of FAT file system The FAT12 12 bit is used on FAT volumes smaller than 16 megabytes in size such as floppy disks it is not supported by Diskeeper FAT16 can be found on all versions of Windows from Windows 95 through Windows Server 2003 Windows Server 2003 Windows 2000 Windows Me Windows 98 and the later OSR 2 version of Windows 95 also support FAT32 Windows NT does not Glossary 109 field A subdivision of a record in a file For example a record in a customer file may contain a name field an address field and a phone number field file A complete named collection of data such as a program a set of data used by a program or a user created document See also record field file allocation table FAT A table or list maintained by some operating systems to keep track of how files are stored on a disk file system The method used by an operating system of naming accessing and organizing files and directories on a disk See also NTFS FAT file system floppy disk A removable storage medium consisting of a small magnetic disk made of flexible plastic h
146. tten to your floppy drive A This dialog box can be edited to specify another volume directory path and filename However the summary file cannot be written to the volume upon which you are running Boot Time defragmentation Also note that the filename should not contain any spaces Note Some computers read the floppy drive at boot time We therefore recommend not writing the summary file to the A drive unless no other volumes are available Perform boot time defragmentation even if this drive is being used by remote users When this option is set the computer will force a reboot at the scheduled date and time if the At scheduled time option has been selected regardless of whether or not anyone is logged on to the machine Users who are logged on will be notified at regular intervals starting one hour before the scheduled reboot to give them an opportunity to log off Diskeeper Operation 65 If this option is cleared a scheduled reboot will not occur at the scheduled date and time if one or more users are still logged on when the reboot due In that case the Boot Time defragmentation run will occur the next time the machine is rebooted manually OK Click OK to schedule Boot Time defragmentation of one or more selected volumes and close the Schedule Boot Time defragmentation dialog box Boot Time defragmentation will be run as scheduled on any volumes that are set Apply Click Apply to schedule Boot Time defragmentatio
147. uch as a printer or a disk drive digit From Latin digitus meaning finger Any of the numbers 0 through 9 in the decimal number system called a digit because people originally used their fingers for counting Computers use a binary number system with only two digits 0 and 1 directory A file that contains a catalog of files and other directories stored on a disk which allows you to organize your files into groups making them easier to find directory consolidation A Diskeeper feature which at boot time gathers almost all directory entries on a disk volume into a single area on the disk instead of scattered in many places Directory consolidation makes defragmentation more effective than it would otherwise be Directory consolidation requires sufficient contiguous free disk space into which the directories can be moved disk drive A device containing one or more disks treated as a unit by a computer Diskeeper A software product that increases system performance through disk defragmentation It eliminates resource wasting file fragmentation safely by consolidating fragmented files and free space 108 Glossary diskette See floppy disk domain In Windows NT Windows 2000 Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 a group of workstations and servers defined by an administrator that share a common directory database and allow a user to log onto any resource in the domain with a single user ID and password Each domain in a n
148. ume Free space available on the volume Percentage of volume size that is free space When you are viewing the Set It and Forget It pane the columns in the disk volume pane change to shows different information 58 Diskeeper Operation Volume Next Defragmentation Schedule Type Days Starting Time Ending Time amp System C Smart Scheduled 08 21 6 55pm Smart Scheduling every day all day amp Archive D Scheduled 08 21 7 55 pm every 2 hours every day all day New Data E Not Scheduled Volume letter and name Next scheduled defragmentation Schedule type Days Starting time Ending time Toolbar Buttons By default Diskeeper displays a toolbar of commonly used controls above the disk volume pane The toolbar and other display components can be hidden by using the Customize option in the View menu Note Many of the functions described in this section can also be activated from the menu that appears when you right click on a selected disk volume in the disk volume pane Analyze Button Click Analyze eS in the Diskeeper toolbar the Analyze selected drive option in the Command pane or on the Action menu to begin the analysis of the selected disk volume Defragment Button Click Defragment gt in the Diskeeper toolbar the Defragment selected drive option in the Command pane or the Action menu to start the manual defragmentation of the selected volume Pause Button j Click Pause 7 in
149. un Diskeeper on your disk volumes you can use the logging function of Diskeeper to monitor the number of files moved during each Diskeeper run For information about how files that are moved by Diskeeper are logged see Logging Diskeeper Activity on page 71 In general if Diskeeper moves fewer than 50 files per run you are running Diskeeper frequently enough to maintain the performance of your Windows system at an optimum level If the number of files moved during each run is greater or is increasing schedule Diskeeper to run more frequently Here again you can automate this by letting the Diskeeper Smart Scheduling feature control when to run Diskeeper How do set access permissions to allow Diskeeper to defragment my files In order for Diskeeper to have access to move files both SYSTEM and ADMINISTRATOR must have full control over a file or the directory folder it is in This version of Diskeeper includes a batch file that sets the access permissions on a disk volume to allow Diskeeper to run properly This batch file is called setdkacls bat and it is located in the directory folder where Diskeeper is installed If you find you have made files inaccessible to Diskeeper or that you have some files inaccessible to Diskeeper open a command prompt window change directory to the Diskeeper installation directory and type setdkacls x where x is the letter name of the disk volume on which you want to change access permission
150. ur settings menu section on page 54 16 Getting Started Now that we see how the performance of drive C is impacted by fragmentation let s look at reliability issues Click the Reliability tab to see the Reliability pane Diskeeper File Action View Help Set It and Forget It Analyze selected drive Analyzed Defragment selected drive Change your settings Help Session Status Sold System N amp Old Data ore Reliability Tab New Data E S0000 Free Space Free Space 1 605 MB 5 73S ME 2 172 MB 278 MB gt Color legend Critical AN Warning Healthy Performance Reliabil Fragmentation Drive Map i Set It and Forget it m Reliability analysis results for drive C Warning The computer s reliability is degraded on drive C The reliability level is at Warning level for the Following reasons 1 The volume is heavily Fragmented 11 Fragmentation Recommendations for drive C gt 1 Defragment drive C now using Diskeeper r Understanding the effects of fragmentation on reliability Fragmentation often occurs with important files that are used frequently by Windows When the Fragmentation of these files gets beyond a certain level Windows begins to have trouble doing its normal everyday work Crashes and hangs can occur leaving you open to loss of data and productivity will check For frag
151. use an OEM typically buys computers from another manufacturer customizes them for a particular application and then sells them under the OEM s own brand name operating system A collection of programs which perform system functions and control the running of application programs and the allocation of resources OSR 2 Acronym for OEM Service Release 2 a version of Windows 95 released in late 1996 which features an improved file system called FAT32 while the original version of Windows 95 used FAT 16 page file or paging file An area of a disk that is set aside to hold data intended to reside in the computer s memory Portions of the paging file are copied to memory as needed This mechanism requires a much smaller amount of physical memory than would be required if the entire program were to be loaded into memory all at once See also swap file 112 Glossary partition A subdivision of the space on a disk drive that is treated as though it were a separate physical unit A computer with only one hard disk drive can have a single partition often called drive C or it can have several partitions such as drive C drive D and drive E See also volume drive letter primary partition extended partition logical drive Pentium The name of a type of processor introduced by Intel in 1993 It is the successor to the 80486 and equivalent to the 80586 chip in the x86 series peripheral device Related to periphery roughly meanin
152. was defragmented This appears in the Windows Event Viewer as Diskeeper Event 18 When you double click Diskeeper Event 18 in the Event Viewer information similar to this example is displayed This option is not enabled by default On Windows 95 98 Me When this option is enabled an entry is made in the Diskeeper EventLog txt file containing the information shown in the example above This option is not enabled by default For a description of information contained in the Description box see page 35 Diskeeper Operation 79 MFT information Event Properties Event Date 8 21 2003 Source Diskeeper Time 5 25 03 PM Category None Type Information EventID 19 User N Computer MOCKINGBIRD Description Diskeeper Message MFT Information MFT information for volume E MFT Size 113240 KB MFT Records in use 113213 MFT In Use 99 MFT Fragments 3 On Windows NT Windows 2000 Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 When this option is enabled an entry is made to the Event Log at the end of each defragmentation run showing information about the Master File Table MFT on the volume that was defragmented Keep in mind since only NTFS volumes have an MFT this information will only apply to NTFS volumes The entry appears in the Windows Event Viewer as Diskeeper Event 19 When you double click Diskeeper Event 19 in the Event Viewer information similar to this example is displayed This option is
153. ws Application Event Log Windows NT 2000 XP Server 2003 Event Log When Diskeeper is running on Windows NT Windows 2000 Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 a log of Diskeeper activity is stored in the Application Event Log file When Diskeeper logs an event the event and its message are appended to the Windows Application Event Log file along with the date time user and other identifying information 72 Diskeeper Operation These events can then be viewed with the Windows Event Viewer by choosing the Application option in the Log menu of the Event Viewer This can be done on either local computers or remote computers on your network The Event Viewer is found in the Windows Administrative Tools group on Windows NT 4 0 and in the Computer Management Console on Windows 2000 Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 By default the Application Event Log is 512 kilobytes in size and is set to overwrite events older than 7 days Diskeeper may quickly fill the log file if these default settings are used To make this log a more useful size perform the steps described in The Windows Application Event Log page 7 Windows 95 98 Me Event Log When Diskeeper is running on Windows 95 98 Me systems it provides the option of logging Diskeeper events into a text file When Diskeeper logs an event the event and its message are appended to the Diskeeper log file These events are written as a text file which can then be viewed with Notepad or
154. xcluded from defragmentation Remove Button Click Remove to remove specific files directories or volumes from the Diskeeper exclusion list To remove one or more items from the list highlight the items in the Exclusion List Box and click Remove Save Button Click Save to save the exclusion list and return to Diskeeper Cancel Button Click Cancel to cancel any changes you have made to the Diskeeper exclusion list and return to the main Diskeeper display Help Button Click Help for context sensitive help about the Diskeeper file exclusion list option 68 Diskeeper Operation Diskeeper Internal Exclusion List There are certain files that should not be moved under any circumstances These files may be system files or files related to specific applications Moving these specific files can cause system or application failure As a result Diskeeper uses an internal exclusion list to ensure these files are always excluded from Diskeeper processing This list is fixed in memory and cannot be modified These are the files that are currently in the Diskeeper internal exclusion list bootsect dos hiberfil sys memory dmp safeboot fs safeboot csv safeboot rsv Note that these files are not displayed in the Diskeeper user defined exclusion list See Diskeeper won t move some files no matter what I do Is there a problem with Diskeeper on page 90 for more information about the Diskeeper internal exclusion list
155. your choice of text editor programs The Diskeeper log file is named DkEventLog txt and it is stored by default in the directory folder where Diskeeper is installed The file is limited to 1 MB in size When it reaches this size the log is purged completely and the event log is started from scratch Specifying What Gets Logged Use the Set event logging options option from the Change your settings menu in the Command pane to open the Event Logging dialog box This option is also available from the Action menu The Event Logging dialog box displays a list of events for which logging can be enabled or disabled Click the check boxes for the following options to alternately enable or disable each option Diskeeper Operation 73 Event Logging Select the type of events to log in the Application Event Log Service start and stop Defragmentation start and stop C Defragmented files C Moved files C Disk information C Eile information L Directory information C Paging File information C MFT information Service start and stop When this option is enabled an entry is made to the Event Log each time the Diskeeper service starts or stops This option is enabled by default Defragmentation start and stop When this option is enabled an entry is made to the Event Log whenever a defragmentation run starts or stops The Event Log entry for this option also includes information about files that cannot be m

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