[Kristina]

Hi!

I am lately trying to defrag my drives and I tried using several defrag programs. The C drive is always the most fragmented and I noticed several catalog.wci files keep appearing in the fragmentation list, even after I have just defragmented the system. Also the windows defrag program always shows a big fragmented file on the C drive, that keeps appearing no matter what.

I've used for defragging Auslogics disk defrag and lately the Piriform Defraggler, which seem to be doing a quick good job. I also tried Mydefrag 4.1.1., which took a long time and should do a more intensive defrag. However, it seemed to only mess up with the whole drives, as checking their looks afterwards with the windows defrag they were all much more fragmented.

What should I use to do a good defrag and get rid of the recurring catalog.wci files? What's the use of that folder, maybe I could just move or delete it? I read it may be an indexing service, but I don't know how that is good or necessary for my system. Thanks in advance!

Edited by Kristina, 04 August 2009 - 06:13 AM.

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Indexing services is a small program that hogs HUGE amounts resources and can often slow your computer down This system process indexing and updates lists of the files on your system, so you can search for them quickly, but it's completely unnecessary....

To disable it, go to the Control Panel and click Add/Remove Programs...on the left side Click the Add/Remove Windows Components... uncheck the Indexing services and click next...
there are other things that defraggers won't defrag like restore...but that's OK...its not necessary to defrag those kinds of files anyway...they do not slow your system down at all

[happyrock]

Indexing services is a small program that hogs HUGE amounts resources and can often slow your computer down This system process indexing and updates lists of the files on your system, so you can search for them quickly, but it's completely unnecessary....

To disable it, go to the Control Panel and click Add/Remove Programs...on the left side Click the Add/Remove Windows Components... uncheck the Indexing services and click next...
there are other things that defraggers won't defrag like restore...but that's OK...its not necessary to defrag those kinds of files anyway...they do not slow your system down at all

[Kristina]

Thank you for answering and for the advice! I removed the program and now the catalog.wci files indeed don't appear anymore in the defrag.

Now after disabling the program, is it possible to remove the catalog folder in the system volume information folder? That would free up around 350MB from my drive.


Edit: the catalog.wci files reappered in the defrag. I followed the steps, but I guess the service wasn't deactivated after all...

Edited by Kristina, 04 August 2009 - 08:25 AM.

[happyrock]

try this...

If you want to shrink that 400MB size...

To remove all restore points except the most recent restore point, follow these steps...

Click Start... then My Computer...Right click the drive you want to free up space...usually C: and then click Properties...
Click the General tab... and then click Disk Cleanup...
Click the More Options tab...and then under System Restore... click Clean up...
Click Yes to remove all but the most recent restore point...
Click OK,...click Yes to proceed with this action, and then click OK...
if you have a large hard drive like 160 Gb or larger...lower the amount of space restore can use from the default setting of 12 % to about 3 % or 4%...got a 750 GB or terabyte drive...drop it to 1 or 2 %

restore points are linked so if one restore point is bad...they are all bad ...the only fix for this is to turn off restore and then turn it back on again and the manually create a new restore point and then test it to make sure it works...this should be done on a regular schedule ...better to know if its actually working now rather than later when you really need it only to discover its broke and does nothing...

a little insurance I use and recommend is ERUNT... (Emergency Recovery Utility NT) allows you to keep a complete
backup of your registry and restore it when needed. The standard registry backup options that come with Windows back up most of the registry but not all of it. ERUNT however creates a complete backup set, including the Security hive and user related sections. ERUNT is easy to use and since it creates a full backup, there are no options or choices other than to select the location of the backup files. The backup set includes a small executable that will launch the registry restore if needed....the added benifit is each restore point you create using ERUNT is each is a stand alone restore point ...it is totally independent of the others...
get it here...

[Kristina]

Hi!

I already delete restore points regularly with TuneUp Utilities and clean up with CCcleaner. I installed Erunt now and made a backup. My C drive is very small, barely 10GB, so I guess it isn't necessary to change the restore settings for that. I have another 230GB hard drive though, maybe I could lower restore space for that, but I don't know how I do that.

However, I see the problem with the catalog.wci files still remains. The 400 size actually comes from those catalog files and not from the restore points. They still appear in the fragmented files, even if the service seemed to have been uninstalled. Also today after I had just done a defrag, when I restarted the C was already 2% fragmented...

How could I try again to deactivate the service and then delete those files? I just saw now that in the Properties tab of the C drive there is the option "allow indexing service to index this disk for fast file searching". Could that be the thing to uncheck in order to deactivate the service?

Edited by Kristina, 05 August 2009 - 08:39 AM.

[happyrock]

I just saw now that in the Properties tab of the C drive there is the option "allow indexing service to index this disk for fast file searching". Could that be the thing to uncheck in order to deactivate the service

yep...say yes to the sub folders too...

[Kristina]

Hello and thanks again!

I unchecked the indexing service, but I see the catalog.wci files still appear in the fragmentated list...even some minutes after I've done the defrag.

Can they be deleted from the System volume Information folder? Is there still a use for them in there?

[happyrock]

have you rebooted ...
go ahead and delete the catalog.wci files and reboot...you really not necessary to defrag so often ...only after adding or removing a lot of stuff..or every 3 weeks or so...

[Kristina]

Yes, I know it's not necessary to defrag so often. I only did so to see if those catalog files still appeared.

I eventually also found these intructions:

Turn off the Indexing Service.
Start | Run | Type: services.msc | Click OK |
Scroll down to and double click: Indexing Service |
Click the Stop button | In the Startup Type field,
select Disabled | Click Apply | Click OK
After you restart your machine it will stay disabled.

The service appeared still active, so I deactivated it there. Then I rebooted and deleted the catalog file. I gained some useful space, since I keep fighting with the C drive filling up. Hope I may notice some speed improvement too.

Also, I installed a windows update today and noticed there are several versions of Microsoft NET framework on my computer. I have 2.0 SP2, 3.0 SP2 and 3.5 SP1. Are they all necessary and complementary? Or could I install just the latest or a bundle pack? They're occupying 400MB in the program files, so maybe I could gain some space? Thanks in advance.

[happyrock]

you need all the different NET framework versions...if your fighting for space on your computer get a new larger hard drive (they are dirt cheap right now) and clone your old drive to the new drive...you will get a huge speed bump as a added benefit...nearly full drives become really slow and when you have less than 15% free space you will not even be able to defrag the drive