[Borrowed Time]

After years with XP I finally dusted off the Vista OS that had been sitting on my shelf and surprise, surprise, I quite like it. Runs well and looks good so far. I have a couple of issues however.

1. The defragmenting tool that came with XP served its purpose well I thought. Now in Vista that tool seems to be integrated so that there is no choice allowed that just defrags one drive. No matter where I start it from it wants to read all my drives and defrag all of them. Well I have several large drives that do not ever need any kind of defragging. 1000 gigs and a couple of 500 gigs. Then I have a few drives that do need defragging from time to time but certainly not at the same time. Is it not possible to tell the Defrag app to just do a single drive? It would take too long to have to defrag all the drives all the time. For what purpose? There must be an explanation I am missing.

2. The second item is the Windows Search 4. The search tool in XP was fine. I try to find the same thing for Vista and going to what seems like the place to go all I get is that this app is not for my operating system. And I can't find the tool that is compatible. Nowhere on this site can I find a download for my system.

http://www.microsoft...ch/default.mspx

Windows Vista Home Premium SP2 32-bit

Thanks much in advance.

On another thread I see that this defragmentation tool

http://download.cnet...4-10567503.html

is recommended. Is this true that Vista users generally turn to outside apps for such a fundamental requirement? Just wanted to check. A click away on that page and numerous registry cleaners are being promoted. I noticed that another poster had written 'All registry cleaners are crap.' In my earlier days I tried one and thought it was a good idea for years. Then one day it finally dawned on me that it was the cleaner that was the problem. Not the stuff that was being cleaned. So I just wanted to double check exactly what was the problem with Microsoft's version of the defrag app in Vista.

Edited by Borrowed Time, 10 July 2010 - 10:46 AM.

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Hello Borrowed Time...

In Windows Vista, the defragment tool will, indeed, let you choose the drive you want to defragment. Start Orb > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Defragmenter

When opened, you should be offered a dialog window in which there will be a "Select Volume" button. Clicking on that will list the drives on the machine that are able to be analyzed and defragged...select the drives you wish to work on and choose the action to take (analyze or defrag).

The Search function in Vista has been integrated into the Start Menu. Click the Start Orb and you should see a text field just under All Programs. type the file name, file type, or term you wish to search for in that field and relevant results will begin appearing in the pane above it...with the most relevant at the top. It a much more efficient search tool than in previous versions of Windows.

wannabe1

[wannabe1]

Hello Borrowed Time...

In Windows Vista, the defragment tool will, indeed, let you choose the drive you want to defragment. Start Orb > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Defragmenter

When opened, you should be offered a dialog window in which there will be a "Select Volume" button. Clicking on that will list the drives on the machine that are able to be analyzed and defragged...select the drives you wish to work on and choose the action to take (analyze or defrag).

The Search function in Vista has been integrated into the Start Menu. Click the Start Orb and you should see a text field just under All Programs. type the file name, file type, or term you wish to search for in that field and relevant results will begin appearing in the pane above it...with the most relevant at the top. It a much more efficient search tool than in previous versions of Windows.

wannabe1

[Borrowed Time]

Thanks for the reply wannabe1

I don't know how I missed that. Still, there are some things lacking. Like some reporting to let us know how badly the disk is fragmented. What wasn't fragmented. How well the app was able to defragment the disk. I suppose Microsoft feels that his info was just a waste of time. Maybe. But I kind of liked it.

The search function at the start menu I am aware of. But in XP I had the search window residing just above the taskbar and after a search the list would be displayed and a preview to the right could be displayed. The preview window was just as good as opening the file and reading was a snap. That's what I am looking for. I thought it appeared in Windows Update in the last Vista install I did but this time nothing.

Edited by Borrowed Time, 10 July 2010 - 02:59 PM.

[wannabe1]

You're correct in that there isn't a display for the actual defrag process, but I like the idea of having the drives defragmented automatically on a schedule I decide.

When you do a search using the Start Menu Search function, there is a link at the bottom to "See more results". Clicking that link will open a window similar to the search results window in previous versions of Windows.

[Borrowed Time]

Thanks for the pointers. I suppose you're right about scheduling the defrag.

The search app I see now was there all along. Not quite the same as in XP. And they seemed to have managed to reduce abilities. As for instance in the XP version I had a button that could remove or show the preview window. Now I have to go through the drop down menu. And also the search function was present at most one click away and no clicks if you wanted the option of having it sit as a small window above the taskbar. I am always surprised when I see such useful features dropped.

Anyways thanks for your help. I really appreciate this site that I can ask questions and get such good prompt replies. I thank you for your time.

Edited by Borrowed Time, 11 July 2010 - 09:56 AM.