Windows Vista Defrag: dumbed-down interface

Comment by juha, on 16-May-2006 19:38

D00d... you're 2 L1nuX 4 Vista :)

Is the command line defragger retained?

Comment by the_ishram, on 17-May-2006 07:22

I still can't understand why people use Windows PCs. We're living in the age of color, music, rebellion and difference. Why would you use Windows?

Comment by Ink, on 17-May-2006 13:25

"Because it does provide colour, music, and difference"

YEAH RIGHT! - excuse my language but, MY ASS... - pathetic GUI, unstable (and obviously unfinished) coding, and piss-poor support for just about ALL multimedia... But whats even more sad is that now when they finally make some minor improvements in vista, they present it to the consumer as something so ground-braking and amazing, while for example apple; had 110% of those features 5 years ago.

Microsoft has some of the best coders and designers in the world at their disposal, but the management, is still living in the 90's. Plus they're too afraid of disturbing the whole backwards compatability for all of the older apps. Cant they do what apple did when they created OS X? - that being making the OS from scratch, and for all the older apps, just making an emulator which allows the apps to run "natively" at full speed.

Comment by Jedi Master, on 18-May-2006 10:58

Hmmm... I'll place my Vista beta against your copy of OS X any day. Truth is, Windows is a far more versatile OS than Mac.

You can argue that OS X had allthis and all that before Vista, blah blah blah... but the fact is, Microsoft has been developing the same features long before OS X was a twinkle in Apples eye. Apple catches wind of the advancements Microsoft is making, and they slap together half-assed copies of said advancements, and add a new coat of paint to the same old Mac OS, rush it out the door, and you fall for it.

Boy, does Steve Jobs have you on a leash or what?

Comment by Nephyrin, on 14-Jun-2006 18:00

My roommate dual booted OS X recently and I spent an hour or so fucking with it. I expected it to be quite nice given the

hype although I'd never switch for various reasons.

Instead I was disgusted. They took FreeBSD, wrote their own version of X with a for-idiots interface, and slapped it on

proprietary hardware to cover for their lack of driver support. My roommate bought an ethernet dongle and it wouldn't work

on OS X, and it was as generic as they come. Its basically a nice UI on an inferior architecture.

What's all the hype about? Media my ass. I can run Photoshop CS2 and pretty much any video editing software as well as a

mac, except for iMovie or whatever the packaged software is, which is nice, but still not as good as the commercial

software I already own. Notice how if you search for xvid binaries, or x264, or anything else like that on google, you get

tons of results for windows?

Are you so stupid that you believe apple when they babble about media? You probobly also think macs are more stable than

XP. XP crashed once when I installed a device it told me "Might cause issues because its drivers are ancient". I clicked

"do anyway". it crashed. It rebooted. It offered to hvae the microsoft site analyze the crash. The site said that the said

device's drivers were indeed misbehaving. WOW WHAT A HORRIBLE EXPERIENCE. THANK GOD OS X WOULD JUST NOT SUPPORT THAT

DEVICE TO BEGIN WITH. Or just lock up until it was unplugged and then pretend an error never happened.


Vista, when it crashes (again i was doing things with my Tv tuner it was begging me not to to try to trick an application

into thinking it had hardware mpeg2 encoding) it does the same, except if the site has no solution it logs it and keeps

checking back periodically to see if a solution was found. It also has a boot loader that pauses to ask you if you're

having issues and want to try a settings restore from an automatic backup (Last good configuration) or boot into safe mode

where few drivers are loaded to get around such issues.

And if you're one of those idiots who think that they're somehow invading your privacy you're in luck: It can all be

disabled, and it even asks before it does it.

MAN, SO DAMN INCONVIENANT.

Also, the command-line defrag is much more 'advanced' so they simplified this one to make it more user friendly.

Also, who cares who had the UI first? a more advanced 3d ui is the logical next step, microsoft can't not do it because

mac did it first. Or if you really want that logic to be true, stop using x86 architecture after claiming that your other

crap was 'the fastest personal computer on the market'.
Re: Blah blah blah core duo:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?

Submit=ENE&N=2010340343+50001157+1050719930&Subcategory=343&description=&srchInDesc=&minPrice=&maxPrice=
Could be installed in any x86 (PC) machine at will.
But why would you want to when there are better processors (that arn't mac compatible? and less price inflated?)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?

Submit=ENE&N=2010340343+50001028+1050717007&Subcategory=343&description=&srchInDesc=&minPrice=&maxPrice=

If you want to use a mac, fine. They arn't that bad, but stop with this "why would anyone use windows?? LOL" crap. If

you're going to be an egocentric smug asshole, at least have a valid arguement.

Comment by Dan, on 30-Oct-2006 05:51

I don't understand what every1 has against Windows. I use WinNT, and have absolutely no problem, i run videogames, Word, IE, burner programs, I overclock, I defragment, personalise my folders, and never have any problems on my Celeron D 2.8, 1gig of ram and AOpen mobo. I've never tried programming or running an enterprise server, but I still think it'd have no major problems.

Comment by Chipz, on 14-Nov-2006 20:30

I believe the topic here was and I quote " Windows Vista Defrag: dumbbed down interface " kind of got a little off track I guess. First of all why if your so tickled pink about your crappy macs are you reading anything to do with windows os ........ unless of course you are finally starting to realize that a mac is an overpriced underpowered paperwieght.

And yes the new defrag in Vista is definately a piece of crap, I would expect to see this kind of crap on a mac not on a windows os that's been in the making for some 5 years now. tsk tsk

Comment by coz, on 1-Jan-2007 07:37

I think its nice. I'm tired of seeing bloated apps that take an hour to configure and do the job, half the time leave a sh*t trail behind them. I agree that maybe there should be an advanced button/setting where you can edit advanced settings but the new interface is great in my opinion. I want things clean, quick and powerful. If I have to drop something little to get that than so be it. A least you don't have to close out explorer to defrag.

Comment by Yukio, on 1-Feb-2007 22:37

"Cant they do what apple did when they created OS X? - that being making the OS from scratch..."

I thought OSX was built on the BSD os.

Comment by JMS - Chicago, on 2-Feb-2007 06:11

Geez...

Clearly, most Mac users have conveniently forgotten that the AMIGA had a GUI (in color) and STEREO and SCSI (standard), 24-bit hardware accessories with frame buffers, had a COMMAND LINE INTERFACE -YEARS- before Macintosh, while the Mac was still a just a black and white word processor with a stolen interface.

It just took the incompetance of Alexander Haig and the Commodore Board of Directors to kill it (and it's not really dead, just WAYYY too expensive to justify any more).

If you like the Mac, fine. If you prefer a Wintel PC, fine. If Linux is your gig, great. The point is people, that a box is a box is a box. Any box can do what any other box can do, given sufficient talent, along with financial and temporal resources. It's the users and how they use it that makes a platform functional and/or productive. So just give it a rest.

Comment by John, on 25-Feb-2007 13:39

No GUI Defrag in Vista is big step backwards. Remember the days when new a new OS was a step forwards - I shudder with the old 1 hour + defrag in Win9x.

I use defrag to see such things as where the O/S decided to dump the swap file. Sometimes brillinantly at the end of the disk where preformance is really great (not).

I fixed the problem with daul boot XP / Vista. XP for real stuff where all my programs work and XP to play until it grows up.

Comment by Mike, on 24-Mar-2007 03:28

Hey Guys,

I bet you all know that Microsoft uses code from Executive Software for it's Disk Defragmenter.

Executive Software is the company behind Diskeeper. WoW starts now! I think you are getting the picture now. Maybe they pressured Microsoft to make the defrag in vista dumb so that they could boost their sales. You know if you are happy with what you have, it's unlikely that you look for new things.

From a programmer point of view, it's not that difficult to throw a progress bar in. The reason behind vista defrag being dump is, I think, not technical difficulties, not user friendliness, but sheer pressure from Executive software or may be even EU. Who knows?

Where do you want to go today, Microsoft?

Comment by Matt, on 29-Mar-2007 11:24

Why does windows even need to a dummed down version of defrag? What was so complicated about the old version?

Understanding what the progress bar does is the least of your problems in the computer world. If you don't understand the progress bar then you should just stay away from the computer before you break it.

Comment by How to Build a Computer, on 30-Mar-2007 06:30

I couldn't agree more. Is it going to take 1 minute? Is it going to take 3 hours? No one knows! One can only guess that they built it for the average joe that has no clue about defrag so it's on a schedule and runs (hopefully) without you noticing. For us control freaks (who dont want a defrag to start running when we're in the middle of editing a video or something) they should have given us a SOME type of time indicator. O wait, I just noticed they did; it says "This may take a few minutes to a few hours"
Just remember that the first defrags takes the longest.

Comment by ebritt, on 19-Apr-2007 03:01

I tried using linux before (Mandrake 8) and it is soooo inconvenient! I am not naive to windoes downfalls but I am too ld to relearn everything from scratch....especially when scratch sux!!
:p

Comment by Shaun CHUNG, on 8-May-2007 04:05

All the criticism's right -- the interface offered in Vista is pathetic! Worse than Windows 98, not to mention XP.

And yes, you folks are right, why Windows yet again? Have we not been fooled enough already? Trouble is, it's like a bloody drug addiction -- you know it's bad, but it takes too much to kick it. So you fall into it again.

Each time I clicked on "Defragment now" and the idiot interface went "Analysing disks..." and then came back gleefully with "Your file system can be improved. It is recommended that you defragment now", then the entire snafu recycled itself!! I'm going bananas with this diabolical stupidity!!

Screw Microsoft, someone, please!!!

Comment by jon, on 25-May-2007 16:59

vista...

you know what? i LIKE it. i've been using windows products since 3.1, and learning all the 'tricks' and more efficient ways of doing everything with each new release.

now Vista's here, and you know what? it's DIFFERENT. so learn something new, people! give into Vista a little bit... try stuff the 'Vista' way. it may be different than other MS OSes, but navigating IS more efficient. when i can punch my windows key and type in a few words of a song and drag that result right to winamp and it instantly plays, that's PROGRESS. no google desktop needed, just my handy Start Menu. i can even customize the HECK outta local users' privileges, and when i set that security policy in Vista, let me see you try to bypass it.

if all this sounds elementary to you, then perhaps it is. i don't need to spend my time encouraging others to LEARN NEW TRICKS. if i sound like a newbie, great -- but i can guarantee i'm a damn near windows expert. so go ahead, critique my winamp example, critique my lack of caps, critique the fact that i don't display my damn computing resume just so you'll accept what i say -- i merely want folks to TRY things the VISTA way! use indexing (just exclude all folders that you're positive you don't need results from), play with the options, add transportable tags to your JPGs! use the shortcut keys. i've even had amazing success with old apps: just use the Compatibility tab! give in to Vista! at least try it!

ON TOPIC:

Vista's defrag does suck ;) hehe

Comment by Brian, on 3-Jun-2007 07:55

Mac, Windows, Linux? What does it matter? There is a 100% probability that 100% of the population won't be satisfied.

Here's why use a Mac with OS X 10.4.9

1. I don't have to worry about DRIVER conficts.

a.) the system supports most USB based audio without installing drivers

b.) I have two gigabit ethernets built in

c.) I have bluetooth built in (No additional drivers or software needed -take that Windows!)

d.) I have 802.11n Wireless built in.

2. It NEVER CRASHES!!!!

3. It NEVER NEEDS DEFRAGED (Other than defragging for space)

4. It doesn't have viruses (YET!!!!)

5. It's NOT Bloated with CRAP I will NEVER use!

6. It's useable lifespan is somthing near 4-5 times longer than a PC

7. Games Look EXACTLY the same as the PC verson, sometimes better, sometimes not.

8. Apple has the balls to tell people, enough is enough; But a newer version of the software if you want to use a new computer! It's called ADVANCEMENT and PROGRESS

Here's the Reson I Use a Windows Vista / XP PC

1. I can CHOOSE the hardware components (At the cost of DRIVER conflicts)

2. I have a TON more Games and Application options

3. I can upgrade more components to extend it's life (Though with the new Mac Pros, I have nearly all the upgrade options as far as CPU and some graphics)

4. It's the mainstreem choice.

5. Ummm.... Ran out of reasons....

Here's why I use LINUX

1. Ummmm.... There still is no reason to run linux, save the option to get away from Microsoft.

The point is that fan boys will be fan boys. People will hate the things they aren't used to. If everyone would approach things with an open mind and see the good before the bad, we'll all be happier.

BTW, if Mac OS X was SOOOOO bad as some claim, why was there litterally thousands trying to Hack OSX to run it on their PC's??? I'll give you a hint... It's the UNIX under the hood!

"For everyone who says Vista LOOKS like os x it isn't true. It has the "FEATURES" of os x not looks ;)

-Very Customizable

-Fast

-HP Laptop for example: Built in webcam with software, Windows Media Center Remote

-Windows Media Center

-Much more advanced security (even though os x doesnt have viruses YET)"

Vista looks nothing like OS X!!!!

Vista is no more customizable than OS X

Mac's have included cameras for a long time

Mac's Come with a remote

Mac's come with Front Row (Media center interface)

Much More Advanced Security?!?!? Being asked everytime you do something if it's OK isn't security! It bothersome and lame!

"You have moved you mouse. This requires an Administrator Password. Do You Accept?"

This fixes nothing. What is does do is force people to do what they always do: Ignore the message and just click it's ok!

Almost all software works? Think again. Especially software that now requires administrator access to files and directories. That leaves non-admins limited or no access to the software. Gaming is being hurt the worst. Some games (Less than two years old, but still being sold as new games) will flat out NOT work on vista. Period. An example of this is Brothers in Arms; Earned in Blood. Will not even install.

Punk Buster has problems.. Need I go on?

Comment by Brian, on 4-Jun-2007 08:06

I'm not joking. I have NEVER had my G3, G4, MacBook Pro, or Mac Pro crash. I've had applications crash, but that's more likely the Application than the Computer.

On the Bluetooth, if you have a PC with Bluetooth, you either have to use the "dumbed down" driver with windows or use WIDCOMM, Toshiba, or any other vendor specific drivers if you want the additional functionality.

Look at your device manager. You probably will see Toshiba drivers for Toshiba and Dell (Maybe others) or WIDCOMM drivers. The point is, the Bluetooth stack for MacOS X is built in with the ability to connect it to damn near any device. The vast majority of PC bluetooth devices require additional drivers and software.

Comment by Thanh, on 7-Jun-2007 03:20

Hello :)

Interesting discussion. I am runninmg Vista Ultimate since february and haven't even once defragged yet - for the same reason, it never seems to finish and doesn't show me any progress. However so far also never had a problem with the Vista, it does every job i need it to do. My machine is a self-built box with parts i chose (i won't buy brand-name machines EVER) and - surprise - EVERYTHING works perfectly, yes even the bluettoth USB dongle (using Vista's own driver, and yes, i can connect to pretty damn every device i know of that has BT and use all of the services these devices offer, even my boyfriend's friggin' Nokia headset to make Skype calls!)

I have Linux too - Ubuntu, in a virtual machine and just to play with - i WANT to learn it but have no actual reason to do so apart from me wanting. I love it too, but getting things (hardware) in Linux to work can be a real pain - ever had to reinstall the entire OS after connecting a new MONITOR????? I guess this can ONLY happen with Linux (that was on SuSE 10.0)

I never used a MAC. If someone would give me one for free, i WOULD use it. I'm not too shy to learn new things. Linux, BSD, Windows, OS/2 - i can put them on the hardware that stands here in front of me and start learning/playing/working. OSX? Narda, need VERY expensive extra hardware first! And MAC's, face it, are just like Harley-Davidsons are in motorcycles - surely not the best, but certainly the most expensive FOR THE FEATURES THEY HAVE. At least Harley-Davidson stands to it - original advertisement: "With Harley-Davidson, you buy the image. The motorcycle you get as a gift". Just like that with MAC's - you pay for the "Apple" logo and get some hardware for free on top of it, inferior hardware that is, but in a really fancy box.

(My computer, not to brag, did cost me less than 500 us$ converted. A brand-name machine with identical specs would cost close to 2.500!! The only thing mine doesn't have? That little square sticker with some fancy brand name on it in the front..... but i refuse to pay 2.000 bucks for a friggin' sticker!)

Kind regards.....

Thanh

Comment by spud, on 24-Jul-2007 12:37

ahhhh.... flames, anyway Vista is a slightly warmed up version of xp with worse gaming performance now but more potential later.

The UI has gotten worse and better worse is the defrag where they could have a progress bar, better is where you can now tell how many computers are on your network.

Most of the issues with vista will probably be sorted out by the service packs so by the time vista is really completley finished there will be another OS out which supports dx 11 (which vista will conveiniently not) and so it will go on until the apocalypse.

Comment by Mercier, on 27-Jul-2007 10:30

Oh yeah, forgot to mention.. /Free/

Comment by Omdatura, on 24-Oct-2007 04:30

Hi Guys,

I think this will suit for a defrag, no need for big discussion about computers' history.

1. Download PowerDefragmenter (http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Hard-Disk-Utils/Power-Defragmenter.shtml).

3. Run PowerDefragmenter and click next.

4. Choose options appropriate for you:

Defragment File(s): Defrags up to 4 files

Defragment Folder(s): Defrags up to 4 folders

Defragment Disk: Defrag disk

PowerMode Disk Defragmentation: Defrags two consecutive defragmentations while keeping the time the same.

5. This pops up Windows Disk Defragmenter...

6. That's it!

Note: Contig works on OS version NT and above which means this will work for Windows vista (tried it).

Best

Comment by Drew, on 4-Jan-2008 03:45

[Mac]Hi there. I'am a Mac...

[PC] Hi, I'm a pc...

[PC] What are you going to do today Mac?

[Mac] Well, I'm going to write a blog, create a photo album, edit and listen to some music and then watch a video. How about you PC?

[PC] I'm going to do the same thing ^_^

*3 hours later*

[PC] Well that was fun, I've finished all that. How about you Mac?

[Mac] Yeah I'm all done now too.

[PC] Great what shall we do now?

[Mac] ....erm there isnt really a whole lot left that I can do :S

[PC] Realy? You don't want to play a game or interface with all the new gadgets around or try out some new software from the net?

[Mac] Sorry PC, I'm just not that versatile.

[PC] Oh....well....erm...ok. Bye

*END*

Moral. Mac good for media. PC also good for media and doesnt just waste space for the rest of the day when you finish making pretty photo albums.

Comment by Tiberius, on 26-Jan-2008 07:26

I received Vista with my laptop. It gobbled quite a lot of hardware usage so I turned off the visual extras of Vista. Now it looks like Windows 98. Then I had problems with programs like DAEMON tools so I turned off the users accounts control. After a while I got used to the differences between XP and Vista (as I have/had Win XP on my PC). Now Vista keeps crashing my games that are not from Microsoft. Also messengers keep randomly crashing. Yes, I have tried all that was possible to make it work better but it seems nothing works. At the moment Im looking for a way to downgrade my Vista to XP as it was said possible. But when it wont work (of which I am sure because MS would not let just anyone downgrade bet to XP just like that) I am afraid I will have to get Win XP from somewhere. I was opitimistic in the beginning when I got Vista thinking that its an upgraded XP that works better. That is not true. It doesnt support older applications and has even problems with some new ones. So I go back to XP although I know that soon MS will stop support for Win XP as they already wanted to (but they didnt because as they say "people werent ready yet").

Comment by LogicWhitney, on 20-Mar-2008 02:48

If you use mac os, don't comment. This topic doesn't even apply to you. PC users are tired of hearing you fanboys boast about your systems. We honestly don't give a flying piss why you hate PC.

Seriously, do you guys just search google for "Windows Problems" and copy-paste your mac arguments in ever comment box you find?

Comment by crazyorangutang8, on 16-May-2008 09:52

haha argument!!! but no really I hate the new defrag interface but you can get around it in command prompt, inconvenient but easy enough... p.s. I also disagree with every mac user about mac's superiority, they're completely overpriced. I don't even own an iPod, I went with a creative because it is compatible with my Napster-to-Go subscription which gives me unlimited downloads for the price of one cd a month... talk about anti piracy and the virtuosity of Mac. Anyone who buys a Mac is anyone who doesn't have the common sense to research for themselves.

Comment by Don J. Signori, on 12-Jun-2008 16:00

Apologies for this being a tad off topic.

Forgot to mention in the event some may have missed it. I'm not bashing Macs BTW. (-:

This was a part of a newsletter I got a few days ago from NAPP.

"The recent OS X 10.5.3 update eliminated a whole slew of bugs and potential security vulnerabilities for Mac users. But, it also appears to have become the source of trouble for some Photoshop CS3."

A whole slew of bugs and security issues on a Mac? Must be a misprint eh? lol. Never hear from a peep from Mac users at digital camera, astronomy or Photoshop groups about these little problems. Only hear them reporting on what they assume are problems with a few PC owners. Od isn't it?

Don, Toronto

Comment by Mark, on 16-Jun-2008 11:47

I use "defraggler" (www.defraggler.com), its quite a bit like the XP version, except it's compatible with Vista =)

I highly recommend it.

Comment by Scott, on 29-Jun-2008 08:34

HAHAHA Windows Vista Sucks, ive had it for over a year now and im about ready to throw it out the window, they made such a confusing switch, going from xp to vista i have no idea how to do anything anymore, everything is hidden. I now have an Apple and can say i am much happier than i have ever been with a computer, ever!

Comment by Vath, on 27-Aug-2008 04:54

I should probably add, I have Vista on my laptop (It's a work computer so I can't remove it) and I do hate the new Defrag aswell, Microsoft have yet to steal the Linux defrag which not only re-arranges the data to remove fragmentation but also moves commonly used files to the begining of the disk to reduce seek time.



And, I hate Mac, they charge you for an OS that they didn't create and is freely available.



Vath.

Comment by mikeruss, on 3-Sep-2008 03:49

A free defrag tool



http://www.defraggler.com/

Comment by NO DISKKEEPER, on 8-Sep-2008 05:52

Can JkDefrag do continuous background defragmenting?



In my opinion continuous background defragmenting and optimization is marketing hype and a bad idea. There is considerable overhead (CPU, memory, disk) that may actually make your computer slower instead of faster, and it will wear out and shorten the life span of your harddisk. I advise defragmenting once a day (via the Windows Task Scheduler) at the most.



(from www.kessels.com/jkdefrag/)



Diskeeper will overheat, take cpu power and it costs alot, it tears the harddisk more than it does good. JkDefrag gave me 11 gb back and alot faster vista pc, and i have only had Vista installed for about 1 month.



JkDefrag got alot of easy clean UI and nice features with a with commands, read the page for nice tips and everything else. And it's 100 % free non-commercial

Comment by The Truth of Things, on 17-Feb-2009 17:43

"We're living in the age of color, music, rebellion and difference. Why would you use Windows?"



wtf? Being different and rebellious for it's own sake is stupid. Rebellion is a means, not an end.



Windows is used because of compatibility, imo. Linux isn't widely supported, and mac is a community of rich elitist faggotz. Not to mention they suck.



I bet you use a mac...

Comment by palpmaster, on 18-Apr-2009 07:52

if u dual boot with xp and vista. u can defrag ur vista hdd when u boot up on your xp. just go to ur defragmenter on ur xp and u should be able to see the hdd ur vista os is on. hope tat helps

Comment by Van Fanel, on 6-Oct-2009 01:50

If you need a free (in the real sense of the word) defragmentation tool, try UltraDefrag.
http://ultradefrag.sourceforge.net/
I do not use Vista, but I tried it under Windows Server 2008 (which is Vista on steroids), and it works.

Comment by Albert, on 27-Nov-2009 21:22

OFF TOPIC:

I have both a PC and a MAC, I am an amateur film maker but experienced editor. I have all the adobe programs on both pc and mac. In case one crashes or for some reason i cant continue my work on one system i have the other as backup. after being in the film industry or part of it for years now i will have to say that i love MAC's for editorial purposes only.

many can argue that it is the same bologna but i assure you it is not, i learned adobe software in a pc but as soon as i picked up the mac version i switched right away, so i love to use my mac for adobe.

for games and office, PC takes it, yes the programs are also available in mac, but im sorry games on MAC will only wish they could run like they do in a PC, they will not look the same, they will look worse.

I have 16gig ram, intel core i7 3.2 quad proc with 2 GTX 295's. I love keeping my pc to its max potential.

I have a G3 powerbook, a Macbook pro and a macbook air. non of these machines are able to run my video games the way my pc does, not even close.

so in short:

PC - Video Games and Business
MAC - Design and Editing

ON TOPIC:

Yeah vista defrag is pretty crappy, going on 13 hrs on mine right now. then again i have about 500 gigs to defrag.....sigh :(