How-To

Here are some useful How-To tips and instructions. Let us know if you have any suggestions or questions for other useful items we can add to this list.

• Open a command prompt
• Convert to NTFS (2000/XP only)
• Run the Disk Defragmenter
• Schedule the Disk Defragmenter (XP only)
• Schedule the Disk Cleanup utility (2000/XP)
• Scheduling Disk Cleanup and Defragmentation on Windows 98/Me

Open a command prompt (i.e., a "DOS window")

	Select the Start button to open the Start Menu. Select Run… At the Run command, type cmd and click OK to open the command prompt.

Convert to NTFS (2000/XP only)

1. Open a command prompt.
2. At the command prompt, type: 
      convert <drive>: /FS:NTFS
   where <drive> is the letter name of the drive you want to convert.
3. Often, the system will need to be rebooted to perform the conversion, and the conversion will take place during the boot process (this may take several minutes).

Run the Disk Defragmenter

Here is a Microsoft article that discusses how to run the Disk Defragmenter. Surprisingly, the article doesn’t say what to do once you’ve started the Disk Defragmenter, but it’s pretty simple once it’s started: push the Defragment button.

Here is a more complete (though shorter) version of what to do:

1. Click Start, click All Programs, click Accessories, click System Tools.
2. Click Disk Defragmenter to start the Disk Defragmenter program.
3. Click the volume you want to defragment (usually C:).
4. (Optional) Click the Analyze button to see how fragmented the volume currently is.
5. Click the Defragment (or Defragment Now) button to defragment the volume.

You may need to defragment the volume several times to fully defragment it.

A better strategy is to schedule Windows to run the Defragmenter automatically every night so you want have remember to do it yourself and to improve overall performance. To schedule it, you either need to:

• Buy the full version of the Disk Defragmenter (Executive Software's Diskeeper), or
• Follow the directions in the following section to Schedule the Disk Defragmenter yourself.

Schedule the Disk Defragmenter (XP only)

Fragmentation is one of the most common causes of performance problems. Defragmenting only when you have specific problems does not work well, however, partly because of the time required to defragment, and partly because defragmenting a heavily fragmented disk often requires many defragmentation runs.

Regular defragmentation is the solution. Unfortunately, the defragmenter that is included with Windows does not have a scheduling feature. The full version, Executive Software's Diskeeper, supports scheduling and several other useful features, but costs a little bit of money. There is, however, a way to schedule the free version that ships with Windows. I recommend scheduling it to run every day at a time when the computer is expected to be on but not in use. You don’t necessarily have to leave the computer on every day at this time, but the more often it is on at this time, the more often defragmentation will occur.

1. Go to Start Menu > Control Panel > Scheduled Tasks > Add Scheduled Tasks
2. Click Next.
3. When you are asked to select the program you want Windows to run, click the Browse button.
4. Browse to the system32 subdirectory, which is located in the system root directory (usually called C:\Windows\system32).
5. Select defrag.exe and click OK.
6. Follow the wizard instructions to schedule the time and frequency for the task to run.

Schedule the Disk Cleanup utility (2000/XP)

1. Open a command prompt.
2. At the command prompt, type:  
       cleanmgr /sageset:<number>
   where <number> is any number you choose (use different numbers to setup different Disk Cleanup schedules).
3. When the Disk Cleanup window displays, specify which actions you want Disk Cleanup to do when it runs as a scheduled task.
4. Click OK.
5. Use the Scheduled Tasks feature (in Control Panel) to schedule Disk Cleanup.
   1. Specify the following as the command to run:
          cleanmgr /sagerun:<number>
   2. Make sure to use the same number as you did in step 2.

For more details on scheduling Disk Cleanup, see this Microsoft article.

Scheduling Disk Cleanup and Defragmentation on Windows 98/Me

Windows 98 and Millenium Edition include a utility called Maintenance Wizard that can help you schedule the disk defragmenter and the Disk Cleanup utility, among others. The Maintenance Wizard is located in the All Programs > Accessories > System Tools folder of the Start Menu. Following the wizard instructions to schedule all of the maintenance tasks to run regularly, preferably at least once a day.

Defragmentation Note: When the Windows 98 defragmenter is running, it will restart itself each time the hard drive is accessed, which means that if you use the computer or if the screen saver starts during defragmentation, the defragmentation may keep restarting and run indefinitely.