Discussion on:

You don't really need a Start Menu in Windows 8

Won't use them. I have an XP machine with Office 2003 for the rare times I need MS office. 2007 just confuses me, it's too gaudy and awful. Even putting the search box for commands thing on it didn't help much.
They need to get away from that "ribbon" train of thought and bring back efficient dropdown menus instead.

If you miss having your familiar icons on the desktop, the same shortcut to add them back in Windows 7 still works in Windows 8. Right Click on the desktop and select "Personalize". Click "Change desktop icons". On the Desktop Icons tab, select "Computer", "User's Files", "Network", "Recycle Bin" and/or "Control Panel". Click OK. Start wondering what OTHER things you already know still apply to Windows 8. Realize almost *all* of them. Feel the light go on over your head...

"Ahh... this isn't so bad... so wait... can I do.... *this*? I can?!? What about THIS?!? That too!!!"

A few hours later sit there going, "Wow, I might upgrade the rest of my machines to Windows 8.

Realize you're behind at least 40,000,000 other Windows users in figuring this out.

How do you right click without a Mouse?

8 is a Touch Centric user Interface which is great on any touch screen except a Desktop Screen.

The Tablet and Phone screens are very small and the Big Tiles are necessary but that's not necessary on a Desktop just the Mobile Devices. At the very least M$ need to redesign the Desktop Interface and have it more usable for Desktops.

But that would mean a different Start Menu or whatever you want to call it for Desktops and Mobile Devices which is what M$ originally had in their first beta. I know why M$ Dropped the different Desktops but I just don't agree with it. To me they seem to have optimized a Mobile Start Menu which is great for devices like that and stuck everyone with it and made the OS far more likely to get Bad Press in the process.

To me by insisting on the single Start Menu they have shot themselves in the foot and have actively tried to Pi$$ People Off and cause fewer sales of their new OS.

Col

Touch the desktop screen. Keep your finger on the screen for 2-3 seconds, then lift your finger off. There's your right click menu. There's "Personalize".

To right click a Start Screen tile, keep your finger on the screen for 2-3 seconds until the tile moves slightly, then drag the tile down a tiny bit and let go. There are the Unpin from Start, Uninstall, All apps & tile size right click options.

As I said above I see 8 as great on Mobile Devices but less so on Desktops.

Though with the announcement of Surface 8 Pro Pricing in the last few hours at $899.00 for the bottom line unit that just may not happen.

Seems a bit pricey for poor battery life with a i5 CPU and easily broken device but maybe that's just me who would prefer a NB with the same or better specs and lots more storage space.

Though more to the point how would you explain this to a End User over the Phone? I had a hard enough time telling a customer last week how to reset the Service Light in their car which came in for repairs after a crash and the mechanic who repaired it forgot to reset the Service Reminder. It is literally a 15 Second job where you push the Trip Meter Reset in turn the key on and hold it for 8 to 10 seconds till the Service Light goes out and then you're good to go.

No matter what was tried the Customer was unable to reset it and didn't believe what was done when it was done in front of them. So I wish you luck with this step.

Col

Are you asking me to select a tile on a Windows phone or right click without a mouse on the Start Screen of a touch screen tablet or a computer?
Let me assume that this is a slate tablet question - How do you right click on a tile on a slate tablet.
I would say, "Put your finger on the tile and keep it there for 2-3 seconds. Drag the tile down a couple of millimeters. Let go. Do you see the check mark on the tile? You just right clicked it with your finger."
If the user asked how to right click on the slate desktop. I would say, "Put your finger on a blank area of the desktop screen and keep it there for 2-3 seconds. Now let go. Do you see the right click desktop menu? You just right clicked it with your finger."
I am not familiar with Windows Phone but it probably works the same way - "Put you finger on the tile..."

If they need more information - like a demo, I would say go to the Start Screen and type "Help" select the Help icon and type "touch" in the search box. Choose the link "Touch: swipe, tap and beyond." Read the second item "Press and hold".

On your desktop you can click the right mouse button to call up that desired menu. On the touchscreen you keep your finger down until the menu appears. So easy.

Duct tape.

My brother had a better solution, his mechanic used. Snip the wire to the little light, that thing don't com on no mo.

How is that more productive than simply pressing the right click side of your mouse and having the right click context menu pop up immediately?!!!

Especially the part that says, 'without a mouse?' No one said hold-clicking (or whatever it's called) is better, just answering how to use a touch device that doesn't have mouse capability.

The people screaming the loudest, I get the feeling they're the ones who have most actively resisted ANY exposure to *any* of the touch-enabled digital devices that have been on the market for the last 3+ years.

Am I right? You and HAL and Slayer and DE and the others speaking the loudest here about how horrible/pontless Windows 8 is (or is going to be, or seems)...

Haven't actually ever sat down with ANY touch screen device or touch-screen oriented OS for any meaningful length of time, let alone Windows 8.

Right? I mean, you might have played with a friend's unit for a few minutes or browsed at Best Buy but you haven't ever spent anything like a whole two weeks with a touch screen device learning how it works? I could be wrong, but I've got the feeling I'm not. (Edit - I've read elsewhere in this thread that I am wrong about Hal - he has clearly used Windows 8, but it sounds like he wasn't figuring it out from his problems with Corel adding tiles that he didn't just simply *remove*...)

So... as someone who has been using a Laptop Hybrid touch-screen device for the last few years on a daily basis - there are alternate ways to do ANYTHING with Touch-screen that you can do with a mouse, including a right click (long-press is the touch-centric term you're talking about above, by the way). Sometimes those are a compromise, but frequently, they work just as well or better than a mouse and pointer oriented interface *provided that you've got a touch-optimized OS interface*. Once you get used to Touch-Screen, you often find yourself on non-touch enabled devices doing something with a mouse and pointer and wistfully thinking, "I wish I could do this the way it works on Android/iOS"...

So bear with me here.

The CLASSIC desktop is *not* a touch-centric interface, and *never* will be. I love classic emulation. Playing an Atari 2600 game in emulation with an 8 way D-pad or an analog PC joystick or a mouse and keyboard is aggravation - because the games were designed for 8 way digital joysticks. In emulation, if you want to enjoy it, you get yourself the right I/O device for the interface you're emulating. So in an Atari 8 bit, MAME or other very classic game, you want an 8 way digital joystick. If you're playing a NES emulator, you want an 8 way d-pad with the same button layout as the original NES. It is a forum follows function design consideration. I'll give you another example. I recently read a review of the 8-Bitty bluetooth gaming d-pad for Android and iOS. The reviewer noted that the problem was that mobile games on these devices have a difficulty level tailored for touch-input. Adding the 8-Bitty erases that difficulty factor completely in some cases - taking away the challenge and making fun games *boring*. Matching your user interface to your goal is important.

The inclusion of Classic desktop is a compromise - and you're NOT going to be using it as a touch-screen interface. It is there so you can drop into that mode and run familiar legacy apps that are best suited to that kind of user interaction *using* a mouse, trackball, trackpad or other classic user interface. If you're going into Classic mode in Windows 8 and you're trying to use your finger, you're trying to saw down a tree with a claw hammer. So the real answer to "how do you right click in Classic mode," really is...

By *right clicking*!

So the question, "how do you right click in classic with a touch screen device," itself illustrates that the person asking doesn't quite *get* it. You *can* do that, but why would you want to? Use a pointing device. Likewise, you can navigate the Modern UI, (and really this works even better than the other way around,) using a mouse, but it works *best* with a touch oriented input. That doesn't necessarily mean the *screen*. A multi-input large touch-input enabled mouse or pad works better than just a mouse here, too. The right device for the right input.

Why have two different methods?

Because sometimes a mouse and pointer is superior, sometimes a touch-screen input is superior. Disagree? Why have joysticks, trackballs, Wacom digitizer tablets, keyboards?

Everyone felt this way about the mouse when it first arrived. "That will NEVER catch on. Keyboard shortcuts in the CLI are far superior to this silly GUI and mouse deal". I mean, the EXACT same arguments.

Some of those people are still around to this day. We call them Linux advocates.

One thing I would add is a touch screen with a real stylus input works very well for the Windows 8 desktop.
However, I'm not about to handwrite a document and convert it to text just because I can.
I'm going to use the physical keyboard.
The right tool for the right job.

I'm a cheap b@$tard. Why spend money when I have a functional device? If MS thinks an alternate cursor control device is necessary for W8 on the desktop, then they should bundle one with the OS installation media and insist vendors include one in the box. If you want to buy one for me to play with, I'll be happy to send you my shipping address. You can at least deduct the cost as a business expense.

I'm not saying W8 is pointless. I'm asking what's in it for a DESKTOP user that makes it worth relearning much of what I already knew, especially when we know a work-around was in the first beta?

If the Classic desktop is a compromise, then burn all bridges and eliminate it entirely. Sell W8 as what it is, an OS for portable / content consumption / touch devices.

Yes, many people felt that way about the mouse originally. But early versions of Windows had to be started AFTER starting DOS; you could remain at the DOS prompt if you wanted. Early versions of Windows didn't affect the way the DOS prompt behaved unless you started it. W8 starts the new interface FIRST, forces me to opt out of it every boot, and definitely affects the way the previous interface behaves.

Progress. ISA was a compromise for a long time. Find a modern board with an ISA bus slot on it today. But for a long time, there were always one or two of them on there - and I bet you can still find a motherboard that supports ISA if you *really* need one. But progress said ISA was going to become less important than it had been for the first 15 or 20 years of the Intel Architecture IBM PC Clone market.

And that market for third party accessories that enhance the PC experience is what makes the PC such a market force. Something changes, and suddenly USB cables or HDMI cables or wireless routers are all the rage. The tremendous flexibility of PCs means if you don't have a need for HDMI, you can still use d-sub 15 VGA connectors. No harm there. But if you want HDMI - that is an option too. That is exactly what is happening here. You've got your DESKTOP... but you haven't LOST your start menu - it has moved and morphed - but having two would have been redundant and a waste of resources. Progress says throw it out.

Oh... and lots of people wailed and gnashed their teeth when Windows became a true 32 bit OS with a DOS shell - instead of a GUI shell riding on top of DOS. "It is going to RUIN DOS gaming! Who wants to run games with the overhead of a whole GUI taking up valuable resources?!?" and my personal favorite, "This will probably kill DOS as a gaming platform and drive all the gamers to Linux!" (hahahahahaha....... ooooohh... that last one is so funny it hurts...)

Listen - maybe you're content and this is the end of the road for you with PCs and you'll ride it out into retirement on Windows 7. You can do that - there isn't anything *wrong* with it. But my point is the people who feel like you - ultimately they're in unique positions and they're going to be the minority. This is coming - and the missing start menu, hopefully Microsoft holds to their guns on it - because their logic for removing it is *sound* and it will speed adoption, not slow it. I'm not trying to convert you so much as make you understand that for people who want to move *forward* with PC platforms - it is all going to start going this way... including Linux. There might be a *better* way to transition it and maybe Ubuntu will deliver that and we'll finally have the year of Linux on the Desktop... but this touch-centric interface shift is not going to go away - and Microsoft has done a great job of bridging the translation while still taking care of the legacy users and hardware.

But what the heck is the logic behind that decision? Why does it make sense to remove something that they'd already gone to the trouble to originally include?

What was their reason for removing the tlist command utility? What was their reason for changing the way that GP is administered in Active Directory? Why did they remove My Computer from the desktop? How come they keep changing how the Admin Pack is included? Why did the remove Media Center and make it a paid extra?

Evolution. Progress. Metrics on use. Cost savings. Profit. To encourage new and better ways of getting things done. Even, occasionally, bad decision making.

Why did Ubuntu change so drastically? Why are the including closed-source code during installation now? What happened to Compiz?

Why doesn't OS X support universal .dmg packages anymore? Why did they drop support for Mac Classic mode?

Come on...

Personally I don't care one way or the other about 8 or Metro.

It's I know what I'm going to be experiencing when the End Users get their hot little hands on the Desktop Versions. This is no different to any other OS Release from M$ and I'm tired of trying to defend Microsoft need to make changes for the sake of change.

While personally don't have a smart phone I do set them up for some clients and the same applies to iPads and the like.

I just don't have a need for any of them myself and to be perfectly honest those small phone screens really do give me a headache, however they are better than the Phones that used to have a keyboard like the Samsung Blackjack where I had to use a Stylus to push the keys so that I didn't push 3 or more at any one time.

The iPhones I've played with have been a very poor design internally and are fragile. I've lost count of the number where I've had to replace front glass covers and in latter models the back and front glasses that get broken. The iPhone 3 had a pathetic connector for the Display that would break if you held your mouth the wrong way when you looked at the front of an unopened unit and got more fragile when you where actually silly enough to open the thing.

What can I say I'm LAZY and I don't like making more work for myself than I need to so it's going to be much easier to do it myself charge the customers for it than to attempt to tell them over a phone how to as mentioned above perform a Right Click Function without a mouse. Even showing someone how to do it once just means you have spent more time showing a End User something that they are not going to remember the next time it is needed. These people have invested years learning how to use their current system and most are not using it that well to begin with, to introduce such a radical change and not give an option to revert back to what was available previously during the install is mainly what I don't think is such a good idea.

As I have constantly said 8 is great and was designed for a Mobile Device it's not as functional on a Desk bound system.

The reality however is I don't really care one way or the other people will either eventually start using it or move to a different platform. If past experience is anything to go by most will eventually use it and a very few will either die or start using something different.

Probably why the Apple Brand Computers are growing in numbers with Windows Rejectors going to the competition and being unable to see that there is not any difference between Apple and Microsoft making the same decisions that they force their users to accept.

Despite what some people think I've never said I dislike 8 or that I'll never use it, that is what some others have read into what I have posted incorrectly.

Col

The real thing is that these are computer nerds actively fighting ALL forms of innovation. To them not only are the Tiles a form of heresy but so are all touchscreens in general. And any tech that would lean towards an alternative to the mouse. They not only want to hold onto the mouse but want to hold all of us back too.

Even the ones who say they're motivated by cost make no sense. Because even if we don't move towards touch their philosophy totally hinders them from purchasing a new computer.

So if they just won't purchase anything because they are "cheap" why would ANY company listen to their cries? If you guys aren't going to buy anything new why shouldn't the industry move towards touchscreens and screen tiles? You're no longer a customer. You don't matter anymore. (Also, why would you say you'd buy Windows 9 as if you would like that too?)

Microsoft's customers are the newbies and innovation seekers and hold-outs who never wanted to play with mice. They are in the hundreds of millions. Any company worth its salt doesn't see YOU as relevant. The Surface is on every other TV show and audiences are interested. You're not the guys at the computer conventions cheering on presenters of new gadgets. You are the ghosts of IT Past. From the sounds of it, poltergeist is a better description.

"touch screen" devices WITHOUT touching the screens, damnit. I'm NOT TOUCHING the screen, nor using a stylus. NOT HAPPENING.
YOU DON'T DO THAT.
Thank you.

You do not need a touch screen to use Windows 8.

Janitorman, meet mouse.
Mouse, meet Janitorman.

I'm the Android Fanboy/Pundit around these parts. Here I am defending Windows 8, because in many ways, it offers an even more powerful alternative to Android than Android offers to iOS while still offering most of the attractive features of this approach to personal computing.

There are some liabilities for Windows 8. I've discussed those in detail on my personal blog, on Google+, and here on Tech Republic. But the Start Menu controversy is the biggest hype-machine of the Anti Windows 8 brigade out there.

The real concerns are under the surface. A Modern-UI "share" feature that isn't consistent and doesn't plug into enough social media APIs - *forcing* you into the classic mode. You should be able to do all of the major mobileOS tasks you can on any other touch OS in a similar manner on a Windows 8 device. Right now Windows 8 is where iOS was when you could cut and paste in Android but not iPhone. Some major functions that are expected are crippled or poorly implemented. The concept seems to be, "drop to classic and do it there, you've got a real PC - why would you bother doing it through the mobile method". That isn't the right way to approach this. If it can be done well on a mobile platform, Windows 8 needs to match that in Modern UI.

There is an issue worth discussing. The lack of a start menu on the Classic OS screen is silly - when the Start Menu is now the whole screen of the Modern UI.

Another Microsoft FANBOY.

As if any of us are or really care one way or the other.

There are reasons for change and if the reason something is changed is logical it's a good change and there are then there are times that Change is Introduced for the sake of change to try to con some people that because this looks different it's better when it's just different and no better or worse that what it replaced.

While 8 is an improvement of 7 which was an improvement of Vista which was an improvement of XP and so on and so on back till Windows started, Honestly it's not that much of an Improvement that would justify throwing away all your old stuff and replacing it with 8 Loaded hardware just because it's new.

With Microsoft going to the point of introducing a new OS version every 12 months or so as they have said that will be doing shortly, and to be perfectly honest the Vista Development 10 year Cycle is nearly at it's end with 8 SP1 being the last part of the development cycle we are going to see changes far more often from Redmond.

I however can not help but wonder if this is a Good or Bad thing that is going to do benefit or harm to M$. What's good for a domestic situation isn't necessarily good for business. Changing the tail lights of a car and calling it a new model doesn't hurt anything but changing how people use the same device that they have used for years and slow them down, not to mention making them frustrated is a different kettle of fish. Personally I don't ever want to see another system introduced to the Business End of a Double Barrel Shotgun because the person using it got frustrated.

Also Microsoft has shown that it is now much more bureaucratic than it was previously and is now much slower to introduce change so personally I can see lots of unimportant detail changes and very little in the way of Product Improvement Changes occurring.

No matter what anyone says Microsoft is now the IBM of the PC World. Look how long it took them to move to a 64 Bit OS from the 32 Bit and how long it took them to have a working 32 Bit Windows available to replace the 16 Bit one when the 32 bit Hardware started to become available.

Col

You're more concerned about the mobility and social issues because those are areas that affect you. I'm more concerned with the GUI because it's the aspect that most affects me / my users.

It's how I've done it on my Windows 7 convertible for a couple of years now. Put my finger on something for a second and a menu appears for my next selection. Easy-peezy!

Make sure you count the dragging motion you do when you move a mouse cursor about. You feel that burn? That's carpal tunnel prematurely ruining your wrist joints.

You mean 'carpal tunnel'? A properly configured work area will prevent that. While wrist rests and braces are sometimes necessary, often minor adjustments to the desktop height can reduce or eliminate the pain.

I use that one quite a bit.

TOUCHING THE SCREEN?
Not understanding this at all. I hate touching what I'm looking at, I was trained as a small child NOT TO DO THAT, and I tell my grandchildren the same thing.

for the programs I wanted to access quickly and frquently. You can't copy a Tile from the Start Screen. Best I've found is right-click and choose 'Open file location' from the bottom bar. That takes you to the folder path provided by gkeramidas (first posted comment) and from there, you can copy the shortcut. Once again, adding another click or keystroke to something that was once easier.

you can pin a program to the desktop taskbar from the start screen. (right click > Pin to Taskbar)

Of course, you can't pin an app tile to the desktop taskbar because it can't run on the desktop.

Exactly.

since if I get Win8 I'll immediately turn off the ugly tiles? How about a mac-like second taskbar? How about a toolbar I create myself, floating where ever I want it? I do this all the time on XP and in Linux. PLEASE don't tell me you're stuck with NO or ONLY ONE taskbar and no toolbars?

Enjoy your time with Ubuntu, Suse and Redhat.

The real question is WHY anybody would need to do any of this. If you have many applications installed having to use search is considerably more time consuming and disjointed. And by the way most pros I know use the start menu all the time. Desktop clutter of every program icon is about as stupid as using search to find a program. The simplicity of a simple, inverted tree menu structure is something anybody can easily use so why it's not even an option reflects the arrogance of the developers thinking that they have such a great idea that it should be enforced. Beyond that, with respect to Win8 you just can't fix ugly. Who needs a desktop smart phone? Win7, for more than a few XP, or Linux for us but Win8 failed review very quickly. Hopefully a poor sales experience will force reconsideration, at least with respect to providing an option, of the start menu.

At least we need an option to use it on a notebook or desktop. However, you can reasonably easily work around it using the taskbar, and desktop and quicklaunch toolbars, which between them allow around 100 programs or functions to be run with one or two clicks in desktop mode. I put primary programs on the taskbar, secondary programs on the desktop toolbar and functions on quicklaunch.

AS IT SHOULD BE DONE, you need no silly tiles!

I consider myself a computer "pro" and I don't choose to use the start menu all the time.
Search and typing is often quicker than using a mouse and scrolling.
Two examples to prove my point:
1. In order to access folder options in windows 7, you can click Start > Control Panel > Folder Options but I always pressed the Windows key > and typed "fol" because it's quicker than searching for Folder Options among the 40 other icons in the Control Panel Window.
With Windows 8, I type "co" (enter) "fo". On Windows desktop, I press the Windows key then type "co" (enter) "fo".
2. In order to access Disk Defragmenter in Windows 7, you can click Start > scroll down to Programs > scroll down to Accessories > scroll down to System Tools > scroll down to Defrag but I always pressed the Windows key > and typed "defr" because it's quicker than scrolling.
On the Windows 8 start screen, I type "defrag". On Windows desktop, I press the Windows key then type "defrag".

I am surprised when I find out that Windows pros haven't noticed that Microsoft Windows has been trying to push us away from "Start > Programs" and towards Search since Vista. That's why when you click the start button or press the Windows key in Vista or 7, the cursor is blinking in the search box. It's like it is saying, "Come on. Try me."

Of the 200 or so users I support, I would qualify less than 10% as 'pros'. The rest of them use the mouse except when entering data.

as the "pros" are the ones who will choose what OS a facility uses. The users in general won't care, and retail customers are locked in to whatever is available on the shelf when they buy a computer, unless they are "pros".

I think they objection is less that a new interface is being presented, and more a twofold objection:

1: The new interface does not scale as well to advanced use.
2: The old interface that did scale well, has been outright removed rather than sidelined or hidden by default.

The new menu is a flat non-hierarchial organizational method, which is more efficient for a small number of elements. The "old" system (as of Win7) was a fairly well organized hierarchial structure, efficient for large numbers of elements, which was paired with a flat structure (taskbar pinning) to handle quick access to the most common apps. We don't really see what reason there could have been for completely removing that system, as it could have simply been hidden by default instead. It's a departure from Microsoft's typical stance of walking a line to satisfy both pro and non-pro users, where they are now focusing on non-pro users and removing pro features.

While I agree with most of what you said, we're irrevocably opposed on the subject of users caring. If I didn't think they'd care, I wouldn't much care either.

My thinking was:

Retail customers will be either too new to things to have developed that strong a preference, or will be experienced enough to find a way to re-enable their preference.

In a business world, the admins will decide. The employees might care at first, but getting the job done typically outweighs the preference for how, and they will train themselves up on the new system through lack of choice. (And as happened with me and Linux, come to prefer the new system despite an initial dislike.)

Not really. I am a pro and the Start menu was fine as a quick fix to a problem of finding apps and stuff. But it is cumbersome and finicky. I saw my user fill their desktops with shortcuts, pins to the taskbar or Start menu, or attempted to have apps load upon bootup. That's not a sign of something working. I went from creating elaborate hierarchies in my filing to something rarely more than 2 folders deep. I think my fellow pros get a kick out of drilling into the system to do menial tasks. I just want to "giterdone". I would've eventually hired a coder to make a hovering start screen for Windows 7 had MS not come out with Windows 8. Everyone who loves the current menu has to be a masochist (and not in the cool way).

But less cumbersome and finicky than not having it. It performed well as an "archive" of all of the shortcuts installed by all of the vendors, that never had to be changed except to add to it. Start menu pinning and taskbar pinning served for excellent quick-access.

The way to use it was to find your common use items in the archive once, then promote them to a more accessible space. Now we only have the more accessible space and no archive (unless we add it) which forces the accessible quick-access space to be very cluttered.

On my Win8 "laptablet" I have installed three apps so far: Firefox, about half of the Adobe Master Collection, and Houdini. The "All Apps" screen is very cluttered, since it doesn't collapse anything. It's pretty much what you'd get if you expanded all levels of the Start Menu simultaneously and just had it scroll. If I had that on my desktop, I imagine it would be completely unusable with my typical loadout.

Since the "All Apps" section is very large and difficult to find things in, due to not collapsing things I'm not interested in seeing at the moment, I'll have to put anything I want to access on the home screen. Even with my light loadout, that is currently very cluttered as well and already in need of major cleanup and reorganization, but reorganization is slow when things are on opposite sides of where they should be.

So, I've owned this system for just over a month and installed software from three developers, and it already feels cluttered. If the system is this disorganized and cluttered on a fresh system, with a basic loadout for a user who knows how and is willing to spend the time organizing, the interface concept is bad.

Why type defrag rather than simply pinning the shortcut to either your start menu or your Quick Launch bar?

I chose an example of a program that you might need every once in a while. You know, what if I didn't know exactly where it was but I knew part of the name.
I wanted to illustrate how quickly you can find it in Windows 8.

Actually I don't need to manually run defrag at all on my desktop because my SSD doesn't need it and my back up hard drives automatically defrag.

NT

nt

I become resigned to having waste material in the rotating air movement device; tossing in another load ceases to phase me.