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xp defrag says it can't defrag everything

By thepubear ·
I have even reinstalled windows thinking that this error was a corrupt file that I couldn't get to.

When I reinstalled, I went the slow way and formatted the disk completely before install, and have diskscanned a number of times.

But it still says some file can't be defragged, and when I look at the report it shows no files in the list. If I do analyze, it shows only one file being fragmented, and that's the ntuser.dat file.

What I need to know, is if this is anything I even have to worry about? I found out about pagedefrag, from www.sysinternals.com, and have set that to make sure things like my pagefile are defragged as necessary when I reboot.

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Defrag

by shhite In reply to xp defrag says it can't d ...

If a file is in use windows will not be able to defrag it. ntuser.dat was in use at the time. This is not something you need to worry about unless the files start becoming large.

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thanks, though the thing is...

by thepubear In reply to Defrag

heh. that's what I was thinking.

But I am curious. I have 3 computers, all running xp sp3. This is the only computer that is doing this. In fact that discrepancy led me to believe that there was something corrupted doing it. When I do my wife's computer for instance, It doesn't give the error message at all. However I can see it shows one folder being fragmented, as well.

The 2nd question then is why one computer is giving me this message and the others are not. This might come down to it really not mattering, but if anybody knows, I'd like to know. This kind of stuff drives me nutty. :)

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No need to worry at all

by Dumphrey In reply to xp defrag says it can't d ...

And you only need to use page defrag 1 time a week or 1 time a month at most. Every day/boot up may be excessive.

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page defrag

by thepubear In reply to No need to worry at all

I only do that do i dont forget. Would it hurt it any doing so, or is it merely very unnecessary?

Though I could see myself taking it off of doing every time out of sheer irritation.

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It is unnecessary and time consuming if you do it every day...

by OldER Mycroft In reply to page defrag

It may also lead you into a false sense of security, and thinking you are doing all that you need may lead to you overlooking something else that IS important.

I check my pagefile each month and sometimes don't bother defragging it because it doesn't need it.

The differences you have noticed between your three machines is most likely explained by the fact that, apart from all being PCs - they are also all completely different in terms of hardware, chipsets, RAM, motherboards, installed software, scheduled tasks, etc etc.

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