Willy2

- I don't think I would qualify to be a Piriform BETA Tester. - Found more bugs in DF v2.19 !!!!! 1) Start DF and maximize the GUI & close DF. 2) Re-start DF and it will open maximized. So far, so good. 3) Now click on the "Previous GUI size" button (on the left hand side of the "Close Program" (or "X") button.) and the DF GUI is doing some unwanted things: - The drive map is reduced to one row of blocks. But enlarges the pane below the drive map way too much. - It ignores the fact that I have the Taskbar on the left hand side of the screen. That means that a part of the DF GUI disappears under the Task Bar. Keep in mind: DF isn't the only program that doesn't check everytime where the Task Bar is located.

- Here's the proof that DF's "Move Files to End Of Drive" does work. I made a tale telling screenshot. I selected/highlighted all *.mp4 files that were larger than 1 Mb. See inside the red boxes. - But, that's IF this option/feature works !!!!

I think I know why DF v2.19 fails to move files to the end of the drive, in say 90 to 95% of the cases. Yes, DF does move files to the end of the drive but I had to put DF to work a considerable amount of times (> 20 times) before I actually was able to persuade DF to (more or less) flawlessly execute that particular procedure/feature one time. So, it SEEMS the "Move File" algorithm/subroutine(s) itself/themselves does/do function properly.. When the user puts DF to work then the following happens: 1) DF builds a file list. 2) DF seems to sort that file list (???). 3) DF starts to move files. Both to the beginning of the drive or the end of the drive. At the same time DF starts calculating the (estimated !!!!) remaining time needed for the defrag process. 4) When finished the message about the health of the drive emerges (e.g. "Good"). Comments: - Between step 1) & 2) a message about the health of the drive (see step 4) ) shows up for a VERY brief moment. It shows up just long enough to be noticed. - Perhaps calculating the "Remaining time" (somehow) interferes with/messes up the movement of files (in both directions) ?? Perhaps there's a memory conflict and as a result a bunch of pointers gets messed up ? or it messes up an array ? - Or perhaps there's a (memory ??) conflict that already interferes in step 1) or/and 2) ??? - I presume that if the DF info in the memory "survives" all these DF "conflicts" then and only then DF starts moving files towards the end of the drive. Do these conflicts also have an impact on moving files to the beginning of the drive ? - I have installed a program called Cleanmem that reduces memory usage every 15 minutes but I have excluded DF from having its memory usage reduced. So, Cleanmem can't be the cause of this (memory) conflict. At least, I would assume it isn't. - It looks like a number of metadata files are being moved as well in step 3). These files/folders all start with a "$" character. E.g. "C:\$Extend". I think these should be skipped while DF is busy building the file list. Or perhaps these files are marked in a special way and those markers are "messed up"/overlooked in step 2) or/and 3) ? - Perhaps instead of calculating the remaining time DF can show the amount of files to be moved ? Or the total filesize of all files remaining to be moved ? After all, DF builds a file list in step 1) and there this kind of counting can be done as well. - Another thing that bothers me. When moving files (in both directions) some (defagmented) files remain in one fragment and others get fragmented or see a higher fragmentation rate (again). I, of course, would like to see that all files remain defragmented (even when moved to the end of the drive) but I don't know if that's possible.

Video: Scroll down this page. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3032007/Forget-dress-s-CAT-Picture-shows-pet-walking-upstairs-downstairs.html

The cat is going down. I fully agree what the video lays out.

Bug in DF v2.19 ???? - I have a folder called "C:\Recovery" with the attributes "Hidden", "System" (and, of course,) "Directory". This folder shows up when it's fragmented, DF can defragment it but I am not able to add it to the folder list of the "Defrag" tab & "Exclude" tab.

More bugs in the "Defrag" tab (DF v2.19) !!! - I had specified 4 folders to be moved to the end of the drive. (see below, in italics) MoveToDriveEndFiles1=PATH|R|C:\Antiwar|* MoveToDriveEndFiles2=PATH|R|C:\Diverse dames Uitzoeken|* MoveToDriveEndFiles3=PATH|R|C:\Win 7 Pro 64bit - Nieuw|* MoveToDriveEndFiles4=PATH|R|C:\Een Rotterdamse Aziaat|* but when I deleted 3 of those folders (using the "Defrag" tab GUI), closed DF & started DF again then those 4 lines showed up again in Defraggler.ini. This behaviour clearly suggests that the DF subroutine that writes info to the *.ini file (not the registry ??) has some serious problems. Because this behaviour also shows up in the "Exclude" tab.

I need to re-write two things from reply #22: - I overlooked that DF already has an option called "Disable Benchmarking After Defrag". - If MoveLargeFilesToEndOfDrive= 1 and DF (temporarily) greys out the "Defrag" tab then, due to the way DF greys out this tab, the user is led to believe that MoveLargeFilesToEndOfDrive= 0 !!!!!!

@HenryPretzel: - When you put DF to work, which option(s) did you disable & enable ? And what defragmentation process did you choose ?

In the previous days I tested DF v2.19 (especially QD) even more. And yes, there're more things that don't behave well and need to/can be improved. Let me start first by saying that the search algorithms for the "QuickDefrag" (QD) tab seem to WORK (unlike those for the "Defrag" tab) !!!! Thumbs up !!! But QD also takes the settings of the "Exclude" tab into consideration. An additional "Thumbs Up" is appropriate. - Get rid of the option "Have smaller fragments than". Because DF doesn't show how large the fragments of a defragmented file is. That remains a mystery for the user. - When the user has put DF to work, is busy, then the user is able to open "Settings" (main screen) again to see which settings are active but those options are then greyed out. (I DO like that feature !!). But I would to like to see that in this particular situation, DF greys out (much) more options or simply greys out everything in those/all tabs. Then DF doesn't run the risk of being "thrown off the rails" when the user changes one of those non-greyed out options. - In the previous post I explained how the greying out of the QD tab should/can be improved. A good example of how this should be done is already available in DF itself. Just change some settings for QD, put DF to work and while DF is busy, open the QD tab again. That's a GOOD example of how the greying out should work. -The current behaviour of the QD tab also strongly suggests that there're 2 different subroutines in DF that each grey out this tab. Perhaps those 2 subroutines can be merged into one ? - "Defrag" tab GUI bug. When "Defraggler.ini" contains this line: MoveLargeFilesToEndOfDrive=1 and the user has put DF to work and opens the "Defrag" tab again then the subroutine, that greys out this tab, assumes MoveLargeFilesToEndOfDrive=0 !!!! (i.e. DF greys out the entire tab but unchecks (!!!) the associated box.) But when DF has finished it operations then the GUI of "Defrag" assumes MoveLargeFilesToEndOfDrive=1 again !!!!! (i.e. DF shows the "Defrag" tab in the normal way but also checks (!!!) the associated box again). (Is this the reason why the search algorithm fails to function properly ? Does DF somewhere in this routine temporarily changes this setting ?? with the result of messing up the "Move to drive end" algorithm ?) - Another suggestion regarding QD: When the user puts this option to work then DF will compile a list of files that match what's specified in the "Exclude" tab but at the same time it doesn't apply the QD options. I think DF should apply those QD options as well, BEFORE DF displays the file list. Then the user knows of what files meet both the QD & "Exclude" requirements. - Is it really necessary that DF calculates "Disk Performance" ? I personally would get rid of it. Or is there an option to switch it off ? Perhaps DF can provide, in a next DF version, the user an extra option for switching off and on this feature ?

The behaviour of the "QuickDefrag" tab (Settings >> Options) is a mess. - Consider the lines (in italics) below. These 5 lines are the default values/settings for "QuickDefrag". Even when these 5 lines don't exist. QDUseCustomParameters=0 QDMinFragmentSize=1;50 QDMaxFragmentCount=0;2 QDMinFileSize=0;0 QDMaxFileSize=0;100 I would like to see the following changes made to this tab. 1). If one or more of the lines above don't exist/are missing then the value of each missing line should be set to zero or read as zero (0 or 0;0). 2). If QDUseCustomParameters=0 then DF should display the current/active values/status of the other 4 lines and should be greyed out. Even when those values are zero or are read as zero. 3). If QDUseCustomParameters=1 then DF should display the current/active values/status of the other 4 lines and (of course) not grey them out.

- Some programs (e.g. Real Player, Foxit PDF reader, Java) have the nasty habit of starting extra processes and NOT stopping/removing those processes when that particular program is closed. But I use Cleanmem's Advanced Monitor to kill those processes. Simply add those process names, set the action to "Kill Process" and set the memory usage limit to 0 MB. Works excellent.

April Fools! New Zealand Pranks Radio Hosts! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9OtKXOHiaI Did the readers come across any other good april fool jokes/pranks ?

- I made a picture of how DF doesn't move files to the end of the drive. http://www.4shared.com/photo/-myz_a79ba/DF-v219-MP4-files-larger-than-.html (Click on the small (!!) download button)

- Nope. Even DF v2.18 doesn't move "large files" to the end of the drive. In DF v2.18 the user can set "Minimum file size" to e.g 1 MB. But even then DF won't move large files (> 1 MB) to the end of the drive. Not even when one has added a new category called "Everything, *.* ". - It seems that DF v2.18 & v2.19 see that a number of files has been moved (to the end of the drive) and then somehow reaches the conclusion that there's no need to move the selected files/folders to the end of the drive any more. - I would assume that setting the "Minimum File Size" to zero is also supposed to do the trick, would also move complete folders to the end of the drive. - All this increased attention for DF v2.19 seems to brought about by the fact that this version has an (extra) option to move files/folders to the end of the drive. I ran the program with the file "Defraggler.ini" as in the attachment.

The folder "C:\Windows" was listed 4 times in "Exclude". I removed 3 of those 4 lines (using the GUI), closed DF. But in "Defraggler.ini" those 4 lines remained. So, DF somehow fails to remove those lines in the *.ini file. Update: I told DF to store the settings in the registry and now (it seems) this odd behaviour doesn't show up anymore.

Nope. DF v2.19 makes the same mistake again. I was fiddling around with the program (can't recall all the things I did and in which sequence I did those things). But the endresult was that when I opened the "Exclude" tab ("Settings", "Options") three folders were listed more than once. I also noticed that the program doesn't sort the "MoveToDriveEnd=......... " folders. However, the "Excluded=........... " folders are sorted. Odd. Looks like this DF program code needs some decent improvements. For more details, see also the *.zip file in the attachment.

@MrK (post #14): - No, that didn't work. I followed your recommendations but DF still fails to move files (e.g Video files) to the end of the drive. I ran DF v2.19 with the settings in the attachment.

- The solution for the problem in the previous post was to manually remove (with a text editor) the lines that were causing the trouble.

@terry2: You're describing what I have experienced as well. The first time one runs the program behaves (more or less) as it should. But the second time i put DF v2.19 to work it seems to go "off the rails". In my experience it's even worse. I have to re-start my laptop to get DF v2.19 working properly again. So, it seems that DF v2.19 messes up a bunch of variables (e.g. in the registry or in the Defraggler.ini file) or messes up things in the memory. - Does it matter that I had (past tense) DF v2.17 & DF v2.18 installed as well ? - I have a program called "Cleanmem" (from PcWinTech) installed. It reduces memory usage every 15 minutes. Could this be the cause of messing up DF's (v2.19) memory usage ? My signature contains a link to (SPECCY) snapshot of my system set up. (Yes, I have read MrK's comments but I still wanted to add my own comments).

Another bug in DF v2.19. - I tried to reduce the amount of folders under the option "Move only selected folders/........... " ("Defrag" tab in the "Options" window). But after I removed three folders and restarted DF those folders keep popping up. I simply can;t get rid of them. Is this a bug in DF v2.19 or is some odd registry setting "wreaking havoc" ? I added the "Defraggler.ini" file to this post for more info.

DF still seems to have a number of bugs when it must selectively defragment & move a bunch of files. But I can't discover a pattern yet.

Small bug in Defraggler v1.19: Take the following steps: 1. - Select "Settings", "Options", "Defrag". 2. - Tick the box called "Move large files ........... " 3. - Select a number of other options. 4. - Now put DF to work with the option "Defrag (whole drive)". 5. - Select "Settings", "Options", "Defrag" again, while DF is busy. The entire tab shows up greyed out (because DF is busy) but nonetheless the tab also shows which options have been selected. (I like that feature). So far, so good. 6. - The small bug is that the box in front of the option "Move large files ............ " shows up greyed out, but UNTICKED as well !!! (Remember, I ticked the box in step 2 !!!!)

I like that DF v2.19 allows the user to move files & folders to the end of the drive. Now DF has morphed into a good file organisation & defragmentation tool. But I think the GUI for "Defrag" still sucks. It can be improved and with some copy & paste work I have made a proposal on how the "Defrag" tab could look like in the next version of DF (v2.20 ???). I think this proposal is less confusing, more logical than the the current GUI. Proposed changes can be found inside the rectangular red boxes. The first line inside the top red box should read "Move files to beginning of drive during whole drive defrag (default)".

Yes, I understand. But where is that pool located ? I would assume on the flash drive as well. Just like the same story with the MFT.