We'll have to agree to disagree on the speed of the hard drive in safe mode.
Huh? I did not disagree about speed - I said defragging in normal mode is not as efficient. You having to uncheck files simply proves my point as now those files will remain fragmented. On a crowded drive, fragmented files can contribute to more fragmentation.
And the fact that XP's own rudimentary defragger was able to defrag the same image in less than an hour in Safe Mode surely suggests that Safe Mode is not the problem you would have others think.
I am not looking for Defraggler to be the fasted defragger around, but it should be comparable.
Why do you have tons of temp files? What are you saving them for?
Huh? It appears you have difficulty understanding what you read, or you are just not reading what is said. I never disagreed about speed and I never said I save temp files! Do NOT put words in my mouth!!
Not only did I not say anything about wanting to save temp files, I made it a point to mention changing the default "48 hour" setting in CCleaner to rid the system of even more temp files.
The facts are if you, or anybody surfs the Internet for a day or two you will have a bunch (often many 1000s) of small temporary files and cookies all over your drive (unless you changed the defaults and have your browser delete all temp files upon exit). It is counterproductive to defrag a hard drive full of tiny temporary Internet files. That's just a fact. It is also a fact that most open files cannot be moved and so cannot be defragged. Therefore defragging the boot drive in Safe Mode offers the best environment for the most thorough and efficient defragging (outside of pulling the boot drive and defragging with another machine - not very convenient). Other drives, as long as nothing is running from them, can be defragged just fine with a normal boot.
I also run Defraggler in a few minutes, not in hours.
That's good. But it proves only that Defraggler ran fine on that machine. That does not mean the "beta" is ready for release as clearly it is not; Defraggler does not run fine other machines.
Now you can defend Defraggler all you want, that's your choice. But understand that is not the point of beta testing! But hey, whatever makes your boat float - as long as you comment on what is actually said and don't make stuff up or twist folk's words around, I don't care.
I'm doing beta testing (on many machines - not just a couple, and with 4 different operating systems and 2 file systems), and reporting our findings. That's the job of a beta tester - disputing the testing methods of other testers is not!
A friend's machine kept hanging up until I discovered that there were about a half-dozen files that were causing the problem, so I just uncheck those and Defraggler runs just fine.
Hmmm, if I were running this beta program, that would be something I would want to know about. There might be something in common with those 6 files that might help the developers - I don't see where you posted findings about 6 files causing the program to hang. 1 compacted file, but not 6. That's too bad since according to the Defraggler home page
here, Defraggler's claim is as a "file" defragger and not really a drive defragger - note it says,
It differs from other defrag tools on the market, by enabling you to quickly and simply defrag the files you want to, without having to process the whole drive. Simply run it, select the file and defragment in seconds. No more struggling with the Windows defragmentation tool!
Granted, I am no expert on drive file systems, fragmentation, or defragmentation, but the link in my sig would suggest I've been around the IT Hardware block a couple times - enough to know when something works correctly, and when it doesn't. Defraggler is getting there, and based on my experience with other Piriform products, it will get there. But it is not there yet. It is our job as testers to help them do that.