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Re: A FAQ regarding defrag and permissions of nonadmin files?


Gmane User wrote:

> I didn't see the line where you switched users.

I meant that I re-ran those commands again with a non-admin account.

> Here are my observations on the leadup to Ultra Defragmenter.
> 
> JkDefrag's boot-time defrag is merely a scheduled task.  It must be
> scheduled outside of safe mode, else the task scheduling service isn't
> running and it isn't scheduled properly.  It doesn't run at all.  Even
> after booting up outside of safe mode, the tasks exists, but doesn't
> launch upon booting.  So it must be deleted after a normal boot, then
> scheduled again.
> 
> JkDefrag's boot-time defrag didn't work as I expected.  It doesn't
> arrest the boot process while it runs the defrag.  So the boot process
> proceeds as normal, with the exception of being very slow because of
> the defrag process that was launched during boot-up.  This means that
> Symantec AV is running during the defrag, as are the full suite of
> tools that are launched during a normal boot ie. many more than in
> safe mode.  I don't want to fool around with the AV because it is set
> the way it is according to the policy of the place where I work.  So I
> tried again to boot in safe mode to see if the now-properly-scheduled
> defrag will run.  It didn't.

Okay, so JkDefrag's boot time defrag does not appear to be a real
boot-time (offline) defrag.  Anything dealing with the task scheduler is
way too late in the game, Win32 is already running at that point.

> Good news is that it seems to stop the boot process while it does its
> thing.  There are no progress indicators that change during this
> period.  After 20 minutes, the boot process continues.  I logged in
> and tried to find the report that is supposedly generated.  It was
> nowhere to be found, even though the report settings have reports
> enabled (from the GUI).  Since the report settings specify HTML
> output, I searched the hard disk for an HTML file dated within the
> last day, but found nothing.  A google and usenet search does not turn
> up mention (or even a question) of the path for the html report.  The
> "Fragmented" button doesn't do anything, either.
> 
> Would you know if the boot-time defrag occurs before Symantec AV
> launches?  (Note that the AV doesn't show up as a process in
> safe-mode).
> 
> Where would the report be located?

I doubt that the boot-time defrag generates a report.  It's not intended
to be a full service defrag, it's only for system files that are
normally locked (offline defragmentation.)  When you schedule the boot
time defrag you have to specifically include a list of patterns and the
default only includes things like the hives and pagefile.

Remember that this happens at the same exact point where a CHKDSK would
run on the volume, meaning essentially nothing yet is loaded other than
drivers.  I'd be very surprised if any AV was active at that point
because though I'm sure they use kernel drivers to hook system calls,
every AV engine I've seen is implemented as a Win32 service -- and
there's no Win32 yet at this point.

I'm not sure what you mean by "no progress indicators", as every time
I've used it (and any other offline defrag for that matter, such as
Sysinternals' pagedfrg), it displays some text saying what it's about to
do, with a 3 second opportunity to press a key to abort, followed by
textual percent meters of analysis and defrag stages, just like CHKDSK.

Brian

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