Consolidating Files on Your Hard Disk

There can be times when there is nothing specifically wrong with your computer, but it is not operating at its peak efficiency. You might think that your computer is simply not as fast as it used to be, and although perceived speed can be a function of your own level of patience, it might be true that your system has slowed down since it was new. Unlike a sewing machine or a blender, a slow computer probably isn't due to the parts getting old and worn out; it might simply be that your hard disk has become cluttered and its contents fragmented.

Each time you save information to your hard disk, Windows Vista writes the information to the currently available space on the disk. When you delete information, the space that information used to occupy becomes free, and more information can take its place. When a file that you save to your hard disk doesn't entirely fit in one empty space, it is divided into "fragments" across multiple spaces. Accessing fragmented information takes more time than accessing the same information when it is stored contiguously.

You can use Disk Defragmenter to analyze all the data stored on your hard disk and then consolidate fragmented files into contiguous chunks. The benefits are faster file access and larger areas of available space in which to store new files. Each drive on your computer can be defragmented separately. By default, Windows Vista runs Disk Defragmenter every week. You can change this schedule, or you can run the program manually at any time.

In this exercise, you will change the schedule for running Disk Defragmenter on your computer, and then you will see how to run it manually. There are no practice files for this exercise.

1.	In Control Panel, click System and Maintenance, scroll the window if necessary, and then under Administrative Tools, click the Defragment your hard drive task. In the User Account Control dialog box, if you're logged on as an administrator, click Continue. Otherwise, enter an administrator password, and then click OK. The Disk Defragmenter window opens. By default, Windows Vista runs Disk Defragmenter once each week. [View full size image] Tip If your computer has more than one hard disk drive, each will be listed in the Disk Defragmenter window with its own schedule.
2.	Click Modify schedule.
3.	In the Disk Defragmenter: Modify Schedule dialog box, click the How often arrow, and in the list, click Monthly. Then click OK. The Disk Defragmenter window shows the updated details of the scheduled defragmentation.
4.	If you want, click Defragment now. Disk Defragmenter begins the defragmentation process.
5.	When the defragmentation process is complete, click OK to close the Disk Defragmenter window.