What's up with Windows Defrag? I remember back in the day (we're talkin' Windows 95, 98, ME - a group fondly referred to as Windows 9x, or Win9x) when watching a disk defrag was an entertaining thing. I remember watching the individual blocks being scanned, moved, consolidated into one solid mass. I remember the colors, too. Light blue and grey were for blocks that had yet to be scanned and moved; yellow was for blocks being read; red was for blocks being written; dark blue was for blocks that had been scanned and moved; white was for empty space. There were a few other colors, too. It was actually fun to watch. I remember there were options - you could choose the level of defraging, and you could choose to do a Scandisk at the same time.
But no more. Times have changed. The old, entertaining Defrag is gone. Gone since Windows 2000 (also called Win2k, or Win 2k). The big, scrolling display of individual blocks has been replaced two horizontal colored graphs - a "before" and "after". These graphs consist of colored vertical bands and stripes; blue (there's only one blue) is for data that Windows doesn't think needs defraging; red is for data that Windows will defrag; lime green is for data that Windows can't (or won't) defrag; white is still for empty space. Watching Defrag these days is about as exciting as watching water freeze. Yeah, you can watch the stripes change from red to blue, and move around a bit, but it's not the same - not nearly as interesting. And there are no options. It's either defrag or don't; no levels of defragmentation to choose from.
Why? Why? Why did they have to change good old Defrag? Why couldn't they leave it alone? It was one of the few things you could depend on in Win9x (most of the time). On the other hand, with HDD capacities quickly approaching 1TB (yes that is a "T" in front of the "B"), you'd be spending a lot of time watching those blocks move around. Hmmm....
They just don't build 'em like they used to (thank goodness).
bIsh
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