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Free Alternatives: Part 4
Nikhil Rastogi, Oct 28, 2007 1243 hrs ISTUtilities to keep your hard disk and software in shape
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We now come to the fourth and last part of the freeware alternatives. Let's recap. We went through security and image viewers in the first part; photo and image editors, audio and video editors in the second; office suites, internet browsers, email clients, and download managers in the third. Today, we'll be looking into the most basic and often forgotten need: system maintenance.
Most users complain about their PC running slow or not performing up to the mark -- unlike when they first bought it. Luckily, all the system asks is a few minutes (hours perhaps) to diagnose and maintain itself. And the best part about maintaining Windows is that it doesn't require much of input from the user; once set to go, it finishes the job on its own.
There's one gripe I've with these system cleaners and maintenance utilities, though -- none of them are truly integrated! Consider this: one can't sit and wait for the PC to finish maintenance during daytime, as that's when one actually works on their machine. But then setting up such a task in the night isn't as easy and streamlined as one would imagine. So, if I want the computer to scan the disk for errors; then scan with anti-virus and anti-spyware; clean out the PC for junk files and redundant registry entries; and finally defrag the hard disk; after which it shuts down gracefully on its own, I'm but living in a fool's paradise.
Freeware utilities are out of the question -- as they're necessarily a product from different authors, which makes software integrity next to impossible. Unfortunately, even paid utilities like Norton SystemWorks or the latest and the greatest Norton 360 from Symantec, can't perform such tasks in succession. So a true one-click overall maintenance is only a dream -- and till that dream comes true, let's check out "fragmented" freeware utilities that do their (specific) job admirably well.
Scanning and Defragging the Disk
All Windows users have heard about disk scanning and defragging. You need to perform these tasks at least once a month to keep your PC humming. The numerous defrag utilities as well as disk scan utilities that are available don't offer any real advantage over the built-in ones. Windows does a good job. But there's one essential thing that Windows Defragmenter lacks: the ability to automatically defrag all the hard disk partitions present on your PC. Well, I've found a simple way to do this without the help of any additional software.
Defragging all the hard drive partitions
1. Open Notepad
2. Depending on how many partitions you have (I've 3), type in:-
defrag c: -f
defrag d: -f
defrag e: -f
"-f" stands for "force" to make the defrag program start defragging without waiting for all disk activity to stop; otherwise it'd probably never start the defragging.
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