
Technical information
O&O Defrag - 65
Technical information
The following technical information will be helpful when applying O&O Defrag:
Conflicts with shadow copies during defragmentation
The operating systems Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003, 2008 and 2012 offer users the
ability to create "Shadow Copies" for protecting their data. This new feature automatically creates copies of files cur-
rently in use at regular time intervals. Since Windows only captures changes in the files, additional space is normally
not needed. Accidentally deleted files and folders or previous versions of documents can be easily restored using a con-
venient command accessible through the right-click menu. Simply right-click the object you want to restore and click
"Restore Previous Versions".
At the moment of installation, Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8 the shadow copy mechanism is set by
default. With Windows XP64 and Windows Server 2003/2008/2012 systems it is disabled by default.
Dur"Conflicts with shadow copies during defragmentation"ing defragmentation, files on a volume get moved. Windows
classifies these operations as a deletion and therefore creates a complete new shadow copy of the moved file. Since a
lot of files are moved during a defragmentation, a lot of new entries are created in the shadow copies and they take up
more space on your data volume than before the defragmentation. This behavior may overwrite older shadow copies
with newer ones. Unfortunately, this can also lead to the deletion of the system recovery points! These consequences
are most frequent when using the COMPLETE method.
Shadow copies are filed in the folder “System Volume Information” and cannot be defragmented. This can end up hav-
ing a negative influence on the results of the defragmentation. There is, on the other hand, almost hardly any loss in per-
formance caused by fragmented shadow copies. Although these files will be displayed as fragmented, they still have
only a minimal influence on the operating speed of your system.
You could disable the shadow copies to achieve improved defragmentation results but you would then wind up losing
the operating system’s built-in backup functionality. That’s why we recommend your leaving the shadow copies ena-
bled.
Microsoft is already aware of this problem, as this issue also occurs in the Windows native defragmentation software.
More details may be found in this article from Microsoft: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=312067
In Windows XP64 and Windows 2003 Server, this problem will not occur as long as storage volumes have been for-
matted with a cluster size of 16KB or larger.
Notes concerning the default enabled automatic optimization:
Please bear in mind that under Windows 8, 7, Vista, Windows 2003 Server, Windows Server 2008 and Windows
Server 2012 a complete defragmentation of drives that are imaged by shadow copies may lead to losses of old
image sets. This is a problem known to Microsoft, and these drives are marked accordingly in the O&O Defrag user
interface. We therefore recommend running an OPTIMIZE/Complete-defragmentation on large installations only
and otherwise leaving automatic optimization of O&O Defrag enabled.
Using the command line version
You can also control the defragmentation by means of the command line version of O&O Defrag. In this way, you can
integrate O&O Defrag into scripts that can be run at startup or login.
The graphical user interface of O&O Defrag will not be shown during a start from the command line. A mini O&O Defrag
icon will appear in the task tray, and you can follow the progress of the actions in your DOS prompt.
O&O Defrag runs independently of the main user interface and the DOS prompt in the background. If you close the
DOS prompt or cancel the command line tool with Ctrl+Break/Ctrl+C, you can choose whether to end the program or
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