"Jim" wrote in message
...
Hi Glen,
I know you are long since past this post, but I was curious about why this
is so concerning the rearranging of the frequently used programs. Also, is
this why ZA firewall and other running programs often must be dropped in
order to defrag the HDD?
Does this speed up the defrag process without loss of purpose?
Does this apply to the win98se defrag program?

I don't think this has anything to do with the need to stop other programs
running while you defrag - files that are in use will not be moved.

The problem with the feature is that it slows down the defrag process
considerably. Turning it off makes the defrag run a lot faster. The
benefit of the re-arrangment is very limited, and not really worth the extra
trouble it makes for defragging. Also, it tends to make changes that are
probably unnecessary - you can run defrag two times in close succession and
programs will still be shuffled around. That tells me that the re-arranging
is somewhat arbitrary. My recomendation is to run it with the option turned
on no more than once every siz months, but in practice I find that I leave
the option permanently turned off.