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#1
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SETI, ME, and defrag
Hello,
I run SETI@home on a Dell machine running WindowsME. I'd like to be able to set my machine to scandisk and defrag during the night while I'm away from the computer. I've been using ScanDefrag, which shut down my non- essential programs, ran the tools, then restarted the computer. Lately it just hasn't been working right. The folks over at alt.comp.freeware suggested I come ask you all about it. I can't afford to pay for an answer, and my programming skills are almost nil. I'm reluctant (as any non-expert should be) to muck around with the registry, but I will if I have to. So, does anybody know of a freeware solution to my problem? TIA, Chakolate -- Sometimes I think we're alone. Sometimes I think we're not. In either case, the thought is staggering. --R. Buckminster Fuller |
#2
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SETI, ME, and defrag
What do they do if you run them manually?
Start/Programs/Accessories/System Tools/Scandisk or Defrag. Do you have these set to run *every*night? That would be *way* too often. -----Original Message----- Hello, I run SETI@home on a Dell machine running WindowsME. I'd like to be able to set my machine to scandisk and defrag during the night while I'm away from the computer. I've been using ScanDefrag, which shut down my non- essential programs, ran the tools, then restarted the computer. Lately it just hasn't been working right. The folks over at alt.comp.freeware suggested I come ask you all about it. I can't afford to pay for an answer, and my programming skills are almost nil. I'm reluctant (as any non-expert should be) to muck around with the registry, but I will if I have to. So, does anybody know of a freeware solution to my problem? TIA, Chakolate -- Sometimes I think we're alone. Sometimes I think we're not. In either case, the thought is staggering. --R. Buckminster Fuller . |
#3
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SETI, ME, and defrag
Problem is, SETI@Home writes to the disk fairly regularly--constantly, in
fact. That causes both Scandisk and Defrag to restart. Same for any number of other programs. Lucky you, you get to be today's recipient of my standard blurb. [Note to regulars: I will soon create a webpage or two or three that replicates the following (with enhancements, of course, plus some additional t-shooting, Grystmill style), so I can reduce the load I impose here by repeating it so often. I know it's long overdue, but that's life, s.) The below includes significant new material. Review, comments and corrections requested.] See my article, "Clean Boot--What it is and why you need it" http://www.google.com/groups?selm=%2...GP11.phx.gb l (The above article is the *meat* of this post--the below are just notes I haven't incorporated, yet.) Because some of the more recent known invaders are capable of interfering with the suggestions contained in the above, I suggest you also consider first doing the following, though it may be necessary to set up a clean boot, and even then manually kill a malicious process or two before you can even get these accomplished. Many invaders are built to first detect and disable protections that are in place, so that you might, for instance, have to obtain and employ a DOS-boot antivirus like F-Prot. Repeated running of scanners, booting back and forth from Safe Mode to Normal, or into DOS Mode--a lot of gymnastics are often required to get to an error-free and nasties-free condition. Once there, however, some user sanity and education, plus regular "wetware" updating, will *keep* your system healthy. Update your Antivirus, run a full scan. Then, if you haven't already, obtain, update, and run any or all of the following Trojan/Parasite/Adware/Spyware cleaners. I recommend getting and running *all* of them. They each target slightly different things. Again, be sure you update the definitions they are using to identify crap before running them, each time you run them--which, depending on your surfing habits, should be anything from once a month, to once a week, to once a day, to once an hour if you're really into junkware sites (aka "Free goodies", game sites, fun-places-to-be, etc.) Tradition had it that Firewalls were generally not needed when using simple dial-up modem connections. Alas, this is no longer the case. *Everyone* needs a firewall! Also, I make no bones about it--Norton, McAfee and Trend-Micro products (and probably a few others) are ABOMINATIONS!, particularly when it comes to Win9x systems. They are massive suites that intrude into basic functions where they simply do not need to go. For freeware solutions, I suggest AVG or AVAST (based upon the recommendations of others, though each has it's minor drawbacks) and ZoneAlarm Firewall. But for really good, inexpensive, and trustworthy protection, you simply can't beat eTrust Armor. Antivirus and Firewall combined, very non-intrusive upon the system itself (I've *never* seen a crash caused by EZ Antivirus, and there's hardly any impact whatsoever on Resources, etc.) eTrust is from Computer Associates Inc.--the antivirus is a version of their corporate product usually known as Inoculan, and they got smart recently and switched to using a version of ZoneAlarm for their firewall. You can get a one-year free trial of eTrust EZ Armor at http://www.my-etrust.com/microsoft/. This offer was initially slated to end this June, but has been extended through February 2005. The trial offer is also included in at least some versions (not sure about all languages) of Microsoft's Windows Security Update CD, an item *everyone* should own. (However, do *not* just run the Update CD on your system without a proper analysis of where your system stands with regard to Updates. Might do more harm than good.) EZ Armor would normally cost $50 for the first year (a deal in itself), and yearly renewal subscriptions only cost $25--an absolute steal when compared with other offerings. Order the Windows Security Update CD directly from MS, totally free, including S&H, at http://www.microsoft.com/security/protect/cd/order.asp In addition to Antivirus and Firewall protection, I consider the following items to be indispensable protection and clean-up utilities. My judgment is based upon their being free, good, accurate, and safe, if handled correctly. See, also, suggestions from MVP Mike Burgess on his site, http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/, particularly the general Windows/IE Security page, http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/security.htm. More current discussions of Security issues can be found at the Windows Support Center (provided by MVP Jim Eshelman, a true Saint!) at http://www.aumha.org (SpyBot S&D = "SpyBot Search & Destroy") Ad-Aware http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/ SpyBot S&D http://www.safer-networking.org/index.php?page=download HijackThis http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/files/HijackThis.exe CWShredder http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/files/cwshredder.zip Spyware Blaster http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html PLEASE! Before doing any of these, see also, http://www.mvps.org/inetexplorer/Darnit.htm for suggestions and cautionary information about internet surfing, and some important hints about using the above. ESPECIALLY, be aware that HijackThis scans result in a LOT of stuff that you *don't* want to delete. The admonishment to save a log and show it to an expert is critically good advice. Not following that advice can really do some damage to your system. SpyBot S&D, too, is capable of similar problems, especially if you change default scan settings, or "Immunize". An additional tool that is very helpful in protecting your machine is a HOSTS file. Microsoft MVP Mike Burgess maintain a frequently updated list of bad sites. They may be sites that provide most of the junky advertisements you see in other places, or sites that install spyware/adware, or that, for whatever reason, you shouldn't allow into your system. Using the HOSTS file, you can redirect such addresses to a site that's guaranteed will fail to load on most machines--your own computer. HOSTS Overview -- http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm Also handy is MVP George Geyde's HOSTS File Manager. You can find it at the bottom of this page: http://www.mvps.org/PracticallyNerded/Software.htm -- Gary S. Terhune MS MVP for Win9x "Chakolate" wrote in message .4... Hello, I run SETI@home on a Dell machine running WindowsME. I'd like to be able to set my machine to scandisk and defrag during the night while I'm away from the computer. I've been using ScanDefrag, which shut down my non- essential programs, ran the tools, then restarted the computer. Lately it just hasn't been working right. The folks over at alt.comp.freeware suggested I come ask you all about it. I can't afford to pay for an answer, and my programming skills are almost nil. I'm reluctant (as any non-expert should be) to muck around with the registry, but I will if I have to. So, does anybody know of a freeware solution to my problem? TIA, Chakolate -- Sometimes I think we're alone. Sometimes I think we're not. In either case, the thought is staggering. --R. Buckminster Fuller |
#4
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SETI, ME, and defrag
"ppoatt" wrote in
: What do they do if you run them manually? Start/Programs/Accessories/System Tools/Scandisk or Defrag. Do you have these set to run *every*night? That would be *way* too often. They run fine manually, after I stop all unnecessary programs. And I do it every night when I can set it up automatically, because when you do it very often it only takes a half-hour for both. And downloading a *lot* of stuff, most of which later is deleted, causes a serious slowdown if I don't defrag often. Chakolate -- Sometimes I think we're alone. Sometimes I think we're not. In either case, the thought is staggering. --R. Buckminster Fuller |
#5
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SETI, ME, and defrag
"Gary S. Terhune" wrote in
: Problem is, SETI@Home writes to the disk fairly regularly--constantly, in fact. That causes both Scandisk and Defrag to restart. Same for any number of other programs. Lucky you, you get to be today's recipient of my standard blurb. Yes, I know S@H writes, which is why I need a program to turn it off before scan & defrag, then restart the computer so that S@H will start again. I'm not sure what the rest of your post had to do with my question, but thanks anyway. Chakolate -- Sometimes I think we're alone. Sometimes I think we're not. In either case, the thought is staggering. --R. Buckminster Fuller |
#6
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SETI, ME, and defrag
"Test Man" wrote in
: What you need is a defragging program that doesn't restart when another process accesses the disk. Try Executive's Diskeeper 30-day trial(http://www.executive.com/diskeeper/diskeeper.asp) which will allow you to run Seti (and any other program in fact) while it is defragging. That is exactly what I need, but I'm a grad student and have *no* money for programs. Sigh. Thanks anyway. Chakolate -- Sometimes I think we're alone. Sometimes I think we're not. In either case, the thought is staggering. --R. Buckminster Fuller |
#7
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SETI, ME, and defrag
What you need is a defragging program that doesn't restart when another
process accesses the disk. Try Executive's Diskeeper 30-day trial(http://www.executive.com/diskeeper/diskeeper.asp) which will allow you to run Seti (and any other program in fact) while it is defragging. "Chakolate" wrote in message .4... Hello, I run SETI@home on a Dell machine running WindowsME. I'd like to be able to set my machine to scandisk and defrag during the night while I'm away from the computer. I've been using ScanDefrag, which shut down my non- essential programs, ran the tools, then restarted the computer. Lately it just hasn't been working right. The folks over at alt.comp.freeware suggested I come ask you all about it. I can't afford to pay for an answer, and my programming skills are almost nil. I'm reluctant (as any non-expert should be) to muck around with the registry, but I will if I have to. So, does anybody know of a freeware solution to my problem? TIA, Chakolate -- Sometimes I think we're alone. Sometimes I think we're not. In either case, the thought is staggering. --R. Buckminster Fuller |
#8
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SETI, ME, and defrag
I have read in the past that Defraging allot will shorten
the life of the HD. Some say Scandisk will. But I think Scandisk will only SCAN the HD where defrag actually rewrites/rearranges the drive. If needed. Thus causeing wear on the HD. If you delete or write one thing could cause a complete rearrangement of the HD. I say this because my first HD failed with bad clusters within 10 months. I defraged Scanned and defraged everyday. This drive has been running with no problem for about 4 years. Scandisk once a week. Sometimes in 2 days. Defrag about every two weeks. This slow down? If you do not scan or defrag? Does just a restart of the PC speed things up? One thing that might slow things down is if the AV program is set to monitor system files. This will cause a slowdown because every time you open a file the AV has to scan it first before it opens. I have mine (eTrust) set to monitor only incoming off the internet. And leave what is on already the machine alone. And dissabling it(AV) if I am transfering data to a CD. Disabling AV during a burn will change a 300Mb burn from 45 seconds to a minute to less than 10 seconds. And I normally get some kind of burn error if the AV is enabled. -----Original Message----- "ppoatt" wrote in : What do they do if you run them manually? Start/Programs/Accessories/System Tools/Scandisk or Defrag. Do you have these set to run *every*night? That would be *way* too often. They run fine manually, after I stop all unnecessary programs. And I do it every night when I can set it up automatically, because when you do it very often it only takes a half-hour for both. And downloading a *lot* of stuff, most of which later is deleted, causes a serious slowdown if I don't defrag often. Chakolate -- Sometimes I think we're alone. Sometimes I think we're not. In either case, the thought is staggering. --R. Buckminster Fuller . |
#9
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SETI, ME, and defrag
You don't mention what SETI client you are using. If SETIDriver, there's a
CloseSETIDriver app available here. http://www.wakeassoc.com/setidriver/...companions.htm Most other SETI clients have one method or another that will do the same thing--kill SETI. Some will even just suspend it whenever certain other apps are running. In other words, apps are available to specifically get SETI out of the way when desired, regardless of how you have SETI managed. Personally, I'd use a batch file to kill SETI, run your maintenance apps one after another, and then finally re-launch SETI. However, while my previous post may have seemed overkill, and I definitely missed some nuances of your question, let me say that I consider my suggested procedures superior to any automation of maintenance--if anything goes wrong during an automated maintenance sequence, there is little to prevent more extensive damage. For instance, when you automate Scandisk, do you have it automatically fix errors? If so, that's living dangerously. Scandisk is quite well known to totally trash systems under certain such circumstances. With a little practice, my methods require very little additional steps than what are already considered prudent in advance of running Scandisk & Defrag--the longest procedure is rebooting, which should always be done anyway. Unless you are running Scandisk in Surface scan mode, it only takes a minute or so, and then there's just defrag to run, at which time you can vacate the premises. If you first re-enable all startup items--*without* actually restarting--and then run defrag from a batch file with the final command being a restart command, you will come back to a system that is back in normal mode, running all background apps, particularly AV and other protective measures and SETI. I also agree with ppoatt that daily defrag is excessive and potentially contrary to the best health of your hardware. Same for scandisk in Surface scan mode. Aside from right after major changes in the system, weekly maintenance is usually excessive. What will help keep your system healthy and be much more apropos with regard to performance issues is to repartition your drive to separate out System and Apps from, TEMP files (and TIF, etc.), the Swap file, and plain data storage, putting them all onto separate partitions. If you are interested in setting up your system to do these things, we can follow up on those. But please consider reviewing all of what I previously wrote and practicing it a couple of times, if fir no other reason than to familiarize yourself with the things other "timesaver" apps do (or *should* do.) -- Gary S. Terhune MS MVP for Win9x "Chakolate" wrote in message .4... "Gary S. Terhune" wrote in : Problem is, SETI@Home writes to the disk fairly regularly--constantly, in fact. That causes both Scandisk and Defrag to restart. Same for any number of other programs. Lucky you, you get to be today's recipient of my standard blurb. Yes, I know S@H writes, which is why I need a program to turn it off before scan & defrag, then restart the computer so that S@H will start again. I'm not sure what the rest of your post had to do with my question, but thanks anyway. Chakolate -- Sometimes I think we're alone. Sometimes I think we're not. In either case, the thought is staggering. --R. Buckminster Fuller |
#10
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SETI, ME, and defrag
your seti screensave is screwing things up by writing to the disk, seti is all
well and good but you should disable it during defrag, there is a registry setting to do that, available here as a tweak http://aumha.org/regfiles.php nine tenths down the page to this heading "Disable Screensaver During Defrag Win 9x" or this link will take you straight to the download if you dont want to read about it and if you trust me, (I dont even trust me) http://aumha.org/downloads/nosaver.zip -- Adaware http://www.lavasoft.de spybot http://security.kolla.de AVG free antivirus http://www.grisoft.com Panda online AntiVirus scan http://www.pandasoftware.com/ActiveScan/ Catalog of removal tools http://www.pandasoftware.com/download/utilities/ Blocking Unwanted Parasites with a Hosts file http://mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm links provided as a courtesy, read all instructions on the pages before use Grateful thanks to the authors/webmasters "Chakolate" wrote in message .4... | Hello, | | I run SETI@home on a Dell machine running WindowsME. I'd like to be able | to set my machine to scandisk and defrag during the night while I'm away | from the computer. I've been using ScanDefrag, which shut down my non- | essential programs, ran the tools, then restarted the computer. Lately it | just hasn't been working right. | | The folks over at alt.comp.freeware suggested I come ask you all about it. | I can't afford to pay for an answer, and my programming skills are almost | nil. I'm reluctant (as any non-expert should be) to muck around with the | registry, but I will if I have to. | | So, does anybody know of a freeware solution to my problem? | | TIA, | | Chakolate | | -- | Sometimes I think we're alone. Sometimes I think we're not. In either case, | the thought is staggering. | --R. Buckminster Fuller |
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