Windows 7 Disk Defragmenter fails to launch

[Carson Dyle]

Running Windows 7 Profesional SP1 64bit, I have an SSD system drive at C: and a hard drive installed as D:. No firewall or a/v software running on the system. Logged in as an admin.

When I click the shortcut at Accessories > System Tools > Disk Defragmenter, nothing happens. Same thing if I click 'Defragment now...' from D: drive properties > Tools.

Shouldn't I see some type of user dialog box? The program linked to is called dfrgui.exe, so I expect there should be some kind of GUI.

 

[Saltgrass]

You are not supposed to run that on an SSD. Windows will normally turn it off.

 

[Carson Dyle]

I'm trying to run it only on the D: drive. I know that Windows 7 doesn't scheduled it to run for the SSD.

 

[Carson Dyle]

Ok, I figured it out. There's a Disk Defragmenter service that was disabled. Maybe done by the SSD's utility, but unnecessary, as the SSD wasn't (and I don't think can be) scheduled to run.

Why is it necessary that a freaking disk defragmenter needs to run as a service???? Defragmenting is done either manually or on a schedule, so why does a service need to run 24x7?

 

[Saltgrass]

I can't speak to that service exactly, but Windows does house cleaning duties all the time. One of the things it does is called "Self Healing", so perhaps these types of activities need a specific service.

I have a Disk Defragmenter service that shows a manual start and is not currently running. I do not have an SSD on this system, but it shows the same thing on a system that does have an SSD. I have not tried to run a defrag, so perhaps Windows did disable it.

 

[Carson Dyle]

Thanks. I'll assume that's the default setting for the service and set it to Manual. That makes more sense.