PerfectDisk Question

I know that there are some PerfectDisk users out there, wonder if one of you could answer the following questions as I am currently trialling this program and trying to get a feel for it.

In Task Manager PDEngine.exe and/or PDSched.exe are always running. Normally when I look PDEngine.exe is always running in the background but at this moment only PDSched.exe is running.

Haven't worked out why yet.... anybody know what they both do??

Also, as I do not want to schedule anything (I would much prefer to manually run a defrag once a week or so) is there any way I can stop these two exe's running in the background all the time, or am I stuck with them?

 

On XP, using PerfectDisk 6, you can set both services to "manual" by going to Start\All Programs\AdministrativeTools\Services. Right click each item and click on Properties and set to "manual". (You may also need to go into msconfig and disable PerfectDisk as a start up item). Sysinternal's AutoRuns V 5.01 programme is a good programme to easily disable start up items http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/utilities.shtml.

Even after doing the above, when you open PerfectDisk, and then close it again, you will find that PDSched.exe remains running in TaskManager. You can safely end this process but it takes up minimal memory and, if you alter your settings as above, it will not appear on reboot.

On a networked Windows ME, I am currently trialling PerfectDisk 2000. After disabling PerfectDisk as a start up item, and then trying to open the programme, I got a message saying that PerfectDisk "is not running on this computer", so had to re-enable it again.

 

I've used perfectdisk for quite some time already, and I say its Smart Placement defrag is superb!

 

nadirah.

I used Diskeeper Home Edition exclusively up until a few weeks ago and decided to give PerfecDisk 6 a go. Itis a very effective piece of software and the file placement strategy is very interesting. On XP, the boot time defrag places the MasterFileTable, and the MFT reserved system space, into the middle of the drive, followed by the Page File. It also defragged the system files.

The online defrag then places the rarely modified files at the beginning of the drive, followed by the occasionally modified files, and then the frequently modified files.

When I ran PerfectDisk 2000 on the ME machine, it adopted a different strategy of file placement. It split the category of files into two chunks so, for example, half the rarely modified files are at the beginning of the drive and half at the end. That was on the default setting so next time I get back to that computer which is at work, and I have a little time, I'm going to experiment with some of the alternate settings.

Diskeeper Pro offers a boot time defrag but have never used it. There is another well know defragmenter which I have not tried called VoptXp and, of course, PowerDefragmentor 1.8 by razor. (I tried to link to his site called excessive-software but my browser isn't having it, lol).

 

Thanks all, bch, nadirah and Peter2150.

I think PerfectDisk gets a good press from this forum and I have started on the learning curve. Things are becoming clearer.

Thank you all for your input.

Regards