When your computer seems slower than it used to, it could be that it's time to become acquainted with a disk defragmenter. This program can help make a significant difference to the time it takes for your computer to open a program. When you uninstall programs, empty spaces are left on the hard disk. These empty spaces cause noticeable slow downs on your system. When you do install new programs, your computer assigns a memory block to the first available space it sees and scatters the rest throughout every empty space it sees. When you need to use this program, the computer will go through the whole hard disk to gather the scattered memory blocks and this takes a noticeable of time which can be the cause of long load times and slow your computer down. To reconstruct contiguous address blocks a program such as disk defragmenter is used. To run Defrag in Windows 2000, XP, and Vista Windows 2000 and XP are network operating systems, and if you are a user, using Windows 2000 or XP on a network, your network administrator may have restricted users from running Defrag or from having any direct disk access. To run Defrag, the following steps are recommended. 1. Double-click My Computer 2. Highlight the hard drive by clicking on it once. 3. Right-click the highlighted local drive 4. Click Properties 5. Click the Tools tab and click the Defragment now button. Click Image to Enlarge There are other third party software developers that produce good free disk defragmenter applications that you can download. Some offer greater control over the application than the Microsoft Windows bundled version. Some can run in the background on your system, making sure that your hard drive is always running at an optimum speed. If you think that you want to have better control of your hard drive then research defrag software and find one that suits your needs and your pockets. To run Defrag in Windows 95, 98, and ME Use the following steps. 1. Click Start. 2. Click Run and type Defrag in the run box. 3. Click ok. 4. Within the Defrag window, select the drive that you wish to be checked and click ok. * Don't be alarmed if Defrag seems to hang up at the 10% point. This is normal as long as it continues to work. Due to the data structure many computers spend a good amount of time at or around 10%. If Defrag restarts and never seems to complete, other programs or files are being accessed in the background as Defrag is being run. If Defrag detects any type of a file change while being run it will restart. To resolve this issue make sure all other applications are closed. If doing this does not resolve your issue you can also try safe mode and then run disk defragmenter. Disk Defragmenter by PC Apprentice 2009 - 2017 “There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in his home.” (Ken Olson, President, DEC, 1977) Click Image to Enlarge