This guide will show you how to use a screensaver to defrag your Windows hard drive (only for Windows XP/2000/Vista).
Defragging is essential in keeping your Windows machine fast. Don’t you wish it was a more automatic process? Well, it can be! JkDefrag, a great defragging program, comes with a way to use it as a screen saver, and it’s a very easy thing to do.
First, go to the site here. Now, download the JkDefrag zip, open it, and select the two JkDefragScreenSaver files. Now you just need to put them in your Windows folder on you main hard drive. This is usually C:\Windows. Now check your screen savers and it should be there.
This may not be the greatest looking screen saver (shown below), but it’s perfect for people who just turn their monitors off and always forget to defrag. This is the only screen saver I know of that can actually speed up your computer! So enjoy it and don’t worry about defragging anymore.
Addition: the comment below from the fantastically named user “FROWNY MCMEANIEHEAD” is quite helpful, be sure to check it out! :)
Having just discovered jkdefrag myself, I’ll second the recommendation. I won’t go on about the features it offers, except to say that it actually gives the user some say in how it works [through command line options], and brings back the pure joy of watching dots change colors, which was something I felt was lacking nowadays in defrag.exe (Am I serious? Maybe, maybe not, but it is nice to get some feedback beyond the N percent lie).
To Paul, I’ll point out that inside the [screen saver] settings for this is a “Do not defrag if last run was less than X hours ago” dropdown, and when it’s done, or if it decides not to run, it will switch over to the proper ‘saver of your choice. I will also argue that the wear and tear from reading fragments repeatedly would outweigh that from straightening them out, while simultaneously expressing my feeling that this program really seems to enjoy moving files around. With the default settings, it seems to move certain large files, like the Google Earth cache and Street Atlas database, about every time it runs. So maybe the “Defragment only, do not optimize (‘-a 2’ in the ‘commandline options’ box)” option would be best for frequent runs.
Another good one is Ultradefrag, which can run ‘at next boot’ or ‘at every boot’, which allows it to handle system files, and I have just now discovered has recently released version 2.
You should note that the screen saver does not work on vista if you have UAC enabled.
Wouldn’t recommend defragging every ten minutes as in the screenshot though. Too frequent defrags can do more harm than good (stresses the hard drive mechanics)