Here, the app was hugely revamped, including the following changes that marked a significant evolution from the 9x family versions: Windows Me didn't add many changes to the app, asides from the colors used for the detailed view being slightly modified.ĭisk Defragmenter, however, wouldn't arrive to the NT family until Windows 2000. In Windows 98, the drive analysis is skipped after choosing a drive, taking the user directly to the defragmentation progress window. However, it was also possible to see more details, such as the current stage of the defragmentation or a visual representation of the process, through the 'Show Details' button. Once defragmentation starts, another window appears showing the task's process. Regardless of the result, users could defragment the drive through the 'Start' button. After that, an additional window appeared where an analysis of the drive showed the fragmented percentage, from which would depend a recommended defragmentation or not.

When first opened, it opened a dialog where users could choose the drive to defragment. It could be launched on Start → Programs → Accessories → System Tools. In Windows 95, Microsoft released for the first time its own defragmenting tool for Windows, which was Disk Defragmenter.

From all the applications released during this time, the most notable was Diskeeper, which shipped with a customized version of the NT kernel and file system drivers that could move these clusters.Įarly years Windows 9x As a result, developers had to additionally create special defragmentation utilities that supported this. Consequently, OEMs and other software developers started creating their own applications to fill this gap.Įarly Windows NT versions through NT 3.51 supported moving data clusters but didn't have an interface to do it. However, these versions lacked a built-in program that could be used to easily perform this task. History Background ĭefragmenting hard disk drives was something highly recommended for early Windows versions on both the classic and NT families to keep performance and reliability.

Defragment and optimize drives