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Diskeeper Pro Premier works on:
It does not work on Apple. It requires free space of 11 megabytes with another 10 necessary at installation. If you do not have Windows Explorer installed Diskeeper needs some additional files. Diskeeper Corporation Support: Technical support: http://diskeeper.com/support Email support@diskeeper.com 90-day free phone support at (818) 771-1600. Additional 24/7 support plans are available at cost. |
Diskeeper 2008, Professional Premier Edition By James N. Brown Diskeeper 2008 is a defragmenter. It is the latest incantation from the company that has a history of producing effective defragmenters. Diskeeper comes in a variety of editions, among them; Home, Professional, Pro Premier, Server and Enterprise Server. This review is for the Pro Premier Edition which supports 32 and 64 bit Windows. We need to defragment hard drives. Fragmentation is caused by writing, deleting and resizing computer files. When we lay down these new segments they are seldom physically adjacent with to original file but are scattered throughout the hard drive. When we reopen the file, the operating system has to find those scattered pieces to present the unified whole. This takes extra time. Defragging physically brings those scattered elements closer, thus saving search time. Diskeeper 2008 automatically defragments your hard drive in real time in the background as you use your computer. It replaces the Windows manual defragmenter. The National Software Testing Lab (NSTL) claims it is much faster and more thorough than the Windows defragmenter. The special appeal the program has is that you can “Set It and Forget It.” Once fully set up, you need pay no more attention to defragging. The company claims that its new feature, InvisiTasking, does not slow down your computer. This is despite the fact that it is always working in the background. InvisiTasking theoretically uses otherwise idle resources so that it does not take power away from other active programs. Windows defragmenter requires a substantial amount of free space to work. Diskeeper 2008 claims to work with as little as 1% free space. Of course you want more free space than that for other programs to work efficiently. Frag Shield 2.0 claims to automatically prevent fragmentation of critical system files. This Diskeeper feature guards against crash-inducing fragmentation and makes certain your critical files (Master File Table and Paging Files) have enough space to expand. Frag Shield claims to reduce system errors and help desk calls. Diskeeper claims it was named as one of the Top 5 products that everyone should have on their computer systems or networks. Installing the program is typical. I did have trouble removing the disk from the holder. On installing the program it asked me which program I wanted to install and listed 4 of them; Professional, Pro Premier, Server and Enterprise Server. I was not sure which one I was supposed to use. I went to the package and there was no help. I checked the Quick Start Guide. No help there. Then I checked the back of the Quick Start Guide. There after the activation code, which is required to continue using the program after 30 days, was the ID of the program. This brings up a goofy quirk with this company’s programs. They use the same packaging and the same CD for all 4 of these programs. The programs, however, are all different and have different pricing. The company also uses the same manual for these several programs. What that means is that there is a lot of irrelevant material confusing the user. At least it was confusing to me. They even have different product numbers for what seem to be the same product, and they have 3 different zip codes for their home address. There are so many variations of the product that it is difficult to distinguish them, especially with vendors that do not clearly state which edition is being offered. Once installed, the program is easy to use and quite well documented. There is one critical caveat which is not highlighted. Boot-Time Defragmentation is recommended. Before enabling this function, you must do chckdsk /f. If you do not do this you could damage system files. *Diskeeper’s logic controller has been redesigned
to better detect volume and system conditions and choose the most effective
algorithm. Diskeeper 2008 is easy to use. It has performed as promised. It is convenient not to have to take time to manually defrag. I can’t say that it speeded up my computer but I don’t believe that it slowed it down either. How much difference their sophisticated technology means to an average user is not clear. I suspect that the Widows defragmenter is adequate for the average member of our club. If you are the forgetful type, which I am, you will appreciate removing the manual aspect of defragmenting from your mindset. After using the program for almost 30 days, I had no problems and at every check my system was completely defragged. It is a good program and I recommend it. You can test drive the program for 30 days before buying it. Should you go this route, I recommend not installing from the web, but rather getting the CD. I have encountered problems with programs too many times where I wished I had the CD and was not at the mercy of the Internet. |
Review date: March 2007