I thought it was cool too. If I'm working on a Win9x machine where defrag
really is needed then I sometimes turn it on for kicks.
Memory optimizers, registry optimizers, defrag programs, etc. all have a
little bit of truth in them but are mostly a lot of hype and snake oil.
There are situations where defragging a disk can make a noticeable
difference, just as there are cases where fixing the registry or figuring
out what's taking up all your RAM can be useful. Unfortunately many people
who should know better continue to push old outdated maintenance routines on
people who don't know any better and end up causing the opposite effect of
slowing down their system or even crashing it altogether. In all the NT
based versions of Windows it's pretty hard to improve performance
significantly over just letting Windows manage itself. I have many tools
including some high end disk defraggers, registry editing programs, process
explorers, etc.. Like any special tool they are only used for the special
cases where they are needed.
To all the tweakers who ask me I say go ahead and tweak away but realize you
are like a car hot-rodder. You will end up with a hybrid machine that only
you know how to fix and in the end it may not be any faster than a stock
Honda Civic which is actually a pretty finely tuned machine. Some get it,
most don't.
