Vista Runs Continually - Why?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jan Il
  • Start date Start date
J

Jan Il

In addition to the Search Indexing that can take 2 or many days to complete,
depending on how many files you have to index, Vista also has the Defrag set
to start running to defrag your hard drive at startup by default, and it
continues to run until it finally finishes, however long that takes, which
depends on how big your hard drive is.

In a new install, OMHO, there is little reason to defrag, so I disable the
auto startup and run it on a regular scheduled housekeeping basis. The MS
Windows Defender is also set to run at startup by default and do a full scan
of your machine, and so may any AV you have installed, thus, there can be
several things going on at the same time at startup, or on an ongoing basis.

Jan:)
 
Why does Vista run all the time? My hard drive is continually going! And
it's not to the Internet. Just local. Bugs the heck out of me. Thanks.
 
My mistake. Excuse my ignorance! But it does seem to run a little more than
XP.
 
Its bad design.....

One of the microsoft blunders... but you can turn off the indexing manually
 
Jeff Gaines said:
Is that a consequence of the way Vista installs itself? A de-frag after
installing XP was compulsory, it left fragments of files all over the
place.
Click to expand...

Perhaps, but, there was nothing that I read or heard that said it was
compulsory. It analyzed the frive and said that it was not necessary,
so....why do it if it is not necessary. Or, should that also be one of MS
tools not to be trusted either? There seem to be many.

Jan:)
 
In a new install, OMHO, there is little reason to defrag,
Click to expand...

Is that a consequence of the way Vista installs itself? A de-frag after
installing XP was compulsory, it left fragments of files all over the place.
 
Vista runs all the time because your PC is switched on.
Turn it off (or install a different operating system) and Vista will stop
running.

Personally, I think it's good that an operating system is running all the
time - think how much it would bug you if it didn't!
 
The way Vista is installed should not fragment the way XP does. XP
installations do normally leave the drive pretty fragmented. To my
knowledge the system defragger runs once a week (scheduled) in an always on
system or 30 minutes after the next start up following the scheduled time.
In general, installing anything will leave a fair amount of fragmentation.
I had about a day of constant disk activity for indexing right after setting
up Vista.

If your drive continues to run constantly then I would check to see if there
is an update for your hard drive controller driver.
 
I don't know if it's really bad design. The behavior is intentional, and is
designed with the consumer in mind, and it does slow over time. It is
initially annoying, and almost unnerving to the pc literate, but this too
shall pass.

One of the early goals of Vista was to make finding things easier for the
average Joe (think metadata). To do this, there has to be some sort of index
and organization of the information on the thousands of files and folders
housed in the system. That is the aim of the indexing service, and if your
settings are to index the whole system as opposed to just the local profile,
it will just be that much more intense.

Once indexed, the activity slows and then ebbs and flows as data is added to
the system. From this, the user should be able to locate pretty much
anything they are looking for directly from the search window without having
to scroll through endless files looking for something. Remember this is
Grandma and Grandpa, not the geek, that we are talking about here. This is
to be intentionally easy, as the majority of users are not technically
astute, nor do they like to be bothered with having to choose where to look
for something.

Otherwise, for them it's like walking into a library with no card catalog,
no dewey decimal system, and all the books just thrown haphazardly on the
shelves wherever they may fit or fall. One could spend days looking for a
single item. Indexing is there as a tool to eliminate the delay.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
 
with broadband speeds that will reach hundreds of MB/s in the following
years, the flow of information in and out of the PC will be so great that
the indexing will never stop.

I have already seen this on my computer... indexing can never stop because
my computer is
never at ease.. everything is in a flow.. and this tendency will increase in
an explosive rate
in the following years.

index technology is a dead end... and should not have been set as a default
setting or at least,
they should have had some very easy way that is clear to turn it off.
 
MicroFox said:
index technology is a dead end... and should not have been set as a
default setting or at least,
they should have had some very easy way that is clear to turn it off.
Click to expand...

The default it to only index portions of the C: drive. Other drives
aren't indexed at all unless you tell it to.

Mike
 
Glad Tidings said:
My mistake. Excuse my ignorance! But it does seem to run a little
more than XP.
Click to expand...


Don't worry, it'll calm down soon and you won't notice it much after
that, unless like Colin says it's running the weekly defrag, or virus
scan, etc.
 
I never turn my machines off, except when necessary for installations and
hardware maintenance or change out. After install the Vista CRY and CRY my
machine ran constantly, with one thing or another always seeming to be
running; Defrag, Indexing, WD, etc., and even though they were
supposed" to be low power, the constant running did eat resources. I don't
need the WD as I have my own programs that I prefer and can trust. On a new
clean install with no data files and only two programs installed, the Search
indexing was running for 3 days before I killed. Every build of Vista I have
installed for the past several months has done the same thing so I just
disabled them.

Jan :)
 
See! Microfox complains and "pooff", it is fixed.

God, it must be fearful for him to find that Microsoft has actually done
something that he feels is necessary. He won't be able to sleep tonight at
all.

Now, if he really knew the operating system that he tries so hard to
degrade..........


--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!
 
Thanks for the replies, everyone. My machine has gotten a little less busy
than when I posted.
 
Back
Top