MyDefrag (formerly JkDefrag) 4.1.2

Rated 10/50 by Undesired Username at Oct 31, 2008

Sorry, no "But it's free!" Kool Aid for me, thanks. No useless features? I think my fellow reviewers mean "no useful features". Features like the ability to defragment huge files like pagefile.sys and hiberfil.sys. (The author suggests other software to handle the former, and manually deleting/recreating the latter.) Like support for layout.ini. (I guess that one just isn't important enough.) Like support for Vista's MFT. And on. And on. And on. This is just another toy for people who can't or won't pay for real software. I'm fairly sure the "Jk" stands for "Just kidding".

Rated 10/50 by shodan816 at Oct 31, 2008

If you are running Vista - BEWARE ! This beast will wipe out your restore points in a heartbeat! Why the author cannot or will not fix this horrendous bug is beyond me... :-(

Rated 50/50 by Ulmo at Oct 31, 2008

It not only defragment, but optimize each file place for optimal performances. No need to install, just run and watch how well it reorganize your disk.

Rated 50/50 by mfarmilo at Nov 1, 2008

Excellent free defragger, I don't think any of the other free ones come close. I mostly use Perfectdisk myself, but where someone wants a free one this is my recommendation. On a sidenote - this version was released 31/08/08, so why, 2 months later, is it being posted on here as a new release ?

Rated 30/50 by PRoBiSoNe at Nov 5, 2008

[/quote] Reviewer: shodan816 Oct 31, 2008 Version: 3.36 If you are running Vista - BEWARE ! This beast will wipe out your restore points in a heartbeat! Why the author cannot or will not fix this horrendous bug is beyond me... :-( [/quote] Why you use restore points is beyond me! ;) LoL Not sure if this is any better at optimization then Diskeeper's I-FAAST, as DK continuously monitors file usage and knows which files need to be optimized. But hell, its free, so I'll give it a 3! :D

Rated 10/50 by anomoly at Jul 17, 2009

Script based. Chm says to run the slow-optimize first then schedule the fast-optimize. My tsk scheduler refuses to cooperate and the gui is almost nonexistent. Seems to be working But; I have 4 internal drives and after a few hours of slow-optimize my cpu was at 100% and ap was totally nonresponsive at two different times. not good at all.

Rated 50/50 by Input Overload at Jul 19, 2009

For free this program is excellent! It's also better than some defraggers you pay for. As I did away with 'Restore Points' years ago I can't comment on whether it damages them or not. You are much better off doing regular images with 'True Image' anyway. This is worth giving a try if your subscription for ‘Perfect Disc’ etc is coming up, you might really like it. anomoly:- I have 3 hard drives & I have had none of the issues you have raised - Maybe it's time to reinstall.

Rated 40/50 by Zarggg at Jul 19, 2009

@everyone giving low ranks because of certain "features" lacking: This program is not intended to do those things (i.e., pagefile) and the author specifically states as such. That's a bit like downrating MSPaint on the merit that it doesn't open Photoshop files. This program is still good, although it does seem to run a bit slower than the parent program (JKDefrag).

Rated 50/50 by mjm01010101 at Jul 19, 2009

System Restore is invaluable if you've ever had to rely on it. I have twice. You can restore a system screwup in minutes whereas an image based backup must restore everything pretty much to a singular point in time, disregarding changes that may have occurred since. There's no reason you can't use both technologies. IMO one should never disable system restore. If you must, just set the disk space it uses at 1-3%. jkdefrag/Mydefrag is a pretty nice program, but with SSD's coming on the scene, defragmenting is losing a purpose in the storage world.

Rated 50/50 by NightFright at Jul 20, 2009

This is one of the best defrag programs you can find for free, if you ask me. It is fast, reliable and efficient. However, the program itself is a bit difficult to handle if you don't know much about the script-based stuff. Using it is much, much easier if you use the version integrated into "MyDefragGUI", available here: http://mydefrag.8qm.de/#1 This version will give you the options you would be missing when using the standard version of MyDefrag, e.g. drive selection, defrag method etc. With MyDefragGUI, the 5 stars are well-earned.

Rated 50/50 by Nighted at Jul 23, 2009

I did a quick defrag of my system drive with this while my machine was running, It did a fantastic job! I was also trying the shareware Puran Defrag at the same time. With Puran, I did an offline defrag with inferior results compared with MyDefrag defragging a running system. :/ MyDefrag actually sorted out all of the fragments that Puran missed. :P

Rated 40/50 by bobad at Jul 24, 2009

The program is OK, but I perfer the old version without all the bloat and scripting. The old version is 1 file, and only 217K! This one expands to 2.5MB! It also needs to associate script files in the registry, making further bloat. I think JK tried to match his competition's fancy features, and unfortunately he succeeded. It's still a neat program, but I'm sticking with the last simple version, (I think 3.36) which was just about flawless. 3.5/5!

Rated 50/50 by dhry at Aug 13, 2009

One of the most comprehensive, least bloated defragmenters I've seen. Read my full take on it at http://www.dhryland.com/?p=128

Rated 50/50 by roj at Aug 13, 2009

It works. It works well. I was using the standard Windows Defrag on Vista64 once a week. Ran the Slow Defrag in MyDefrag (it literally took a day) and now do nightly defrags at 1:00AM using FastUpdate as recommended. System is MUCH faster and thrashes less. FIVE stars.

Rated 50/50 by dhry at Aug 13, 2009

One of the most comprehensive, least bloated defragmenters I've seen. Read my full take on it at http://www.dhryland.com/?p=128 Edit: I'm going to have to say that this program currently has a very annoying bug which causes excessive CPU usage and extremely slow defragmentation progress under certain circumstances. There are several threads on their forums discussing this issue. You can "fix" it, weirdly enough, by running another defragmenter on the drive for a few minutes. Who the heck knows why? Still five stars, though.

Rated 50/50 by dwmartin at Aug 14, 2009

"Excellent sofware" Works as advertised. Very straightforward and easy to use. No noticeable faults at present Update adds useful optimizers without adding undue complexity.

Rated 50/50 by ada28ada at Aug 26, 2009

"Excellent and Best Defrag out there!" Fast speed, easy to use, everything automated. Once installed, go to the program folder & select one of the options. Fast Update = compatible with Slow optimize (run slow optimize once in awhile) or Fast Optimize (incompatible with Slow optimize) None, perfect program with everything automated. Excellent software

Rated 20/50 by SlickRick9174 at Sep 2, 2009

"I wish for a more user freindly Help section." The graphs are simple. Once application is done, there's no way to see all the partitions I like it because it's free. And it seams to be doing something. I wish it was easier to schedule an auto scan.

Rated 40/50 by Margety at Sep 9, 2009

"This makes the Microsoft Defrag look sick!" It seems to cover everything Takes a long time

Rated 30/50 by dhry at Sep 15, 2009

I recommend avoiding this release. It has a worse bug than the previous versions. v4.1.2 had an issue with massive CPU usage and slowdowns. This version eats up RAM like it's cotton candy, but only after a certain period of time. Some sort of memory leak. Basically it shat itself on a 3Gb system with an "Oeps!" error message.. something about disk.cpp at line 833. Beta status notwithstanding, we go down to 3 stars until stability is restored. Still a fantastic idea but the author needs to take baby steps instead of releasing something with this sort of issue into the wild. Patiently waiting for the next release - and trust me, I generally don't stick around after something crashes. Ever.