Graphical Interface

The UltraDefrag GUI consists of a single re-sizable window. View screenshots...

The Menus

Action

Analysis.png
Analyze (F5; Enter)
This analyzes the currently selected disk(s), constantly updates the cluster map and status bar, and generates a report.
The process locates free space, folders, fragmented, compressed, regular and system files.
Defragment.png
Defragment (F6)
This defragments the currently selected disk(s), constantly updates the cluster map and status bar, and generates a report.
The process moves fragmented files to free space to concatenate them.
QuickOptimize.png
Quick optimization (F7)
This optimizes the currently selected disk(s), constantly updates the cluster map and status bar, and generates a report.
The process moves fragmented files to the back of the disk to free space at the front and moves them back to the front to concatenate them.
FullOptimize.png
Full optimization (Ctrl+F7)
This optimizes the currently selected disk(s), constantly updates the cluster map and status bar, and generates a report.
The process moves fragmented and regular files to the back of the disk to free space at the front and moves them back to the front to concatenate them.
OptimizeMFT.png
Optimize MFT (Shift+F7)
This optimizes the MFT by placing its fragments as close to each other as possible.
Stop.png
Stop (Ctrl+C)
This aborts the currently running process at any stage, currently pending move operations will be completed to avoid corruption.
Repeat.png
Repeat action (Shift+R)
If this is set, the current operation will be repeated multiple times in a row. This allows processing as many files as possible.
Blank.png
Skip removable media (Ctrl+M)
If this is checked, disks located on removable drives are not included in the disk list.
Blank.png
Rescan drives (Ctrl+D)
This updates the disk list to include disks located on removable drives, which have been plugged in after starting UltraDefrag.
Blank.png
Repair drives
This runs CHKDSK against the selected drives to clear the status Disk needs to be repaired if possible.
You need to rescan the drives afterwards to update their status.
Blank.png
When done
This allows one to select an action that will be executed after all operations have been performed.
The default is None, available actions are: Exit, Standby, Hibernate, Logoff, Reboot and Shutdown.
Blank.png
Exit (Alt+F4)
This terminates UltraDefrag.

Report

Report.png
Show report (F8)
This displays the report generated for the selected disk(s) in a browser window.

Settings

Blank.png
Language
This mainly allows selecting the displayed language.

  • The entry View change log opens the page of translation changes at the translation wiki.
  • The entry View translation report opens the page with the current translation status at the translation wiki.
  • The entry Translations folder opens the folder containing the translation.template and all language files.
  • The entry Submit current translation opens the page of the currently selected translation at the translation wiki for editing or a new page to submit it.
Blank.png
Graphical interface —> Font (F9)
Usually the font must be changed only, if the contents of the disk list are not displayed correctly.
Options.png
Graphical interface —> Options (F10)
This will open a text editor window with the script loaded mentioned in the section Configuring below, which allows you to change the look and feel of the window as well as the behaviour of the actions.
BootTimeScan.png
Boot time scan —> Enable (F11)
This enables or disables the boot time processing.
(Disabled for portable editions)
BootTimeScript.png
Boot time scan —> Script (F12)
This opens a text editor window with the script loaded mentioned in the chapter Boot Time Defragmentation, which allows changing the way the boot time processing behaves.
(Disabled for portable editions)
Blank.png
Reports (Ctrl+R)
This allows changing the look of the reports.

Help

Help.png
Contents (F1)
This launches the handbook you are currently reading.
BestPractice.png
Best practice (F2)
This launches the Tips and Tricks chapter of this handbook.
Blank.png
FAQ (F3)
This launches the Frequently Asked Questions chapter of this handbook.
Blank.png
Cluster map legend
This launches the Cluster Map section of this page.
Blank.png
Debug
  • The entry Open log (Alt+L) opens the current debug log file in a text editor.
  • The entry Send bug report opens the bug tracker web page in the browser, which allows you to submit a bug report.
Blank.png
Check for update
This checks for program updates on demand, this is helpful if automatic update checks are disabled.
About.png
About (F4)
This opens the about window.

Preview

(available only in alpha and beta releases)

Blank.png
Find largest free space
Always fill the largest free space region first.
Blank.png
Find matching free space
Always fill a free space region which is similar to the size of the file.
Blank.png
Skip partial defragmenting
On regular defragmentation skip the final partial defragmentation, which consolidates small parts of files.

The Tool-Bar

It consists of the most frequently used commands for easy access.

List of Disks

The top part of the window contains a full list of disks available for defragmentation. Each line of the list contains disk name and type of filesystem, status display, fragmentation percentage, total amount of space, amount of free space and, finally, percentage of free space on the disk.

Fixed drives are marked by
fixed.png
, removable drives - by
removable.png
Dirty drives are marked by
fixed-dirty.png
and
removable-dirty.png
, run CHKDSK to correct the problem.

Multiple disks can be selected in the list. In this case UltraDefrag will process them one after the other. The rules for the selection are the same as in Windows Explorer.

To select all drives you can use Ctrl+A too. Double-clicking a drive will start its analysis.

Cluster Map

It represents the disk clusters by little colored squares. The first cluster on disk is the one in the top-left corner of the map. The last cluster on disk is the one in the bottom-right corner of the map. The clusters in between are organized by rows.
The colors have the following meaning:

Fragmented.png
Fragmented
Blank.png
NotFragmented.png
Not Fragmented
Blank.png
Compressed.png
Compressed
Directory.png
Directory
System.png
Locked (System)
MFT.png
MFT
FreeSpace.png
Free Space
UnusedBlock.png
Unused Map Block
Files and directories
When there are two different colors assigned to the same item, the darker one marks objects above the size threshold, if one is set.
Note
Files excluded from processing are never treated as fragmented, because only files affecting system performance should get our attention.
MFT
Dark magenta represents the master file table (MFT), light magenta - the space reserved for the MFT expansion.
Unused map blocks
Since the amount of clusters per map block must be a whole number it can happen that there are unused map blocks at the end of the cluster map. For example a drive has 3000 clusters and the cluster map has 3020 blocks, this will result in the last 20 map blocks being marked as unused, since it is impossible to display 0,99 clusters per block.
Note
Unused map blocks are not to be confused with free space.
Free space color
The default is white as shown in the image above, but this can be changed through the background color setting.

When done

If any of the actions except None is checked, UltraDefrag will automatically perform that action after the job completes.

Note
Your system and hardware configuration must support shutdown and power off, otherwise Windows may reboot your PC or even do nothing. Therefore test this mode before using it at a regular basis.

Your system must support the selected suspend mode and it must be turned on. Otherwise Windows will display a message box containing a brief error description and the system will not be switched into any suspend mode.

Configuring

The default font is Courier New, 9.

GUI options are stored in guiopts.lua file. They have the same meaning as the environment variables accepted by the UltraDefrag command line tool.

It does make sense to set grid_line_width = 0, if you set map_block_size = 1 to be able to use the whole size of the cluster map.
This is especially useful, if you have drives of sizes of 500GB and more.


Previous: Scheduled Defragmentation Next: Boot Time Defragmentation