All evening something keeps calling up svchost.exe (defragsvc) (it's listed in the resource manager under Processes with Disk Activity, and under Disk Activity as defrag.exe). The hard drive keeps grinding away, but I checked and it's disabled in the scheduler.
If I move the mouse around it stops temporarily. Why does it keep coming up? I don't want it to defrag automatically.
'defragsvc' is the defragment/optimize service. By default it's scheduled to run weekly. If you want to change; Start button\Windows Administrative Tools\Defragment and Optimize Drives.
Off
Drives are not being optimized automatically.
That's what I'm saying. It's off, so why is it running by itself?
Hey rivre,
Check Services to see if Optimize Drives startup is Automatic. If that's not it, then I'd check Task Scheduler.
Optimize drives is set to manual. Defrag is disabled in the Task Scheduler.
Should I set to Optimize drives to disabled? Is there a downsize to that? If I disable it, will I still be able to manually run defrag, or would I have to set it back to manual again when I want to run it?
If it's set to manual, why is it running on it's own? Could something else be triggering it to run? But what?
Any chance you got some 3rd party app that's starting it, maybe something in Task Manager > Start Up
Note: You can try disabling Optimize Drives, just to see, but I wouldn't leave it that way.
Nope, just double-checked, but not too many things are enabled at startup. Only what's necessary and a few utilities that I have set to run at startup like SunsetScreen. Nothing unusual that would suggest it would trigger a defrag.
Latest Windows 10 has night light built in.
Regarding your problem, you could try disabling the service if you don't use it.
This continues to be a problem. If I leave the PC alone for a few minutes, it starts up. Defrag is disabled in the task scheduler. So why is it still running automatically? How can I stop this behavior? It's very much an inconvenience to me.
Somebody else had posted the same issue 2 years ago, and there was no solution posted there either.
Automatic disk defrag every 5 minutes when idle
Run CMD as admin and copy/paste:
It is better to use 3rd party software to defrag. It is way faster and more informative.Code:reg add "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Dfrg\BootOptimizeFunction" /v "Enable" /t REG_SZ /d "n" /f reg add "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\OptimalLayout" /v "EnableAutoLayout" /t REG_DWORD /d "0" /f schtasks /Change /TN "Microsoft\Windows\Defrag\ScheduledDefrag" /Disable sc config defragsvc start= disabled net stop defragsvc /y
Windows defrag takes ages and sometimes it actually never ends.
14 Free Defrag Software Tools (Updated February 2018)
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