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I'm sure you don't give it much thought...I don't. You open programs and files, and close them again all day long. What you may not realize is what your computer does with them. Every time you save a file your computer says "Hmmm...where is there some free space? Ah! There's some - let me store a little of this file there to fill it up. Now...where can I find a little more space to store the next little bit?"

Follow up:

A standard tool available on your computer is the Disk Defragmenter. This program goes in search of those little pieces of information and tries to bring them back together into larger chunks. Ideally, they would all reside together on your hard drive. A defragger does what it can to reassemble those pieces back together (at least for the short term.) Once you start accessing files again, the process of fragmentation begins all over again. With time it takes your machine longer to look for, find, and open files because of this defragmentation.

It's important to run periodic defrags on your hard disk to optimize the way your operating system handles your files. This is NOT a quick and speedy task. On XP, it's generally best to start a defrag and let it go (possibly at night) when you won't be doing anything else. Even so, it can take hours to do a complete defrag. With Vista, they claim it's ok to continue to work, as the defrag process runs in the background for hours, and it doesn't slow down performance to0 terribly much.

The standard Windows defrag tool can be found by going to Start\Programs\Accessories\System Tools and looking for the "Disk Defragmenter". The icon looks like a little stack of blocks. When you run it, it will analyze your hard drive and tell you whether you need to run a defrag or not. You may find dropping a shortcut on your desktop is a little easier than working from the start menu.

Another option is a separate program for defragging. I've found one I quite like on my Vista machine is Defraggler. You can download it free on Filehippo. There are certainly other choice for defrag programs. Several can be found on the Cleanup & Tweaking page at Filehippo. If you try one and don't like it you can always uninstall it, and of course there's always the standard one available in Windows. Unlike some components of Windows, the standard defrag tool is quite sufficient, but some people prefer using another method, so I've given you some options.

Bottom line, you should have a defrag program periodically analyze your hard drive, and if it says you need to degfrag, you should do so. It will help keep your machine running well, and help to optimize your performance - think of it like changing the oil in your vehicle. I don't run a defrag all that often, perhaps once every few months. Some people suggest once a month, but I've generally found the analysis shows it's not necessary that often. It can be setup to run on an automatic schedule if you choose, but as with most tasks, I prefer to look them over and make the decision if they need to be run or not - again, that's your choice to make.