Contig is a
command line
A command-line interpreter or command-line processor uses a command-line interface (CLI) to receive commands from a user in the form of lines of text. This provides a means of setting parameters for the environment, invoking executables and pro ...
defragmentation
In the maintenance of file systems, defragmentation is a process that reduces the degree of fragmentation. It does this by physically organizing the contents of the mass storage device used to store files into the smallest number of contigu ...
utility for Windows developed by
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation, multinational technology company, technology corporation producing Software, computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at th ...
as part of the
Sysinternals Suite.
Operation
Contig is designed to defragment individual files, or specified groups of files, and does not attempt to move files to the beginning of the partition. Unlike the Windows built-in defragmenter tool, Contig can defragment individual files, individual directories, and subsets of the file system using wildcards.
Contig does not move any data except that belonging to the file in the question, so the amount it can defragment a file is limited to the largest contiguous block of free space on a system. Use of contig exchanges decreased file fragmentation for increased free space fragmentation.
Combined usage of the -s parameter and the wildcard symbol * allows whole directories and drives to be defragmented: for example,
contig -s C:\*
will defrag all the files on hard drive C. The -s parameters means to browse directories recursively.
Directories, for example, can be defragmented with the following command. This will help speed up accessing files in a directory with many hundreds or thousands of files.
[Documentation on TechNet page]
for /R /D %a in (*.*) do start /b contig -q "%a" > nul
Adding the -v parameter to the command runs contig in verbose mode.
For instance:
contig -v -s C:\*
When the filesystem is NTFS, contig can also analyse and defragment the following files:
For instance:
contig -v -s $mft
A small change to the Windows registry allows entire folders to be defragmented from Windows Explorer.
New unfragmented files with specified name and length can be created.
Derivative programs that use Contig include ''Power Defragmenter GUI'' and ''Multiple Applicator 6.8''. A related freeware product by the same author is
PageDefrag.
Limitations
* Contig can't defragment files accessed through directory mount points (as opposed to drive letter mounts). Using an additional (temporary) drive letter will circumvent this problem. See
subst
In computing, SUBST is a command on the DOS, IBM OS/2, Microsoft Windows and ReactOS operating systems used for substituting paths on physical and logical drives as virtual drives.
Overview
In MS-DOS, the SUBST command was added with the r ...
command.
* Contig doesn't work in
Telnet
Telnet is an application protocol used on the Internet or local area network to provide a bidirectional interactive text-oriented communication facility using a virtual terminal connection. User data is interspersed in-band with Telnet cont ...
sessions, but it is possible to execute it on remote machines using ''Sysinternals PsExec''.
See also
*
Comparison of defragmentation software
__NOTOC__
The following is a comparison of notable file system defragmentation
In the maintenance of file systems, defragmentation is a process that reduces the degree of fragmentation. It does this by physically organizing the contents of ...
*
Defragmentation
In the maintenance of file systems, defragmentation is a process that reduces the degree of fragmentation. It does this by physically organizing the contents of the mass storage device used to store files into the smallest number of contigu ...
*
File system fragmentation
In computing, file system fragmentation, sometimes called file system aging, is the tendency of a file system to lay out the contents of files non-continuously to allow in-place modification of their contents. It is a special case of data fragmen ...
*
List of defragmentation software
Notes and references
*''Winternals: Defragmentation, Recovery, and Administration Field Guide'' by
Dave Kleiman, Laura Hunter, Mahesh Satyanarayana, Kimon Andreou, Nancy G Altholz, Lawrence Abrams, Darren Windham, Tony Bradley and Brian Barber (2006) - Syngress ()
{{Refend
External links
Microsoft Technet site Contig pagePower Defragmenter GUI, mentioned above in the article, is a graphical interface for Contig
Windows-only freeware
Defragmentation software