WinContig

Defragmenting files and folders on your hard drive is necessary to keep your system in check, but the whole process can take a long time and can put your computer out of commission while in use. WinContig is a different kind of defragmentation tool, offering options for defragmenting specific files rather than the entire disk. We found it easy to use and surprisingly fast.

The program has a very straightforward user interface that will appeal to users of all skill levels. You'll find menu options and shortcut buttons across the top of the window, a panel for displaying added files and folders, and below that, a real-time account of the defrag status. We were able to quickly browse for, and select, the folder that we wanted to defragment. The program quickly went to work, analyzing our C drive and displaying the number of processed files, fragmented files, contiguous files, and files not analyzed due to processing errors. From there, we clicked the Defragment option, which prompted us to check our disk for errors and then to start the clean up process. We especially liked that the program let us work while it ran without slowing down our computer's performance. In a matter of minutes, our C drive was successfully defragmented. The program includes the ability to add items to be excluded during the defrag process. It also lets you load and save profiles, which led us to our one complaint about the program: no Help feature. It wasn't entirely clear how the profile feature worked, so we paid a visit to the publisher's Web site only to find that it's in Italian. Thankfully, the program's other features are extremely intuitive.

WinContig comes as a ZIP file and no installation is required. Despite the lack of help, we recommend it as a capable defragmentation program.