Windows 7 Software Compatibility Testing - PerfectDisk

Defragmentation of a hard drive is something that should be done with relative regularity, you know, it is not vital but strongly recommended to keep your PC in shape. PerfectDisk is an amazing utility suite capable of tidying up until the last byte you keep in your hard drive. This program can defragment your hard drive in several ways, easily by the traditional method which means taking all the scattered blocks and placing them all together, or in "SMARTPlacement" mode by placing the files you access most often on a preferential area of the hard disk.

PerfectDisk is a disk defragmenter developed to work with large hard drives. It uses a patented optimization strategy and defragments files in a single step and can optimize the drive according to the use of the files. PerfectDisk brings a new user interface, an interesting function that enables you to schedule defragmentation for it to be performed in specific date and time, StealthPatrol technology that is capable of defragmenting your hard drive in a continuous way for lower resources usage, free space recycler, advanced integration with Active Directory and a lot more options. Finally, the application shows detailed statistics after the defragmentation process is complete.

Furthermore, PerfectDisk claims in its official site to be "the first and only disk defragmenter certified by Microsoft for Windows 7", so we tested it under this environment and what you are about to read is the results of this testing.

Installation & First Run
I must say that although it took a little longer than expected, the installation process of PerfectDisk was an easy task to perform. Consisting on seven steps, the setup started with the selection of the location where to save the files, clicking next took me to the files extraction window showing a progress bar for a couple of seconds.

After that, the Welcome window showed up. The next button showed the License Agreement window.

The next step was the destination folder selection. Reaching this window I thought: "Dejavú! Haven't I passed this step before? Hmm it was for the extraction of files". Anyway, after that PerfectDisk said it was ready for installation.

So, I reached the installation progress which I must say took around 4 minutes (isn't that a bit long for a 135MB final size?). Finally, the InstallShield Wizard Completed notice showed up giving me the option to check for updates when finished.

So, in spite of being a bit longer, the whole process resulted in no incompatibilities or problems of any kind.

When running PerfectDisk for the first time, it showed a three step Welcome/configuration wizard.
There, I was able to configure aspects like system type, scheduling actions and more.

Functionality & Integration
In order to test PerfectDisk's performance and integration under the Windows 7 environment I started by performing a defragmentation in the SMARTPlacement mode, I must admit that it was really quick and straightforward as it was completed in about 5 minutes. As I said in the intro, PerfectDisk shows exhaustive information of the performed action.

Another feature I tested with similar results is the duplicates finder through which I was able to find and delete over 200MB of duplicated files in my system.

Again, no hitches inconveniences or troubles at all.

Regarding the integration with the environment, I must say, it was not less than perfect. Not only with the Aero features of Windows 7 but also it worked perfectly in the system tray.

Bugs Report
Additionally to not having found any incompatibilities o bugs myself, I could not find any bugs/complaint-related post in specialized forums. Moreover, I found users commenting like this: "Cool, PerfectDisk is the best defragger Ive tried so far." or "This is the first & only build of Windows 7 that has given me 100% defragmentation (0 fragments) results! I love it when PD10 defrags this way on an OS as it runs really fast like this with optimal drive performance! Bootup is 20 seconds!" Enough is enough!

Final Words
PerfectDisk is worth every penny and it really delivers what it claims: easy, quick, Windows 7-compatible and professional disk defragmentation. You can give it a try for free as there is a free 30-day trial available for download.

So, if you try or use PerfectDisk in your Seven machine, we would be very pleased to hear what your experience is like.