December 2005 | Main | February 2007

January 22, 2007

Here it is - Windows Vista support

We're as excited to offer this software as many of you have been to get it (my apologies for the delays). Your patience has allowed us to deliver an excellent and well-tested product.

The Diskeeper 2007 software for Windows Vista is a free update, for all current Diskeeper 2007 customers. If you purchased Diskeeper 2007 or have a valid maintenance contract (i.e. upgrade assurance) to Diskeeper 2007 you qualify for this free update. If you don't run Windows Vista, stay tuned as there will be a Diskeeper update coming very soon (use the Check for Updates feature in Diskeeper) for Windows 2000 and Windows XP/2003 users.

As you know, the current Diskeeper versions do not install on Windows Vista, which means the Check for Updates feature won't help. So, the way you can get this product is to contact us and we will send you an email with a link to download the software. Keep in mind that this product is for Windows Vista only; at this time it will not install on Windows XP or Windows 2000. To expedite your request place the words "Diskeeper for Vista Request" in the subject line of the email.

Trialware will be available on the website later this week for anyone who does not yet own Diskeeper 2007.

Here's how to get Diskeeper 2007 for Vista:

If you are volume license customer, contact your Account Manager (Sales Rep). Your volume license reseller, in case you don't know who your Account Manager is, can contact them on your behalf.

If you are a home user or a small business customer, located in North America, who purchased online from Diskeeper.com, contact the Website Sales Team at WebSales@Diskeeper.com. You will need to provide the following:

-Your full name
-Your email address (the one initially used to purchase the product)
-Your order number
-Place the words "Diskeeper for Vista Request" in the subject line of the email.

If you purchased from a North American retail store or online reseller other than Diskeeper.com, you will need to have registered the software. Once this is done, contact Customer Support at Service@Diskeeper.com. You will need to provide the following:

-Your full name
-Your email address (the one initially used to register the product)
-Registration number (or a fax copy of the proof of purchase from the box - note, this will take longer to process)
-Place the words "Diskeeper for Vista Request" in the subject line of the email.

If you are a home user customer who purchased from our European or Asian offices/partners, please contact the sales teams at those locations. Place the words "Diskeeper for Vista Request" in the subject line of your email. This web page can help direct you: http://www.diskeeper.com/international/international.asp

Posted by Michael at 10:13 PM | Comments (36)

January 08, 2007

Some More Info on "On-The-Fly" Performance

I want to clear up a few confusions I've seen recently on the internet. Diskeeper 2007 introduced on-the-fly defragmentation for the first time in the Diskeeper product line but, it should be stated, Diskeeper was not the first performance tool to do this.

This "real time" defragmentation has been on our development plate for many years, but it lacked a technological advancement before we could add this into the product. As Diskeeper is one of the highest selling software utilities (usually 7th or 8th, by volume in North America, after Norton AV, Ghost, and antivirus from a couple of the other major vendors) we have a tremendous responsibility. We sell many millions of licenses each year, and a good number of them end up on mission critical servers in the world's largest companies. The product, as it evolved into a truly automatic program, had to ensure that the product offered all the benefits and none of the drawbacks an on-the-fly application might generate, on these massive server systems.

The benefit of addressing the consideration of a high-powered SAN or application server also translates to the small business and home user, as they now get a technology designed for some of the most powerful Windows-based computers in use today. Kinda of like putting a turbocharged sports car engine in an economy car, but still getting the MPGs.

Speaking of car analogies, it brings up another. The following is an article I wrote for the Diskeeper 2007 release, but it seems appropriate to re-publish here... [forewarning: this is a marketing article, not a technical one :-) ]

Introducing a Revolutionary Way to Change Your Oil:

Regular scheduled defragmentation has often been compared to changing oil in your car. An excellent analogy, because if you fail to address this regular maintenance task, eventually the engine breaks down. The same effect occurs on computers system that aren't regularly defragmented; severe fragmentation can lead to reliability problems.

Yes, the best engine is one that doesn't need an oil change/maintenance, but that product has yet to be delivered.

Diskeeper pioneered Set It and Forget It, decades ago, offering a "regular scheduled oil change". It became advanced enough by the time of Diskeeper 10.0 that those oil changes happened without most users aware it was even happening.

This concept of scheduling has become far more commonplace and Microsoft has recently acknowledged the importance of this activity; following our lead.

Manual defragmentation is an unbelievable pain; compare it in proportion to having to change the oil in the car yourself. Sure you may know HOW to do it, but it takes time and effort.

Scheduled defragmentation was far more livable. It could do this for you. However the problem was that you may have had to schedule this maintenance time outside of production time, because it caused some performance hit, or because that was how the technology was developed (i.e. to be scheduled).

Changing your oil involves flushing out all the current fluid. With the built-in this maintenance time is analogous to "down time" or to follow the analogy, your car was parked in a service garage getting processed (rather than you being able to drive it).

When you think closely, scheduled oil changes also do something else non-optimally. They change ALL the oil, not just what needs to be changed. Is it really true that after 3000 miles every oil particle is equally degraded? Unlikely; but to finitely replace only the worn oil and leave the viable oil is technologically improbable (shy of an oil dialysis machine) if not impossible. It certainly doesn't make much sense given that it would be more work to implement this than just toss and replace all the fluid. Synthetic oils allowed you to delay the scheduled oil change until around 7500 miles, but you still have to get the maintenance done.

Now, what if you could replace just the oil that actually needed replacing and save the oil that was still perfectly good? Now, building on that thought, what if you could replace the deteriorated oil exactly when it was degraded (using new technology); and not have to wait until 3000 or 7500 miles?

That would be real AUTOMATIC oil changes; far better than scheduled oil changes. It would be much like the sun coming up every morning - it just happens! How long you have to wait in between oil changes is irrelevant. It simply is no longer an issue.

Diskeeper Corporation's InvisiTasking is that new technology that allows automatic defragmentation to truly be automatic. It's analogous to a kind of on-the-fly engine-attached device to replace only what oil is worn without affecting the engine in any way. InvisiTasking allows defragmentation to evolve from merely "scheduled" into "automatic".

You can now completely eliminate the concept (and bother) of scheduled maintenance all together; end result true AUTOMATIC maintenance, and the absolute least wear and tear possible on the engine (or hard drive), leading to a longer, more productive and reliable life. Sure, it takes a bit of getting used to as it is still a relatively new idea, but I'm confident when you give it thought you'll agree that it is an evolution of the decades old problem of how to go about solving the problems of poor file system performance.

Posted by Michael at 07:18 PM | Comments (3)

January 03, 2007

The latest on Diskeeper support for Vista

We are wrapping up a private (i.e. limited testers) field test to confirm all the new changes in the Windows Vista file system are properly accounted for.

The current time frame should make this product available in about 10-14 days. That puts the release around the US holiday of MLK day (January 15th).

When we get nearer to the release I'll write a blog entry to cover specifics as well as how to get the software.

Posted by Michael at 09:55 PM | Comments (11)