December 20, 2007
We're Taking A Day Off!
To celebrate the highest revenue year in Diskeeper Corporation's 26 year history, the US offices will be closing in the early afternoon on Friday the 21st, and will be closed for the entire day on Monday December 24th - support services will still be available for respective customers on corporate maintenance plans.
It's been an outstanding year at Diskeeper Corporation, fueled by the hard work of a truly phenomenal team of 200+ international employees. From everyone at Diskeeper Corporation - Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!
PS: With the holidays and several key technology shows in early 2008, the Diskeeper Blog will be on a short hiatus until mid January. I will be co-hosting the Computer Outlook Radio Talk Show with John Iasiuolo covering the Storage Visions show in Las Vegas Jan 5th and 6th. For anyone interested in the Stroage Visions topic - consumer oriented digital storage of the future, Computer Outlook is picked up nationally on AM stations in most cities, and (from ComputerOutlook.com) can also be heard streamed over the internet or downloaded as a podcast.
Posted by Michael at 10:23 PM | Comments (0)
December 14, 2007
Microsoft and Diskeeper Virtualization Technology Info and Updates
As you may have heard Microsoft released the Hyper-V beta yesterday. You can download a 30-day trial with Server 2008 here. I know that this is "late" by the earliest release date announcements but it is nice to get it ahead of current expectations. Working for a software publisher I can empathize with efforts to predict release dates - it's tough!
Anyway, for us IT geeks, this is a fun way in between (or during) college bowl games to spend some of the holiday weekends - building Server 2008 systems. If you share that twisted idea of a good-time, I also recommend using the pre-configured Server 2008 VHDs located here.
Some time back we posted a Microsoft press release on a virtualization partnership. As part of that announced alliance, we have held regular meetings with Microsoft VPs and PMs (Program Managers) to solve the issue of fragmentation related I/O bottlenecks in virtual environments. Yesterday, a very busy Virtualization Program Manager took time, after working many long days and nights to get the software out the door that morning, to meet with several Diskeeper Corporation tech and executive staff for well over an hour and half. Next year, you'll see some revolutionary solutions from Diskeeper come from this partnership.
We also wrapped that meeting with several other appointments at the Redmond campus with groups such as WHS, the new exFAT file system (in Vista SP1), and Premier Support.
Posted by Michael at 11:19 PM | Comments (0)
Undelete for Windows Vista and Office 2007 is available
There is a new free update for all Undelete 5.0 customers and it is available on your personal "myDiskeeper" download site. An email with specific download instructions has been sent to your registered email address. or you can go here. New customers will automatically receive this updated version of Undelete.
This new release includes support for Windows Vista as well as file version recovery of Office 2007's PowerPoint, Excel, and Word. If you are running Windows Vista, no reboot is needed. If you are running 2000/20003/XP you will be prompted for a reboot, but there is a workaround. Due to particular linking of the Windows Recycle Bin to the user shell, each user that is logged in at the time Undelete is installed will need to first log off and then log back in for Undelete's Recycle Bin replacement called the "Recovery Bin" to kick in. A system reboot may be the easiest way to guarantee this, but for those 24/7 servers, the log-off/log-on may be more palatable.
This release, while seemingly minor requires a major undertaking. Select users have been provided limited release copies of Undelete 5 for Vista. If you are one of those customers and are running 32-bit Windows Vista, I recommend that you upgrade to this new build.
Porting a User-Mode application (e.g. online disk defragmentation) is significantly easier than a file filter driver such as anti-virus software or Undelete. With Undelete, we essentially rebuilt the device driver, making it a more efficient and streamlined program that adhered to Vista's driver standards. So, while the surface layer (i.e. user interface) of Undelete 5 may not have changed, a massive engineering undertaking has taken place that will benefit users on both Vista and other Undelete supported operating systems.
Posted by Michael at 07:34 PM | Comments (0)
November 29, 2007
Microsoft and Partners - WHS Video
A few weeks back I mentioned that Microsoft sent a film crew to do short interviews with several Diskeeper Corporation employees. They also interviewed several other key Windows Home Server (WHS) partners as well.
Microsoft recently completed the video and sent it to us. You can check it our here. It's a large file (.wmv format) so it will take a while to download.
We'll be welcoming the Microsoft film crew again tomorrow for a second, more technical, video targeted to system builders creating and selling WHS systems.
Posted by Michael at 09:45 PM | Comments (0)
November 02, 2007
Best-Selling System Utilities for Corporate Use
Here is a market research report* we regulary track in-house to see how we fare against some of the other well known software utility companies in number of licenses sold. The list covers a one year period (September 2006 September 2007).
Rank, Product Family, Publisher
1. Symantec Antivirus, Symantec
2. Symantec Ghost, Symantec
3. ScanMail, Trend Micro
4. NeatSuite, Trend Micro
5. Clnt/Svr, Trend Micro
6. Tivoli Storage Manager, IBM
7. Diskeeper, Diskeeper Corporation
8. InterScan Messaging Security Suite, Trend Micro
9. SvrProtect, Trend Micro
10. OfficeScan, Trend Micro
*North American Product ranking and market share are based on unit sales. All the data comes from National Purchase Diary (NPD) distribution channel software sales report. NPD captures 88% of all sales going through distribution channels.
Posted by Michael at 07:44 PM | Comments (0)
October 23, 2007
Diskeeper Maintenance and Warranty customers
Though we released Diskeeper 2008 one year and one week after Diskeeper 2007, we are extending the free software upgrade to anyone who purchase a 1-year maintenance contract the initial week of the Diskeeper 2007 release last year. Our goal is to reward those loyal customers and ensure they get their monies worth. Anyone eligible for free upgrades will automatically be sent links to access Diskeeper 2008 downloads.
All customer's who have purchased Diskeeper from diskeeper.com can go to myDiskeeper and login in using the email address you used to purchase the software. Your password is the same you used when you set up your User Profile online. If you don't remember the password, the website can be used to send it to your email address.
If you purchased Diskeeper in the last 30 days, you are under the 30-day money back guarantee/warranty, and will also automatically receive a free upgrade to Diskeeper 2008. Check your email for the links.
Posted by Michael at 02:20 AM | Comments (0)
Diskeeper 2008 help and info - where to go
The launch of a new product is a busy time for any software company and Diskeeper Corp is no exception. To prepare, we've improved our automation processes and increased staff in all areas that deal with our customers. The release is going very smoothly, but questions always come up, and our staff are hard at work helping everyone out. If you have questions or need assistance, below is a good list of places to find more information, and/or where send your requests for customers in North America:
For technical support, please visit: http://www.diskeeper.com/support/
If you have issues with the website, please email our Web Team: webmaster@diskeeper.com
If you have general requests, such as resending your software purchase/maintenance letter, please email our Customer Support Team at: service@diskeeper.com
You can find additional contact information at: http://www.diskeeper.com/contact/contact.asp
If you purchased from a reseller, please return to them for assistance. If you are located outside the US/Canada, please visit your respective Diskeeper reseller or partner.
Posted by Michael at 01:26 AM | Comments (3)
October 15, 2007
Partner Spotlight - PCLive.com
Diskeeper Corporation has been licensing its technologies to partners for many years. This includes promotional actions, such as shipping "lite" versions of Diskeeper, with tens of millions of laptops, desktops and servers sold by some of the world's largest hardware and computer companies (Intel, Lenovo, Sony, Dell, HP, etc...) to providing product to companies who "re-package" the software into a managed services offering.
SecurityCoverage has been a Diskeeper partner for several years, including various editions of Diskeeper in its product line. They recently launched an exciting new service. You can check it out at www.PCLive.com.
They're offering a free security suite (yes free!) as well as an upgraded Premium suite with more solutions (like Diskeeper Professional) as well as 24x7 support for an awesome price (currently $4.95 USD per month).
Read the CNET announcement here.
Here is an early review posted on TMCnet:
"People may think that they're safe on the Internet, but they're not," said Dan Gookin, best-selling author of PC for Dummies and well-known PC expert. "Even with all the nifty new security features of Windows Vista, having a product like PCLive Security helps complete the PC protection picture. Not only that, maintenance is a key, yet often overlooked, part of running a computer. The beauty of PCLive Security is that it provides you with the protection and maintenance you need. Plus the price is really incredible!"
Posted by Michael at 10:51 PM | Comments (0)
October 05, 2007
Microsoft WHS Team Films at Diskeeper
As one of the orginal 8 independent software vendors (ISV) partnered with Microsoft to develop fully integrated technologies for Windows Home Server (WHS), we have been closely tied to the WHS development group. Derek (who heads up our Partner Relations), several of our top technical staff, and I have worked closely with them since earlier this year, and met on numerous occasions.
We have all been impressed at their responsiveness to our questions and comments. Over the years, Microsoft has been great about listening to partners, but the WHS group really kicked it up a notch. It's the feedback from partners that is delaying the release, as Microsoft incorporates new functionality based on requests from vendors such as HP - I'd like to leak out the official release date but I'd be in trouble :-). These refinements are helping to finalize an amazing, user-friendly product that tech-savvy home users will love.
WHS has been a long term project at Microsoft, and they wanted to validate the WHS development team with video "success stories". As a key partner they chose to send a film crew to visit the Diskeeper Corporation office and interview several of our engineers who are also WHS users. They plan to edit the footage into a video clip for use internally at Microsoft. It will also likely be featured on Microsoft's partner page, along with a WHS-related clip from hardware/software partner HP.
We're excited that Microsoft chose Diskeeper as their defragmentation vendor of choice for the success story - we had a lot of fun with it!
Posted by Michael at 06:32 PM | Comments (0)
October 03, 2007
New Sitekeeper/Patchkeeper Update
A primary enhancement in this version is the in the ability to handle large numbers (10,000+) of machines. The Sitekeeper database structure and reporting mechanism have been redesigned to speed up the overall performance when working with large numbers of computers. This technology had already been introduced into Diskeeper Administrator and is now ported into Sitekeeper, which shares a common design.
Also, Shavlik Technologies has provided Diskeeper Corporation enhanced functionality that has been integrated into an update for Sitekeeper. As you may be aware, Sitekeeper's specialized patch management module (Patchkeeper) uses technology licensed from Shavlik . Diskeeper Corporation (formerly Executive Software) is now making this update available to Patchkeeper customers.
This new build is required to continue the full functionality of Patchkeeper. We recommend you install this update soon to be ready for Patch Tuesday - coming up next week.
The update is a free download to all Sitekeeper 3.5 Suite and Patchkeeper (stand-alone module) customers. The new build number of 3.5.209. To get the software, simply use the "Check for Updates" feature within your Patchkeeper software.
Read on for a bit more on Diskeeper Corporation's partnership with Shavlik Technologies...
Shavlik Technologies is the pioneer and technology leader in patch management. That is why Diskeeper Corporation sought them out when we wanted to add patch management into our Sitekeeper product over 4 years ago. Patchkeeper leverages an SDK (Solution Developer Kit) licensed from Shavlik. It has been one of the most popular componenets of the modular Sitekeeper Suite, in which you can license only the features you need.
Shavlik became hugely popular with freeware tools and their more advanced enterprise-class full featured products. Even with Microsoft's advances into the patch management field, Shavlik maintains a technological edge - after all it is their specialty. The following article at Redmond Mag is a good overview of the value of Shavlik technology.
Posted by Michael at 07:20 AM | Comments (0)
October 02, 2007
50 Windows Home Server beta testers need to test the NEW Diskeeper HomeServer (English Language edition)!
This is a limited program. Only the first 50 completed and signed applicants will be accepted AND, you must be a customer of Diskeeper (please provide email address used to purchase or register software). You will need to complete testing by October 7th and take a survey of about 40 questions (most are multiple choice). Yes, we understand this is a short time frame, but the software is primed for release and has been through several stages of testing already; we want to get this on the market! You can have the chance to get the first peak at this exciting and fully WHS-integrated version of Diskeeper.
To sign up for the Diskeeper HomeServer field test please visit this site, and select the Windows Field Test Application Form. The contact email address is qtesting@diskeeper.com.
Please note that you will need to sign the non-disclosure agreement. In short this means that you must refrain from discussing the pre-release software publicly. Please read the document for the full requirements and instructions.
We hope you have fun testing the software!
Posted by Michael at 04:53 PM | Comments (0)
October 01, 2007
Pedal to the Metal at Diskeeper Corp
It's been a while since the last posting on the blog as September has been an extremely busy month at Diskeeper Corporation. Our marketing and development teams have been working long hours for many weeks to get our latest and greatest software to you. We have numerous software products coming in the near future - every product in the Diskeeper Corporation lineup will have significant releases in Q4 of this year.
We're confident our great new technologies in the pipeline will continue our tremendous success this year. Our Sales team just pulled off our highest-ever sales quarter (Q3), and are well ahead of pace to have a record setting year for the company.
Our CEO and top execs recently returned from China as part of our company expansion; and the release of Diskeeper 2007 into Chinese (simplified and traditional) has opened the floodgates to numerous opportunities in that emerging superpower.
We've also added some great new talent to the software and business development areas in recent months, including some top-caliber C# developers dedicated to Diskeeper Administrator and execs with strong technical background in SAN and security technologies.
Earlier this year we implemented a new programming methodology that has already been paying off with tremendous gains in our software's reliability and efficiency, allowing us to get better products to market faster.
Stay tuned!
Posted by Michael at 11:25 PM | Comments (2)
May 04, 2007
2nd place ain't so bad. - a Channel blog
Diskeeper 2007 took second place in Storage Management Software in the eWEEK "Channel Products of the Year".
This was rated by Resellers based on 4 areas: familiarity with product, profit potential of the product to the channel, opportunity the product presents for associated sales, and overall market impact of the product.
It's nice to get this kind of recognition for our company's efforts to support the channel. It's been a major committment, especially in the last few years, and has been a large factor in our current growth and expansion.
Speaking of channel support, several of our Channel Reps and I will be at the QLogic Fusion event in San Diego next week. If you are a Reseller attending this show, stop by our booth!
Posted by Michael at 10:40 PM | Comments (0)
April 05, 2007
New Diskeeper version every year.
Diskeeper Corporation has released 11 Diskeeper versions for Windows in 11 years. Why is this relevant?
Apart from the fact that Diskeeper regulary keeps it latest technology available to customers, it also means that customers on maintenance really get there money's worth.
Diskeeper Corporation, like many software companies offer what is called Software Maintenance (others may called is Upgrade Assurance or similar). This deal is made available and sold to customers at the time of thier initial license purchase. It is a percentage of the cost of the software license, and is usually purchased by time periods. It is common to offer 1 year, 2 year, and sometimes 3 year maintenance. The longer the Software Maintenance term, the lower the per year cost of the maintenance. At Diskeeper Corporation, Software Maintenance also includes technical support beyond the free 90-day support offered for new purchases for the length of time of the maintenace agreement.
Depending on where you purchase Diskeeper, the maintenance may be easy to find and purchase, but it is always available. If you are purchasing from a reseller, let them know you are interested in purchasing this as well.
Why is this valuable and why did I note that we have a track record of releasing a new Diskeeper version every year? Because, for around 25% of the cost of the license(s), a customer can purchase 1 year maintenance and almost certainly receive the next version for cheap. That's true even if you purchased a Diskeeper edition the first day it is released, as we also have a great track record of releasing a new version of Diskeeper within 12 months (1 year) of the previous release.
Getting that new version out to reward our maintenance customers is one of the big targets we set for ourselves every year. While we can never promise to hit that target, we have an excellent track record.
Posted by Michael at 10:15 PM | Comments (2)
March 27, 2007
So easy a caveman can do it!
Ease of use. This was one of the core driving factors that we built Diskeeper 2007 around. We wanted to deliver a product that was completely automated, and solved poor disk performance without the user having to lift a finger. That design works great for the home user, gamer, the small business customer all the way up to mission critical servers in the world's largest corporations.
With that cheesy intro, I'd like to welcome our new friends, the wacky green lizard and neanderthal friends to the Diskeeper family. As a site license customer (formerly Winternals Defrag Manager's largest), they join Diskeeper site/huge VL license customers in the insurance biz such as Allstate, Nationwide, 21st Century and Liberty Mutual.
Posted by Michael at 10:21 PM | Comments (1)
March 16, 2007
Product Activation - Why?
Foreword: This blog is written to express my personal viewpoint of why Diskeeper Corporation has included activation in the latest Diskeeper 2007 version.
A few years ago, Diskeeper Corporation began a global expansion plan. That plan targeted Asia as a huge and growing market, about to come into its own in the world of software. China is predicted to be the world economic power in a relatively short period of time. One example of this is the city of Shenzhen. Shenzhen has grown from a few hundred thousand locals in 1980 to about 10 million people today. This city was "created" by the Chinese government as a modern industrial city and trade center to the world.
Pioneers such as Adobe and Microsoft have long since moved to take advantage of this burgeoning market. As part of that process they developed anti-piracy technologies and began educational campaigns in many parts of the world, including Asia.
Diskeeper Corporation has established great partners in these new locations to help expand the company. They are there to aid customers in their respective regions with Sales and Support. They are also a tremendous asset in that they are local to their regions and know the culture. We understand that we, as an American company, have a lot to learn with respect to doing business with the rest of the world.
While I can't speak for the reasons Microsoft, Autodesk, or Adobe have added activation, I am privy to much of the same type of information from which they are operating. These are the reasons Diskeeper Corporation has moved in this direction. In many parts of the world, digital piracy is rampant.
So why is the piracy rate so much higher in other parts of the world than in North America or Western Europe? Are people in those regions "bad people" or more prone to steal? No. In large part it is cultural. In many East Asian cultures, "copying" is considered flattery. If you have a desirable product and others want it to the point of copying it, that is considered a compliment to the original creator. Little has been done to educate these markets that copying movies, music and software hurts the artists/companies and the employees of those companies, who create these products. The Western concept of "copying is illegal" does not exist in the same form. We cannot judge other cultures by our standards. If there is disagreement, then it is our job to educate, understand, and come to a cooperative arrangement.
Another consideration is pricing. Music [MP3] piracy was rampant in the late 90's (Napster, Kazaa). It's not that it isn't a problem now, but legal outlets to purchase electronic music at more consumer-agreeable pricing have helped. Being able to spend just $.99 USD/per song, for a couple of songs you like off of a new music CD, rather than paying $12.99 USD or more for 10 songs, 8 of which you did not care for makes getting what you want for a price you are willing to pay feasible. In less economically-developed parts of the world, prices originating from more-developed nations may exclude the affordability of a product. In many parts of China a family making $500 USD a month is considered middle class. Selling Windows, for example, for a price of $300 or so USD would mean that a family would have to work weeks to be able to purchase it. Local economies work on a relative scale so schools in those regions would not be able to purchase Windows. That is why Microsoft has special products, such as the Starter Edition for Vista, and why Diskeeper Corp is working with partners local to these developing nations.
While much of the foreign piracy is a matter of differing philosophy, there is an entire industry of piracy in Asia - it is big business. Yes, the people in this industry are well aware what they are doing is wrong. And yes, it is illegal in those regions to do this, but on the streets they run the operation much like a drug dealer would in the US. I recently returned from a trip to East Asia where I saw street vendors selling pirated software. One "booth" in particular that I photographed was a table covered with pieces of paper identifying different software products by name only - mostly Microsoft and Adobe. Buyers pick a title they want to buy. They tell the booth attendant who then disappears around a corner. The attendant tells another hidden partner who then also disappears. A few moments later the attendant returns with the chosen software package - often in perfect replicas of the original package. It's all very orchestrated and covert.
Diskeeper is not in the position of Microsoft, we just don't come anywhere remotely close to them in market presence and power. We are a small, humble company with a very focused existence. We do not believe, for a second, that those who willingly and knowingly pirate our software will purchase it, and we aren't trying to change that. Personally, I'm not opposed to Microsoft's activation - I agree with it, given it is done right. I also agree with the Recording Industry Association of America's movement to protect digital content under the same circumstances. Why? Because they will put that revenue back into their products and services and the result of that will be benefit me. And no, I don't buy into the "they make enough money already" excuse. It's real people (artists, developers, actors, and the supporting staff) that are affected.
I agree that those who will steal, will still find a way. Some will view Windows Activation procedures as a challenge, just as they view the creation and distribution of destructive viruses as a challenge. They'll do everything in their power to defeat activation, create viruses, spyware, etc... In the long run, I agree that it will take the individual to be morally responsible for their own actions. I think for that to occur the manufacturer's who create, or represent the artist/intellectual property(IP), will first need to educate the world on how to view and respect IP. That will take time. The "casual" copier will hopefully come around, and the real bad guys will hopefully either reform and use their technical or business talents to be productive helpful members of society (and probably make a lot of money doing so), or be caught and shut down.
Are we trying to penalize the honest buyer in Omaha, Toronto, Frankfurt, Shanghai, Jaipur, etc...? No, and I do not think that the technology we have built and refined does so. Some companies have made mistakes in the past and developed technically incorrect or invasive anti-piracy technologies. Of that there is no doubt. Diskeeper Corporation is in the privileged position of being able to learn from the mistakes of others and not repeat them. That affords the ability to properly execute "best intentions". We spent many years of R&D to get the technology to where it is today.
We are not trying to stop the casual copier, and we are not adding activation out of arrogance. We are adding activation so that we can grow our company and make money in markets where we could not otherwise do so. If the only way to accomplish this expansion was to screw over existing customers, we would not do it. Our existing loyal customer base is why we are where we are. It's why I and all the rest of the staff as Diskeeper Corp have a job.
I do, however, think it is unfair to customer's who pay for the software to have others illegally download the same software and not pay for it. As a paying customer, I'd be upset that someone else can easily download a pirate copy of the latest Norah Jones or The Shins CDs for free when I've paid for it. That's not self-righteousness, it is simply not fair to me, or for that matter, to you as a loyal paying customer in the case of Diskeeper.
Ultimately, the choice is yours. Unfortunately some will say activation, on sheer principle, is unfair, unjust, and invasive. If an anti-piracy technology is invasive or irresponsible then I would agree that it is not acceptable. I would not buy it, nor would I expect anyone else to do so. Yes, this has been done in the past, but the "guilt by association" principle connection to Diskeeper is not true. I think we have done a good job making this technology seamless. I'd like to think it is perfect, but there is always room for improvement and we definitely want to hear from you on how we can better service you. That is what has made Diskeeper successful and nothing else (and we'll never forget that).
-Michael
PS: We have had a section in the FAQ page on Activation since the release of Diskeeper 2007. If you have any questions that are not answered there, let us know. More information for volume license customer will be coming soon.
Posted by Michael at 05:56 PM | Comments (5)
March 13, 2007
Top 10 Corporate Utilties - a marketing blog.
First off, please forgive the non-technical blog. It's a rarity and I'm promise not to make a habit of it.
So how does the most popular automatic defragmenter (with a 98.9% defragmenter market share*) compare with other popular corporate software products? Lucky Number 7! Given the respective company, that's not to shabby.
Best-Selling System Utilities for Corporate Use by Unit Volume* (North America):
1. Symantec Antivirus, Symantec
2. Symantec Ghost, Symantec
3. NeatSuite, Trend Micro
4. Clnt/Svr, Trend Micro
5. ScanMail, Trend Micro
6. Active Virus Defense, McAfee Inc.
7. Diskeeper, Diskeeper Corporation
8. Active VirusScan, McAfee Inc.
9. Etrust, CA, Inc
10. OfficeScan, Trend Micro
Top 10 list taken from a 3 month span of unit sales, from November 2006 through January 2007.
*North American Product ranking and market share are based on unit sales. All the data comes from National Purchase Diary (NPD) distribution channel software sales report. NPD captures 88% of all sales going through distribution channels.
Posted by Michael at 08:09 PM | Comments (2)
March 06, 2007
New Diskeeper Build (11.0.701) available
We've released another build of Diskeeper 2007 with a few minor fixes and new functionality. This build will install on Windows 2000/2003/XP/Vista. Here's the list of enhancements:
1. This product always requires Product Activation upon install.
2. Silent Activation is enabled which will automatically activate when an internet connection is found.
3. If an Internet Connection is not found, the ability to manually activate the product is available (also for PC's not connected to the Internet).
4. Fixed some User Interface refresh issues.
5. Changes have been made to prevent Diskeeper from unnecessarily polling floppy disk drives in Vista (already fixed for other OS'es in build 698).
6. Reliability and performance issues handled.
7. Diskeeper now preserves timeframe exclusions when imaging across multiple machines.
8. Diskeeper defragments NTFS Metadata Files ($Extend) in XP and above online. This includes the USN Journal.
9. Diskeeper now recognizes Encrypted Virtual Drives.
10. Fixed minor issue regarding MFT fragmentation reporting.
11. Boot-Time Directory Consolidation is now available for FAT volumes.
12. Some 508-compliance (accessibility) issues have been fixed.
13. Fixed InvisiTasking graphs for Foreign Operating Systems.
14. I-FAAST Measurement fixed for Foreign Operating Systems.
15. Fixed various minor Vista Compatibility Issues.
This build is available via Check for Updates if you are running Vista. Due to the fact that this build requires activation (and you may not have had to do this in the past) it is not yet available via Check for Updates for XP/2000 users, though will be in the near future. You can, however, grab the trialware from our website and install it over an older, licensed, build of Diskeeper 2007. This is essentially the same as downloading and installing the trialware from the Check for Updates site.
I anticipate one more build release for Diskeeper 2007 in the coming month or two as we complete other minor accessibility requirements for our standard Microsoft "Logo" Certification for Vista and Windows 2003.
PS: Sorry for the hiatus from blogging. I've have been (and still am out of town - travelling in East Asia, meeting with partners and customers). I will answer questions asked in in the blog after March 10th.
Posted by Michael at 10:18 AM | Comments (23)
February 09, 2007
Emotionally fragmented?
A little over a week ago one of our employees (Amy, who heads up the Market Surveying division) received an amusing horoscope, via email, from Yahoo Astrology.
Dear Amy,
Here is your horoscope for Wednesday, January 31:
"You need to spend a little time on your own today, because you've got some issues that need working out. It's nothing serious -- it's kind of like defragging your hard drive, emotionally speaking. "
Sorry Amy, we don't make software for that - you're on your own.
Posted by Michael at 07:09 PM | Comments (0)
February 05, 2007
New Diskeeper 2007 Update
There is a new free update of Diskeeper 2007 (11.0.698) available via the "Check for Updates" in the software. This product contains the following enhancements (overview):
1. Correct detection of volumes (including improvement for removable drives such as iPods or USB keys)
2. Delays on system startup and resource usage improvements
3. Usability updates (i.e "508" compliance)
4. Product licensing enhancements
5. Checks to ensure that upgrades will occur as expected (notifying the user at installation time if upgrade will become trialware or when upgrading across editions)
6. Corrections for over-installs, to preserve settings
7. Fixed issue for USB volumes with no files
8. Directory consolidation configuration options
9. Terabyte Volume Engine (TVE) changes to improve error handling and boot optimization
10. Directory Consolidation changes to correctly handle log file
11. "Silent install" improvements for upgrade and update situations
12. Resolves the "floppy drive polling" in build 11.0.693
Please note this build does NOT install on Vista. See the earlier blog on how to get Diskeeper 2007 for Vista (11.0.697).
Posted by Michael at 09:23 PM | Comments (1)
October 22, 2006
Fun with NTFS Data Streams
The following is a re-issue of an article written in June 2002 for the Diskeeper eLetter:
---
The NTFS file system contains an unheralded feature called streams. Using the stream facility, a single file can contain multiple streams of data, each separately addressable.
What could be done using such a facility? Well, if you remember old DOS-style database systems such as Paradox, youll remember that each database you made actually created a number of files. For example, if someone created Paradox database named films, hed end up with the files:
films.db
films.ix
films.r
If one of these files got accidentally deleted, the whole database was essentially deleted. If one needed to copy the database to another directory (folder), one would have to copy ALL the files to the new directory, or the database wouldnt function correctly.
What if all the files needed by a Paradox database could actually be folded into a single file? That would make accidental deletion of a single file harder, and would make the action of copying the database from one folder to another much easier and more reliable.
Using the stream facility, creating such a database system is much easier.
Using streams, a single file could be made, called:
films.pdx
Within that file could reside the streams
films.db
films.ix
films.r
At the Explorer level, however, all you would see is a single entry:
films.pdx
Lets have a little fun with streams...
(All the below examples were done on Windows XP. Your mileage may vary.)
(To run these examples, it is best to open a command prompt window. DO NOT USE THE RUN SELECTION FROM THE START MENU.)
Lets make a simple text file. Open a command prompt window and enter the command:
notepad testfile.txt
Notepad will, of course, ask if you want to create the file, and you say yes.
Enter the following string into notepad:
Once upon a midnight dreary
Exit notepad, saving the changes.
Back at the command prompt window, type the following command:
type testfile.txt
Of course, you get back the string Once upon a midnight dreary.
Now enter the following command at the command prompt:
notepad testfile.txt:hidden
(The quotes are part of the command.) Notepad will ask if you want to create the file, and you answer yes.
Enter the string into notepad:
While I pondered weak and weary
Exit notepad, saving the changes.
Back at the command prompt, enter the following command:
type testfile.txt
You get the line Once upon a midnight dreary again.
What happened to weak and weary?
Enter the following command at the command prompt:
dir
Well, theres no entry for testfile.txt:hidden, is there?
In fact, the directory output says:
06/18/2002 11:46 AM 27 testfile.txt
Hmmm. 27 bytes is Once upon a midnight dreary.
Enter the following command at the command prompt:
notepad testfile.txt:hidden
and lo! While I pondered weak and weary is still there!
Whats going on?
The line While I pondered weak and weary is in a stream whose name is hidden. Because it has a name, it is called, oddly enough, a named stream. The semantics for getting at a named stream are to take the file name (testfile.txt), append a colon (:), and append the stream name (hidden). The only way to get this past the command-prompt parsing in notepad parsing is to surround the whole string with double quotes.
Thats how we get the command
notepad testfile.txt:hidden
What about the midnight dreary string? Its contained in whats called the default or unnamed stream. The unnamed stream is what you get if you dont specify a stream name.
If we look at the MFT record for the file testfile.txt, it looks like this:
000000: 46494c45 30000300 4155925e 00000000 FILE0...AU.^....
000010: 0c000100 38000100 a0010000 00040000 ....8...........
000020: 00000000 00000000 04000000 c1620000 .............b..
000030: 0c000000 00000000 10000000 60000000 ............`...
000040: 00000000 00000000 48000000 18000000 ........H.......
000050: d00c70db f316c201 8070ad72 f816c201 ..p......p.r....
000060: 8070ad72 f816c201 8070ad72 f816c201 .p.r.....p.r....
000070: 20000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 ...............
000080: 00000000 82010000 00000000 00000000 ................
000090: 00000000 00000000 30000000 78000000 ........0...x...
0000a0: 00000000 00000200 5a000000 18000100 ........Z.......
0000b0: 05000000 00000500 d00c70db f316c201 ..........p.....
0000c0: d00c70db f316c201 d00c70db f316c201 ..p.......p.....
0000d0: d00c70db f316c201 00000000 00000000 ..p.............
0000e0: 00000000 00000000 20000000 00000000 ........ .......
0000f0: 0c037400 65007300 74006600 69006c00 ..t.e.s.t.f.i.l.
000100: 65002e00 74007800 74000000 00000000 e...t.x.t.......
000110: 80000000 38000000 00001800 00000100 ....8...........
000120: 1b000000 18000000 4f6e6365 2075706f ........Once upo
000130: 6e206120 6d69646e 69676874 20647265 n a midnight dre
000140: 6172792e 00000000 80000000 50000000 ary.........P...
000150: 000a1800 00000300 20000000 30000000 ........ ...0...
000160: 68006900 64006400 65006e00 2e007400 h.i.d.d.e.n...t.
000170: 78007400 00000000 5768696c 65204920 x.t.....While I
000180: 706f6e64 65726564 20776561 6b20616e pondered weak an
000190: 64207765 6172792e ffffffff 82794711 d weary......yG.
0001a0: 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 ................
0001b0: 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 ................
0001c0: 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 ................
0001d0: 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 ................
0001e0: 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 ................
0001f0: 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 ................
If you look at line f0, you can see the unicode name of the file.
If you look at line 120, you can see the data contained in the unnamed stream.
If you look at line 160, you can see the unicode name of the named stream. (Yes, its named hidden.txt, but whats a boy to do? We used notepad after all.)
If you look at line 170, you can see the data contained in the named stream.
Pretty neat, huh?
So, what problems are there with using data streams?
Well, as weve seen, only the UNNAMED data stream shows up in a DIR command or EXPLORER details. You cant tell how much data is contained in any named streams using standard user-level tools.
In fact, sometimes a file says its zero bytes, yet theres mega- or gigabytes in the named stream!
The problem with the lack of display data is that a malicious user could hide 12GB of data in a named stream, thus making your file server volume run out of space, and youd have no way to figure out whos eating all the space. This would be considered a classic denial of service attack.
Another problem, is, of course, that streams dont exist on FAT. If you copy a multi-stream file to a FAT volume, something funny will happen. All the streams will disappear except the unnamed stream.
So, we see that once an application begins to use streams, it can only run on NTFS volumes after that!
Posted by Michael at 11:10 PM | Comments (0)
October 18, 2006
Getting Help With Diskeeper 2007 - Where To Go
The launch of a new product is a busy time for any software company and Diskeeper Corp is no exception. To prepare, we've improved our automation processes and increased staff in all areas that deal with our customers. The release is going very smoothly, but questions always come up, and our staff are hard at work helping everyone out. If you have questions or need assistance, below is a good list of places to find more information, and/or where send your requests for customers in North America:
For technical support, please visit: http://www.diskeeper.com/support/
If you have issues with the website, please email our Web Team: webmaster@diskeeper.com
If you have general requests, such as resending your software purchase/maintenance letter, please email our Customer Support Team at: service@diskeeper.com
You can find additional contact information at: http://www.diskeeper.com/contact/contact.asp
If you purchased from a reseller, please return to them for assistance. If you are located outside the US/Canada, please visit your respective Diskeeper reseller or partner.
Posted by Michael at 08:00 PM | Comments (4)
September 14, 2006
Marketing Slogans That Never Made It
With respect to David Letterman, The Top Ten Diskeeper slogans that never made it:
10. The only software to get a speeding ticket
9. Fragmentation is as fragmentation does
8. th3 NUm83R 0N3 4Ut0m4T1C d3FR49M3Nt3r
7. Death, Taxes, Fragmentation.
6. Fragmentation Happens :-)
5. "Every PC dies, not every PC really lives!"
4. "Set It 'n' Faahgeddabooouud-It"
3. Automizzle fo' shizzle
2. Diskeeper "does it" in the background!
1. Pimp My Drive
Thanks to Paul and Derek for their contributions. Got any more? Let us know.
Posted by Michael at 07:57 PM | Comments (3)
August 09, 2006
New Partner Portal!!!
If you currently resell software or have considered reselling, checkout our newly launched partner portal.
If you want to partner with Diskeeper, ideally you would register and get a login, but you don't need one. From the main page click the "Software" link at the top, or simply go to this page and follow the nav on the left.
We have overhauled the site providing more resources and promotions to make it easier for partners to make money with Diskeeper. As part of our growing effort to extend more personalized service to our partners, we have an excellent page allowing one to rapidly get in touch with the Diskeeper employee that handles your specific needs.
-Paul
Posted by paul.shomo at 06:31 PM | Comments (0)
July 14, 2006
Who uses Diskeeper?
Apparently a lot of people do!
Diskeeper recently surpassed the 20 million licenses sold mark.
-Paul
Posted by paul.shomo at 07:26 PM | Comments (0)
May 24, 2006
Diskeeper Affiliate Program
Our affiliate program is an excellent way for people to make money by recommending Diskeeper on their website. We currently have over a hundred affiliates which recommend Diskeeper on their website. When someone you recommend purchases Diskeeper you get a 10% commission.
You can apply to join our Affiliate Program here.
After you are accepted in our program, our Affiliates Portal provides simple instructions, graphics and box shots to get you started making money.
-Paul
Posted by paul.shomo at 12:50 AM | Comments (0)
April 20, 2006
Virtual Server Defrag Heating Up
Virtual server defragmentation is getting even more attention with the media coverage of our recent partnership initiative with Microsoft. In case anybody missed it, Microsoft's recent announcement mentioned us as one of their key partners involved in pushing forward virtualization technology. See articles in Redmond Magazine, InformationWeek, and CRN.
Many IT professionals are currently using Diskeeper to defragment Virtual Server 2005 and VMWare with much success, however there is still work to be done to ensure that the most thorough defragmentation job can be achieved on the host and virtual levels.
These technical challenges are why Microsoft has tapped us yet again to push forward defragmentation technology on the Windows platform.
Server virtualization has the effect of making the mechanical disk drive an even bigger bottleneck. As I've said before on this blog, automatic defragmentation should play a key part in your virtualization strategy.
—Paul
Posted by paul.shomo at 09:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 11, 2006
My last entry
Regarding my last entry:
Someone pointed out (correctly) that the article from Microsoft was not in fact new. I had picked it up on my google alerts and had some difficulty verifying the date it was written. I offer my apologies for the mistake.
I also want to point out that some of the commenters on my entry are confused about free space defragmentation. All 3rd party defragmenters defragment free space. Everyone agrees that it needs to be defragmented.
The only question is to what degree. Some in the industry have promoted free space "consolidation" or the putting of all the free space into one-pool as an attempt at product differentiation. We disagree with this approach of putting it into one-pool, and always have.
Has Diskeeper improved over the years at free space defragmentation? Yes. Should we suddenly switch to "consolidate" free space into one-pool? No.
The point of my last post was to point out that the one-pool philosophy is incorrect. Going the extra mile to put all of the free space into one-pool is a waste of resources as it only temporarily creates a pretty disk map. In the article I referenced, Microsoft also endorses a different approach when they state that free space should be in, "a few contiguous portions of the disk."
I will let the Diskeeper Product Manager Michael elaborate further.
Posted by paul.shomo at 07:07 PM | Comments (0)
March 17, 2006
Microsoft and Diskeeper Agree on Free Space Defrag
There has been some confusion in the past regarding free space defragmentation. Some people in the industry believed that after a defragmentation job free space should be consolidated into one pool. Here at Diskeeper Corporation we have long since maintained that this doesn't make sense (see our whitepaper on this very subject). Moving free space into one consolidated pool is a temporary condition that wastes resources and serves no purpose. Instead free space should be grouped in a few contiguous pools.
I was happy to see Microsoft has recently validated our longstanding position. Checkout the section on free space fragmentation in the new Microsoft TechNet article, Maintaining Windows 2000 Peak Performance through Defragmentation:
"Free Space Fragmentation
A partially full disk contains unused space, known as free space. Ideally, this space would be available in a few contiguous portions of the disk." -Microsoft TechNet
-Paul
Posted by paul.shomo at 09:47 PM | Comments (15) | TrackBack
March 15, 2006
New Microsoft Defragmentation Recommendations
A new Microsoft TechNet article, Maintaining Windows 2000 Peak Performance through Defragmentation, was recently published. The article provides a very good overview on disk fragmentation.
From 2005 to 2006 Microsoft has improved dramatically in their defrag schedule recommendations, switching from the outdated monthly rule of thumb to recommending a weekly schedule. While Microsoft's recent schedule recommendation is a big improvement, it doesn't go far enough.
In this article Microsoft makes the observation that, "normal, day-to-day use of your computer will cause fragmentation". Even a desktop in a client-server environment (where the data resides on a file server) can see 1,000+ fragments build up on its local disk drive in a single day. Worse yet these fragmented files are probably among a small set of files you use the most. A daily schedule is really the way to go. A daily defrag schedule keeps your defragmentation jobs short and handles fragmentation as it occurs, ensuring no losses in performance.
Posted by paul.shomo at 11:10 PM | Comments (0)
March 04, 2006
Defrag your virtual servers daily!
Several months ago I blogged on the importance of defragmenting virtual servers. I was very pleased to see a recent article in Redmond Magazine discussing VMware, storage virtualization and defragmentation. The following is a choice quote from the article:
"Defragment the host's disks as often as possible. Members of the VMware community recommend doing so on a daily basis. With VMware's disk files often consuming gigabytes of space for a single file, even a little fragmentation can significantly impact performance."
More and more people are recognizing the need for daily defragmentation in today's storage environment. A daily schedule keeps defrag jobs short and handles fragmentation as it occurs.
Have you defragged today?
-Paul
Posted by paul.shomo at 12:04 AM | Comments (1)
December 24, 2005
64 Bit Support Added to Diskeeper Professional Edition
Due to the demand we have seen for 64 bit support in our advanced editions, we have now added 64 bit support to Diskeeper Professional Edition.
Currently all of our editions (with the exception of Diskeeper Home) support 64 bit computing.
Enjoy the extra 32 bits!
-Paul
Posted by paul.shomo at 01:20 AM | Comments (0)
December 06, 2005
Diskeeper 10.0 is out!
This is the best version we've ever done by a longshot. Almost everything in Diskeeper 10 has been improved.
The first thing users will notice is an improved user interface which is easier to use and provides even more robust reports on disk health, real-time performance and fragmentation statistics.
In Diskeeper 10, we're also announcing I-FAAST (Intelligent File Access Acceleration Sequencing Technology), the first successful implementation of Disk Performance Calibration technology. I-FAAST will improve file access times for frequently used files by an average of 10-20% (but sometimes by as much as 80%). Keep in mind this boost is in addition to defragmenting files!
Diskeeper 10 really has been designed for today's enrivonment of spiraling storage device capacity. Diskeeper handles bigger drives and bigger files - faster than ever before. Diskeeper 10 also more thoroughly defragments free space and works better in low free space environments.
Users will also find that we've made Diskeeper 10 even less intrusive. In version 10 we have improved I/O Smart, which allows Diskeeper to defragment in the "spaces" between normal disk I/O requests.
-Paul
Posted by paul.shomo at 10:44 PM | Comments (2)
November 09, 2005
Independent performance testing on fragmentation?
Once and a while I'm asked for independent studies on the performance effects of disk fragmentation. There are some excellent studies out there.
Diskeeper Corporation recently sponsored a paper done by Windows IT Pro. Their writer, Joe Kinsella, actually developed his own test tools in order to do a very thorough fragmentation performance study:
Besides the recent study we sponsored, there are a bunch of other independent studies in existence. A quick Google search yields a Harvard University study on UNIX:
http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~keith/research/tr94.html
I was unable to find a university study on Windows. I imagine Universities are probably less interested in studying the effects of fragmentation on FAT and NTFS, because it's generally considered common knowledge that file fragmentation hurts their performance.
Once in a while a media source does in-depth fragmentation testing as part of a review, such as this PC Mag article:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1591466,00.asp
The non-profit organization National Software Test Lab (NSTL) has also done performance tests on fragmentation:
http://www.softwareshelf.com/HTML/products/prod_materials/5/NSTLXP_mddvdk.pdf
- Paul
Posted by paul.shomo at 07:47 AM | Comments (1)
November 02, 2005
Checkout Diskeeper's New Knowledge Center
Our new Diskeeper Knowledge Center is one of the most complete sources of research and test data on disk fragmentation:
http://www.diskeeper.com/products/documentation/documentation.asp
Posted by paul.shomo at 07:40 AM | Comments (0)
October 27, 2005
Server Virtualization Weakens Hard Drives?
Server virtualization is expected to be one of the more disruptive technologies on the horizon. For those that don't know, server virtualization refers to running multiple instances of server OS'es on a single hardware platform. For instance a company could use server virtualization software, such as MS Virtual Server 2005 or VMware, to run virtual instances of both their file and database servers on a
single hardware platform.
Why would you do this? So you can better match your service needs to the available hardware, possibly reducing the number of servers you employ.
The other day our Chief Technologist mentioned to me that while at Microsoft's Product Developers Conference (PDC), Microsoft's presenter commented that when using Virtual PR it's very important to defragment your hard drive. He also noted that the defragger built into Windows croaks on the larger files which are created by virtualization software. Microsoft's speaker was obviously a very smart man
since he recommended using Diskeeper to the audience.
Here at Diskeeper Corporation we've been saying that the mechanical disk drive is the weak link in system performance for years. Obviously when multiple instances of servers access the same storage hardware it's going to aggravate this bottleneck. So if you plan to consolidate your servers with a virtualization solution, make sure your plan also involves automatic defragmentation.
Posted by paul.shomo at 07:43 AM | Comments (0)