Defragmenting

Many would consider Norton better, because you can select the order in which files are stored on your disk. That would best for the "sophisticated" user. You'd want to know which files or programs you'd want to open most quickly, and put them in the most accessible position.

If you have no opinion on that subject, or lack the knowledge to make the decision, its six of one and half-a-dozen of the other. In such a case, i'd use the Windows defrag, just to keep a cranky operating system happy.

the windows defragmenter does just what is says. it reconstructs files fragments. however, this doesn't have anything to do with WHERE it puts that fragment. norton, on the other hand "optimizes" the disk. norton will reconstruct files and place them in specific order according to the probability that you will access it again. the most accessed files are kept contiguous so they can be read without moving the heads around the disk. so ideally, norton will show a more noticeable improvement.

Norton has more bells and whitsles. A larger upside as well as a larger downside.

The positives ahve already been covered so let me say that I'd never let Norton Unilities (other than an AV program) onto a computer I use. The reason being that it's bloatware and can cause many problems. It's like having an unecessary, redundant operating system.

Defragment
Thanks, everybody. I think that I'll stick with the Windows defragmenter, since I haven't the sophistication to deal with choosing how to arrange things, and no particular feel for what should go where when. And I certainly don't see any point now in running both items.

Craven - it seems to me that Norton does things I wouldn't know how to do myself. Are they necessary? If not Norton, then what? I wouldn't want to clutter up my computer with useless stuff, but is Norton useless?