When defraging a computer, do you need to close all running programs? If so, how do I find what programs are running?

No...if that was necessary, then defrag would probably act like chkdsk on the boot drive (closes XP, then runs).

Louis

defrag takes a lot of ram and likes to have exclusive access to your hard drive, it's such a critical operation I like to let it run with all programs closed and just stay off the computer till it finishes

closing up all the programs running next to the clock and speaker are a good idea, might leave firewall turned on?

thanks for your input. been helpful. have a great day.