After shutting down your computer, it begins to quietly scan your hard drives for problems, defragging as it goes, and searching for viruses. If problems are found, you are alerted next time you turn your machine on, so they can be repaired right away.

Of course, since a shutdown machine can be unplugged, or the power might go out, all operations are done redundantly, to make sure no data is lost.

Perhaps this would be better as a third option among 'shutdown' and 'sleep'.

(P.S: Category suggestions?)
-- rgovostes, Jan 16 2004

I like the idea of the third option: Shutdown after Drive Check, Defrag, virus scan...etc...+
-- Dently, Jan 17 2004


I've encountered computers which are set up to do some or all of those operations upon shutdown; it would annoy me as I invariably shut down a computer because I want it off.

Why not check during idle time when the computer is on? 2 of the 3 operations you mention are commonly done already (tho admittedly some software could be a bit more intelligent as to when to do it).
-- benjamin, Jan 17 2004


Why would the processor have to run at full power? The drive could be scanned slowly over an entire night. I'd use it if it was silent.
-- RobertKidney, Jan 17 2004


[Rods] - should be fairly easy for a hard drive to do a search-for-bad-sectors type of diagnostics when the rest of the 'puter is off / not using the drive.
-- benjamin, Jan 18 2004


What would be good here would be an option to shut down all application system services, then do the drive check, and then power down. At least under 95/98, ScanDisk was often useless because something would always disrupt it before it completed and then it would have to start all over. Having all applications shut down before the drive can could be a big plus.

In addition, having 200+ megs of RAM available for a defrag algorithm could allow an efficiently-written defrag algorithm to run much faster than most such algorithms seem to do.
-- supercat, Jan 18 2004


As a PC technician, I prefer to set my system alarm to auto-boot my system at 6:00 PM, then I have my AVG antivirus update and scan at 6:05, then Windows Update runs promptly after that. Weekly, I schedule a defrag, at 3:00 in the morning each Monday; when that is done, my system restarts, then hibernates. Each day, when I get home at 7:30, my media center/server is good to go. I manually run malware checks every few days while watching a movie, or while recording a show; my dual-proc rig can do that.

The issue with the virus scan is that there are updated definitions to install; thus requiring a firmware update, etc. Everything would be hardware run. Software is just easier and more efficient. However, as a fifth option in the shut down menu, you could have the various programs run, after all other processes are ended, then shut down the PC when done. Still, it is much easier to just do it yourself...

I stay neutral.
-- Shrimp, Aug 23 2006



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