As for defragging hard disk/electronic storage, Microsoft software in my Windows 7 is excruciatingly slow. Get a free defrag from Auslogics.. it works much faster and gives a great visual image of which files are being defragged.

Also periodically clean out browsing history, which can build up huge.

I've downloaded Auslogics and it worked great. Really liked it. But, although I 'saved' it
it keeps disappearing and I have to re-download it.

Every time I run Auslogics defrag, it tells me newer versions are available, but I stay with the simpler & older version.

After downloading did you install it with correct options?
Any of your other programs disappear as well?

I re-downloaded it tonight and used it.

I recall that as something we did before Windows, and when we still had to format our floppy discs. It's been so long I couldn't begin to tell you when I last did it.

No need to bother running it manually, though you certain CAN if you want to.

And you shouldn't (IMHO) use any other defragger than the one that comes with Windows for that reason ... first of all every other defragger uses the Windows Engine to accomplish the task, so nothing else is actually 'faster'. Secondly, if the alternative defragger uses different algorithms to decide where to put the files on the disc (some have options like 'faster bootup defrag', that sort of thing), what will end up happening is that the built-in Windows auto defrag will eventually kick in ... it will trigger Window Defrag to rearrange and undo most if not all the stuff that other defragger did to your drive anyway.

I would try again but make sure you run the built in disk cleanup utility first, and make sure to click the 'cleanup system files' button straight off, this will add some stuff to the initial list like Windows Update Cleanup, which I def. recommend. Also helpful is deleting all but most recent Restore point, an option on a second tab you only see when you click 'cleanup system files'. Make sure you review you recycle bin first, restore stuff you might need ... but then let the cleanup tool empty your recycle bin. All these actions give the defragger (potentially) a lot less work to do.

I would just resolve to let it finish the job even if takes hours. It's a low-resource process and should not slow down your browsing and such all that much.