EXECUTIVE SOFTWARE ANNOUNCES FIRST-EVER FRAGMENTATION PREVENTION TECHNOLOGY AND MIXED NETWORK DEFRAGMENTATION WITH NEW DISKEEPER 5.0

East Grinstead, West Sussex - September 1st 1999: Executive Software, the original provider of "Set It and Forget It" online disk defragmentation for Windows NT, has announced two major technology breakthroughs in its new Diskeeper 5.0. The new release includes the world's first fragmentation-prevention technology, Frag Guard, which gives users an even greater increase in system performance. The Diskeeper-only Frag Guard feature prevents fragmentation in the heavily used Windows NT Master File Table (MFT) and NT Paging File by intercepting file fragments and consolidating them before they arrive at the disk. In addition, Diskeeper 5.0 includes another technical breakthrough. It is the first "Set It and Forget It" product that can be centrally scheduled to boost performance across mixed networks running Windows 95, 98 and NT 4.0. Up until now, Windows 95 and 98 clients had to be manually defragmented by the network administrator.

According to the Microsoft Windows NT Server Resource Guide: "Disk fragmentation can cause performance problems. You should consider running a defragmentation program on a regular basis." In addition, the Microsoft Press book: "Running Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0" describes Diskeeper as "The most commonly used disk defragmentation program for Windows NT".

Sarah Lake, Executive Software's European Director of Operations, said: "Diskeeper 5.0 adds two more landmarks to the list of 'firsts' for Executive Software's defragmentation technology:

• Executive Software developed the first-ever online 'Set It and Forget It' disk defragmenter to increase performance for Windows NT,
• The first to work closely with Microsoft Corp. to develop the Application Programming Interface (API) 'hooks' for defragmentation in Windows NT 4.0 that are used by all disk defragmenters,
• The first to safely defragment the Windows NT directory files and paging file,
• The first to have its defragmentation technology included as a built-in component of Windows 2000,
• And now, the first to develop the Frag Guard fragmentation-prevention technology for Windows NT,
• Also the first to develop automatic online 'Set It and Forget It' defragmentation for mixed Windows 95/98/NT networks."

Fragmenting files into pieces allows them to be stored in available disk space and makes efficient use of the disk, however collecting the pieces together for use takes extra time and system resources and can cause system slows. In addition, fragmented free space on the disk can result in longer software loading times and boot times. Defragmentation consolidates files and free space together for fast access and restores system performance.

On an NTFS volume, the Master File Table serves as the index to all files on the disk and the NT paging file is used as virtual memory space on the disk to supplement the use of physical RAM. These critical system files are the most frequently used files in a Windows NT system. Preventing fragmentation in these files with Diskeeper 5.0's new Frag Guard feature will speed up access to every application on the system and increase performance overall.

With Diskeeper, software loading times and database search times can be cut in half. Performance can be increased for Web servers, e-mail servers, graphics and financial applications. Multimedia and video applications are kept smooth and synchronised.

Executive Software has safely eliminated file fragmentation and has increased performance for dynamic enterprise-class systems for the last thirteen years, beginning with the release of Diskeeper for Digital Equipment Corp's OpenVMSÒ operating system - an enterprise system with which Windows NT has shared development roots.