In Windows 8.1 the Scheduled Tasks list contains hidden tasks to run the
built in disk defragmenter at various times, such as when bringing the
computer out of sleep in the morning. When the defragmenter is running
on a small laptop, it is almost impossible to get work done on the
computer. Even clicking a menu may be delayed by many seconds.
Certainly, video cannot be played.

There must be some way to turn
off automatic defragmentation, or to make it happen at the user’s
desired times.

If I had
designed Windows, I would have made sure that the message pump could
never be dominated by an I/O operation, or by a task that refused to
yield their control. At the very least, defragmentation should
deliberately yield control several times a second, so it does not hog
the computer and make it hang or run very slowly.

This is MY computer – not a work computer with some overarching IT department holding the strings. So can anyone tell me why this would be the case?

Automatic maintenance is a bloatware, junkware.

Microsoft is full of idiots. All Windows since Vista run a lot of totally unnecessary tasks in the background. I hate when my PC work pointlessly.

The biggest problem with Microsoft’s craps that always run automatically (like superfetch, prefetch, automatic maintenance, automatic update, search indexing, …) is that they

1. shorten the lifespan of the computer by constant usage (it affects especially both the HDD and SSD)

2. increase the power consumption of the computer (the problem is larger when you use a battery powered device, like laptop, notebook)

3. increase the noise of the computer (cooling fans, HDD thrashing)

4. cause performance problems, they waste system resources

5. antivirus programs will scan every time all files that these crap backround tasks read/write, which is another extra waste

So these bloatwares from Microsoft are total waste. They harm your computer and annoy you. Even knowing that my PC is working hard without any reason and benefit, annoys me.

That’s why I hate Windows since Vista. That’s why I went back to Windows XP SP3. It has the least bloatware. If I were use newer Windows, I would have to do a lot of research and investigating, searching all around the internet to find and disable all bloatwares, unnecessary tasks that run in the background. It’s a lot of work to properly configure newer Windows systems.

I want to control my own PC! I want to control what happens. I hate when some retarded developer think they know better than me what’s good for me.

It’s actually much, much worse than just stopping the process. The issue is if you stop the process, it starts again about 5 minutes later. And, it makes your system run at about 50%. Rescheduling the process also doesn’t work since it runs all the time. If I reschedule the process for 2am for example, it simply starts up 10 minutes later anyway.

You can go into Task Scheduler under Microsoft/Windows/TaskScheduler and kill off / disable all of the tasks.. BUT

1. You cannot kill off the main task that restarts it all as if you do, though you are admin, it will tell you “the user account you are operating under does not have permission to disable this task”.

2. If you kill the other 3, and disable them, the re-enable themselves in about 30 minutes.

So, I kill them through task scheduler every 30 minutes. I think I’ll write a service to do this.

AND, (yes, there is more)

One night I thought, “well, I won’t be on this computer for about 48 hours, so if Start Maintenance now, maybe it will shut up for a while”.

search on you tube for “Can’t stop maintenance on Windows8, can’t start it either”