Operating System: WinXP Home, WinXP Pro
Level: Beginner, Intermediate

Here is the proper solution that disables the annoying dialog without disabling the automatic update services.

WinXP Home

Copy the blue text below into Notepad. Save it with a .reg extension. Open and confirm that you want to copy the data into your registry.

Most people at the time I am writing this are using Windows XP. Almost everybody is aware of the basic keyboard shortcuts, such as copy and paste. Not everybody knows there are far more keyboard shortcuts and even less people know exactly what all of these shortcuts do. In this guide I am going to list as many keyboard shortcuts and their function in Windows XP as possible, as keyboard shortcuts can greatly enhance your Windows XP experience and the speed at which you work or perform certain tasks.

Windows XP General Keyboard Shortcuts: 

Shortcut - Function

F1 - Help on active item/window.
F2 - Rename selected item.
F3 - Load file/folder search.
F4 - Display address bar list in Windows Explorer.
F5 - Refresh/Update active window.
F6 - Cycle through desktop or window elements.
F10 - Activate menu bar in a window/program.

Operating System: WinXP Home, WinXP Pro
Level: Beginner, Intermediate 

What is Defragmenting

When your operating system tries to save a file which already exists, (you are updating a program, saving a game, making modifications to a word document, etc) there often isn't enough space at the exact location where the file was originally saved on your drive. If you  for example copy 10 files, they will be stored 'next' to eachother on your drive as this takes less time for the writing process. Your operating system does not anticipate that the file could become larger in the future. So, when it does need more space, an operating system breaks the file into 2 or more pieces and store them in different parts of the drive/partition.

The system would then keep a record of where the different parts of the file are stored by use of a File Allocation Table (FAT) or a similar file system such as NTFS. When the operating system requires the file again, it will query the FAT/NTFS or other file system to find out where all the different parts of the file are located.

Defragmentation is the term used to describe the process of rebuilding the split files into one piece by scanning the file system for them and rejoining them into consecutive pieces. This can be quite a time consuming process, hence this guide on how to automate the process to do it at a time it is most convenient to you.

Let's move on by explaining why you should degragment your drive(s) regularly.