With constant updates, game crashes and even OS errors, the game content files or "GCF" can become fragmented so it is a good idea to defrag them often. I have put together a way to defrag ALL of your GCF files just by running one simple batch file. So, invest a few minutes of set up time, and you can make defragging easy.

(You can even set up your Task Scheduler to run the batch file automatically.)

First you need GCFScape which you can get HERE or HERE. The first link has installation instructions for GCFScape (if needed).

Once installed, run GCFScape and click "Options" and tick 'ON' "Verbose" and "Write Access" then close GCFScape.

Download and extract either the 32bit or 64bit (depending on your operating system) zip file containing gcfdefrag.bat, defraglog.txt, HLExtract.exe and HLLib.dll and put them in you 'steamapps' folder.

Then CLOSE STEAM and double click on gcfdefrag.bat to defrag all your gcf files. Depending on how many games you have installed, this may take a while. With the list you see above, running in 64 bit mode, it took about 10 minutes. When complete, press any key as instructed, all your gcf files are now internally defragged.

Each time you run the defrag, it will log the time and date in defraglog.txt so you can keep a record.

Now run your normal hard drive defrag tool to repair any external fragmentation, and your job is complete.