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Control SuperFetch in Windows Vista

June 10, 2008 · by Anthony

Although many people complain that Windows Vista is a lot slower than Windows XP, this does not need to be the case. A lot has to do with your system’s configuration. Depending on your PC specifications for example, you might need to disable some of the graphical enhancements. On the other hand, Windows Vista has quite a few improvements that actually help speed up the overall performance.

One of these improvements in Windows Vista is called SuperFetch. This feature can really speed up Windows Vista. The basic concept is that applications and files are loaded faster as a result of an advanced caching mechanism.

SuperFetch can speed up Windows Vista, but it does consume computer resources: memory, CPU and disk. So it is good that we can execute some control over the feature and tweak it to our preferences. The steps below show you how you can control what SuperFetch does:

  1. From the Windows Start menu, select Run.
  2. In the Run box, type regedit and click OK.
  3. In the Registry Editor, locate the following key:

    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters

  4. Right-click the entry named EnableSuperFetch, and in the popup menu select Modify.
  5. Next, specify what SuperFetch should do:
    • To completely disable the SuperFetch feature, enter the value 0.
    • To optimize only application startup, enter the value 1.
    • To optimize only the computer startup process, enter the value 2.
    • To optimize both application startup and the computer startup, enter the value 3.

    6. When done, click OK.

  6. Close the Registry Editor. Select Exit from the File menu.

Use this control over Windows Vista SuperFetch to tweak the caching operation and maximize your computer performance. If you have sufficient memory, setting 3 will give you best performance. If you do not have that much memory in your system and need the memory for executing applications, you can experiment with setting 1 and 2 to determine what works best for you.

Check Previous Post: Windows Vista Flip3D Tweak

Filed Under Windows Vista

Comments

One Response to “Control SuperFetch in Windows Vista”

  1. John on November 1st, 2008 8:00 am

    This is a great idea. I prefetch just startup
    and vista runs much better. The whole prefetch idea just slows down my computer too much.
    Vista really takes to long to do anything.

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