Comments on: Enabling SuperFetch

By: Lucas

Lucas — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 17:09:14 +0000

Thanks DW. I had the same problem as Gary and now see why.

By: Dio

Dio — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 02:16:01 +0000

Thanks, that’s useful

By: DW

DW — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 21:54:23 +0000

Gary, Windows 2008 R2 doesn’t have HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\SysMain which is why you don’t see the service. More importantly, on inspection of the missing key on a Win 7 machine, you don’t have %SystemRoot%\system32\sysmain.dll which is required to run the service. I chose to just leave the prefetch service out.

By: Gary Clarke

Gary Clarke — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 05:29:29 +0000

Hello – Please can you adbise for R2 – I have added registry entries as per your instructions, but superfetch is still missing from list of services?

By: Convert your Windows Server 2008 to a Workstation! | What’s UP

Convert your Windows Server 2008 to a Workstation! | What’s UP — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 07:33:54 +0000

[...] SuperFetch: Maintain and Improve your system [...]

By: Rene

Rene — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 01:01:00 +0000

Any ideas why I can no longer access regedit or regedt32? It opens then closes immediately.

-rene

By: Matt

Matt — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 11:41:30 +0000

I’m beginning to think that server is a teeny bit faster than XP on my ageing PC.
Even with Avira it doesn’t feel as sluggish.
Nice job Microsoft and REALLY nice job the good people on this site

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 04:17:20 +0000

server is much more stable than vista

i dual boot and get around 3 bsods with vista
i only get a very rare error in server telling me that superfetch has crashed

By: Bill

Bill — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 17:13:04 +0000

@Justin Olbrantz (Quantam): Did you delete your Prefetch folder after changing Prefetch options? Otherwise it’d still prefetch applications when set to boot only, etc., afaik.

By: Prithvy

Prithvy — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 18:39:17 +0000

Hey Guys how to us Windows ReadyBoost

:! :!

By: Justin Olbrantz (Quantam)

Justin Olbrantz (Quantam) — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 18:35:15 +0000

Well, exactly the same thing happened with it set to 2. So I’m not sure what to make of it (or if that registry value does anything at all).

By: Justin Olbrantz (Quantam)

Justin Olbrantz (Quantam) — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 18:04:28 +0000

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/change-superfetch-to-only-cache-system-boot-files-in-vista/

Says that 1 = programs only, 2 = boot files only. I’m inclined to believe him over Kevin, as I’ve had it set for a week or two to 1, and it still superfetches programs (as indicated by watching files accessed in reliability and performance monitor).

By: vmlinuz.exe

vmlinuz.exe — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 18:00:21 +0000

That’s why I prefer option 1

By: Hamish

Hamish — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 12:02:55 +0000

Many people disable superfetch or in the case of server 08, leave it off.
This is for a number of reasons and everyone should do their own research and come to their own conclusion depending on their particular usage pattern (if they have one).
I wont explain why because there are countless sites and forum threads you can find with a quick google.

The idea of prefetching apps that you’re about to use is great. The problem is the OS predicting which apps they are!

By: Kevin

Kevin — Fri, 09 May 2008 17:54:38 +0000

What’s the difference between EnableSuperFetch being set to 3 rather than 1?

Admin: See the following options:
1 = Enable SuperFetch for boot files only;
2 = Enable SuperFetch for programs only;
3 = Enable SuperFetch for both boot files and programs.

By: EarthQ

EarthQ — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 00:11:06 +0000

As reghack:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters]
“EnablePrefetcher”=dword:00000003
“EnableSuperfetch”=dword:00000003
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\SysMain]
“Start”=dword:00000002

By: Apocaliptica

Apocaliptica — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 22:09:12 +0000

For server 2008 x64 I also used the 32bit value, dont know whats the effect if you use the qword…
Admin: 32bit DWORD should be used in both architectures. In Vista SP1 x64 these are all 32bit values too.

By: Kane

Kane — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 07:39:15 +0000

do you need to add d-word 64bit value instead of 32bit value for x64 systems?