Superfetch - Change Preload Data

How to Change What Superfetch will Preload in Vista​

   Information

Superfetch is a new improved feature in Vista that monitors which applications you use the most and preloads these into your system memory (RAM) so they'll be ready when you need them. This will show you how to change Superfetch to preload only the Boot files, Program files, or the default both Boot and Program files into memory.

   Note

The Boot files are the startup programs, system files, and drivers loaded during the startup (boot) of Vista. The Program files are the programs you or Vista open and close in Vista. Test to see what works best for you.

OPTION ONE

Through a REG File Download

1. To Allow Only Boot Files to Preload​

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A) Click on the download button below to download the file below.​

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Only_Boot_Files.reg​

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B) Go to step 4.​

2. To Allow Only Program Files to Preload​

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A) Click on the download button below to download the file below.​

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Only_Programs.reg​

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B) Go to step 4.​

3. To Allow Both Boot and Program Files to Preload ​

NOTE: This is the default setting for Superfetch if you want to undo any changes.​

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A) Click on the download button below to download the file below.​

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Boot_and_Programs_Files.reg​

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4. Click on Save, and save the .reg file to the Desktop.​

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5. Right click on the downloaded .reg file and click on Merge.​

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6. Click on Run, Continue (UAC), Yes, and then OK when prompted.​

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8. Log off and log on, or restart the computer to apply the changes.​

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9. When done, you can delete the downloaded .reg file if you like.​

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OPTION TWO

Manually Through Registry Editor

1. Open the Start Menu.​

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2. In the white line (Start Search) area, type regedit and press Enter.​

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3. Click on Continue in the UAC prompt.​

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4. In regedit, navigate to the location below. (See screenshot below)​

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

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5. In the right pane, right click on EnablePrefetcher and click on Modify. (See screenshot above)​

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6. To Disable Prefetcher​

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A) Type 0 (number zero) and click on OK. (See screenshot below step 9)​

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B) Go to step 10.​

7. To Allow Only Program Files to Preload ​

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A) Type 1 and click on OK. (See screenshot below step 9)​

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B) Go to step 10.​

8. To Allow Only Boot Files to Preload​

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A) Type 2 and click on OK. (See screenshot below step 9)​

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B) Go to step 10.​

9. To Allow Both Boot and Program Files to Preload​

NOTE: This is the default setting for Superfetch if you want to undo any changes.​

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A) Type 3 and click on OK. (See screenshot below)​

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10. Close regedit.​

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11. Log off and log on, or restart the computer to apply the changes.​

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That's it,
Shawn

Related Tutorials

---

• How to Use ReadyBoost in Vista
• How to Disable or Enable Superfetch in Vista
• How to Change the Virtual Memory Paging File in Vista
• How to Start the Memory Diagnostics Tool in Vista

 

[MilesAhead]

When you say "deactivating Superfetch service" are you talking about disabling the service or using the registry tweak? In my experience simply setting the service to disabled produced a lot of HD activity after the desktop comes up whereas setting it to only cache boot files seemed to work best. Manually stopping it works too but you have to remember to do it or set up some kind of task to do it so many minutes after boot.

It's weird because my machine will go for days with an empty file in ReadyBoot folder, then just last night it decided to churn for awhile and now I have a 20 MB file there.
Seems a bit unpredictable.

 

[beauparc]

Hi Brink.

Unfortunately your .reg file didn't work for me so I decided to do things the manual way.

I don't have a controlset 001. I have 002, 003 and 005

I have changed the parameters in each of these for Boot Files only. Is this OK?

 

[Brink]

Hello Beauparc,

I have updated the tutorial to have it work correctly for you this time. Try it again. The controlset ### are backups, it should have been written to CurrentControlSet instead.

Shawn

 

[beauparc]

Cheers Shawn.

 

[Brink]

Your welcome Beauparc.

Shawn

 

[MilesAhead]

Hmmmmmmm it is a strange beast! I had a 0 length ReadyBoot.etl file and as soon as I deleted it, bang! A 20 MB file was written there!! It was instant! Maybe the file already existing kept it from writing? Weird!

 

[CGA]

MilesAhead,

I do not have that hidden Walk Start Pages task. What is it a part of?

Yeah, the prefetch shouldn't change much with just the boot files since they usually do not change often.

LOL, you can't fix it unless you break it though.

Shawn

I have Crawl Start Pages instead, wonder if that's the same thing.

 

[Brink]

Hi CGA, and welcome to Vista Forums.

I also have CrawlStartPages in the Shell folder, but I'm not sure if it is or not. I suppose it could be language translation thing.


FROM: Description of the scheduled tasks in Windows Vista

Multimedia -- This scheduled task indexes all the crawl-type start pages when the computer is idle.

Shawn

 

[CGA]

Thanks Brink, great forum btw. Guess i'll disable CrawlStartPages and see if i notice any difference.

 

[Brink]

Your welcome CGA. Let us know how it goes.

Thank you,
Shawn

 

[CGA]

Seems to be part of Windows Search and since i have turned that service off, i didn't notice any difference.

 

[Brink]

Thank you for the feedback CGA.

Shawn

 

[MilesAhead]

Hi CGA, and welcome to Vista Forums.

I also have CrawlStartPages in the Shell folder, but I'm not sure if it is or not. I suppose it could be language translation thing.


FROM: Description of the scheduled tasks in Windows Vista

Multimedia -- This scheduled task indexes all the crawl-type start pages when the computer is idle.

Shawn

I guess you have to crawl before you can walk.
Don't know why I typed 'walk' unless I was thinking of
walking the directory tree... which is what this thing was
doing at idle. Just looking through every file on the drive.

 

[MilesAhead]

Seems to be part of Windows Search and since i have turned that service off, i didn't notice any difference.

I don't know how it is on your machine, but on mine, even with
indexing service disabled, the scheduler would still run that task at idle.
It was causing my HD to run on for no good reason.

I'd rather update the databases on locate32 manually.

 

[CGA]

Seems to be part of Windows Search and since i have turned that service off, i didn't notice any difference.

I don't know how it is on your machine, but on mine, even with
indexing service disabled, the scheduler would still run that task at idle.
It was causing my HD to run on for no good reason.

I'd rather update the databases on locate32 manually.

Interesting, anyway i left the task disabled since there seems to be no good reason leaving it on. And i fully agree that Locate32 rocks.

 

[MilesAhead]

Other than that it works, a nice thing about locate32 is it's the same across just about every version of Windows. You don't have to adapt to a different UI because you move to another machine on your network or whatnot. I used it on Linux so I was glad they ported it to Win32.

 

[Kotuku]

Is there any advantage in manually deleting some program files from the Prefetch folder, ones no longer used or rarely? There was a thread a couple of years back with WinXP and the need to delete all the Prefetch folder, but that was bad advice. Only reason for saying, is I had a Superfetch error yesterday and wondered if I should remove some files?

Kotuku

 

[Brink]

Hi Kotuko,

I would advise not doing so. If superfetch does not need the files, then it will automatically dump them when it runs low on space for other files it believes you will need.

Shawn

 

[MilesAhead]

Kotuku I don't see any harm in doing it. If the Superfetch service is running it will just reload the data. The next time you boot up will probably take a long time is the only side effect I've ever noticed.

 

[Kotuku]

Kotuku I don't see any harm in doing it. If the Superfetch service is running it will just reload the data. The next time you boot up will probably take a long time is the only side effect I've ever noticed.

Thanks, I kinda guessed that.

And real reason for my reply, "Who is the guy that half the world is named after??"

Kotuku
With no-one named after me <smile>