Change SuperFetch to Only Cache System Boot Files in Vista

By Lowell Heddings on February 1st, 2008

After writing the article last week about disabling SuperFetch, my good friend Daniel Spiewak commented that SuperFetch “loads the wrong thing more often than not”, which reminded me of a registry tweak… You can tell Windows to only cache the boot processes instead of everything.

I’ve not personally verified that this tweak really changes anything with regards to performance, so just like disabling SuperFetch you’ll have to check it out for yourself. We’re just trying to keep you informed.

Manual Registry Tweak

Open regedit.exe through the start menu search or run box and browse down to the following key:

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

Find the EnablePrefetcher key on the right-hand pane, and change the value to one of these:

Disable Caching: 0
Cache Applications Only: 1
Cache Boot Files Only: 2
Cache Everything (default): 3

You’ll have to restart your computer before this takes any effect. You could consider clearing out the \Windows\Prefetch folder after making this change to start with a fresh cache, but keep in mind that the next boot will probably be slower since Windows will have to cache everything again.

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Lowell Heddings, better known online as the How-To Geek, spends all his free time bringing you fresh geekery on a daily basis. You can follow him on Google+ if you'd like.

Published 02/1/08