Windows 10: Enable or Disable SuperFetch in Windows

How to: Enable or Disable SuperFetch in Windows

How to Enable or Disable SuperFetch in Windows


SuperFetch (aka: Memory Prefetcher) is a service that was introduced with Vista.

SuperFetch is an enhancement of the Prefetcher from previous versions of Windows. The Prefetcher is in charge of storing program information so that often-used programs and processes can run faster.

SuperFetch keeps track of which applications you use most and loads this information from the hard drive into RAM so that programs load faster than they would if the hard disk had to be accessed every time. Windows SuperFetch prioritizes the programs youre currently using over background tasks and adapts to the way you work by tracking the programs you use most often and pre-loading these into memory. With SuperFetch, background tasks still run when the computer is idle. However, when the background task is finished, SuperFetch repopulates system memory with the data you were working with before the background task ran. Now, when you return to your desk, your programs will continue to run as efficiently as they did before you left. It is even smart enough to know what day it is in the event you use different applications more often on certain days. Basically, SuperFetch attempts to predict which applications you will launch next and preloads all of the necessary data into memory.

Sometimes SuperFetch may cause high disk usage.

If you run Windows from a SSD or M.2 instead of a slow spinner hard drive, then you may not see any performance gain from SuperFetch to justify the drive usage from it.

If you like, you could disable SuperFetch to see if you have any performance gains with it enabled or disabled.

This tutorial will show you how to enable or disable SuperFetch in Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 10.

You must be signed in as an administrator to enable or disable SuperFetch.


CONTENTS:

• Option One: Enable or Disable SuperFetch in Services
• Option Two: Enable or Disable SuperFetch in Command Prompt
• Option Three: Enable or Disable SuperFetch in PowerShell

OPTION ONE [/i] Enable or Disable SuperFetch in Services
1. Press the Win+R keys to open Run, type services.msc into Run, and click/tap on OK to open Services.

2. Double click/tap on the SysMain service. (see screenshot below)

*note Starting with Windows 10 build 17763.1, the SuperFetch service has been renamed to SysMain.



3. Do step 4 (enable) or step 5 (disable) below for what you want to do.


4. To Enable SuperFetch
*note This is the default setting.
A) Change the Startup type to Automatic. (see screenshot below)

B) Click/tap on the Start button.

C) Click/tap on OK, and go to step 6 below.





5. To Disable SuperFetch
A) Click/tap on the Stop button.

B) Change the Startup type to Disabled. (see screenshot below)

C) Click/tap on OK, and go to step 6 below.




6. You can now close Services.





OPTION TWO [/i] Enable or Disable SuperFetch in Command Prompt
1. Open an elevated command prompt.

2. Do step 3 (enable) or step 4 (disable) below for what you want to do.


3. To Enable SuperFetch
*note This is the default setting.
A) Copy and paste the command below into the elevated command prompt, press Enter, and go to step 5 below. (see screenshots below)

*Arrow sc config "SysMain" start=auto & sc start "SysMain"





4. To Disable SuperFetch
A) Copy and paste the command below into the elevated command prompt, press Enter, and go to step 5 below. (see screenshots below)

*Arrow sc stop "SysMain" & sc config "SysMain" start=disabled




5. You can now close the elevated command prompt.





OPTION THREE [/i] Enable or Disable SuperFetch in PowerShell
1. Open an elevated PowerShell.

2. Do step 3 (enable) or step 4 (disable) below for what you want to do.


3. To Enable SuperFetch
*note This is the default setting.
A) Copy and paste the command below into the elevated PowerShell, press Enter, and go to step 5 below. (see screenshots below)

*Arrow Set-Service -Name "SysMain" -StartupType Automatic -Status Running





4. To Disable SuperFetch
A) Copy and paste the command below into the elevated PowerShell, press Enter, and go to step 5 below. (see screenshots below)

*Arrow Stop-Service -Force -Name "SysMain"; Set-Service -Name "SysMain" -StartupType Disabled




5. You can now close the elevated PowerShell.

That's it,
Shawn


Related Tutorials

• How to Manage Virtual Memory Pagefile in Windows 10

:)

 

How To Optimize Windows 10 Settings For SSD Drive Performance?

I just upgraded to Win10 from Win8.1

One of the suggestions for SSD optimization I had read was to disable the SuperFetch Service. On my machine (laptop with only one drive which is an SSD) SuperFetch was enabled by default.

any comments on pros/cons of disabling the superfetch service?

 

Windows 10 Pro High CPU usage at startup

Superfetch caches data so it can be immediately available to your application

There is a way to change Superfetch behaviour in the registry

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE - SYSTEM - CurrentControlSet - Control - Session Manager - MemoryManagement - PrefetchParamaters

On the right side double click EnableSuperfetch

If a value EnableSuperfetch does not exist create a new DWORD EnableSuperfetch

And give it one of the following values:

0 = disable Superfetch

1 = Enable Superfetch when a program is launched

2 = Enable Superfetch at Boot

3 = Enable pre-fetching of everything

Select OK and Close Regedit

 

Hello Soyabeaner, *Smile

There's no need to change the registry with the service disabled.

It is safe to delete the contents of the "C:\Windows\Prefetch" folder (cache) if wanted. If Windows is still prefetching anything, the folder will get repopulated with whatever it wants to prefetch.

When superfetch is disabled, there's also really no need to change the "EnablePrefetcher" DWORD.

*Arrow SuperFetch - Change Prefetch Data to be Cached - Windows 7 Help Forums