Windows 10: Should I disable Superfetch?

I know it loads programs to the RAM so they can open faster and actually It doesn't really bother me but I just want to ask - Does it really improve performance that much? My system runs pretty fast, considering its age, and I'm just wondering, will there be a significant decrease in speed if I disable it? Again, it doesn't bother me at all, just curious.

:)

 

Should i disable?

I'm Greg, a volunteer installation specialist and 8 year Windows MVP, here to help you.

As long as you're installing it from it's site then it should be OK.

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Set a System Restore point first so you can go back if necessary:
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Should i disable?

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The easiest way to find out if you can live with it disabled is to disable it and test the results for yourself.

However, I know for a fact that, although it may speed up app launching, it runs for a considerable amount of time in the background; thereby, utilizing resources that may/or may not slow down your PC while it is running.

In any event, I have an SSD so it is a no-brainer for me. I just disable it. No harm in testing this yourself.

Hope this helps.

Regards,

 

Superfetch works even when it is disabled (sort of), it just does not create prefetch files & resets upon restart.

 

Once superfetch is disabled, it remains disabled and it does not reset upon restart on my PC.

 

I meant "superfetch" functionality. If you launch the same software, it will preload into memory and start faster, but it is kept in memory, it will reset upon restart, unlike prefetch files, which keep record forever.

 

OK, now I understand what you meant. Yes, I agree that once you load a program it will start faster if you launch the program again before restarting. However, you did bring up another thing that could be disabled (especially if you have an SSD):

http://www.thewindowsclub.com/disabl...h-prefetch-ssd

For the record, I did not bother disabling the prefetcher function.

 

I have that disabled too and "prefetching" stills work, I guess it is more related to memory management.

 

That is interesting. Did you clear the prefetcher folder after disabling and are new entries being created with a current timestamp?

 

Yes, I use CCleaner and other cleaners, which clean prefetch files. I have it disabled since install and the difference is obvious, mostly with a cold and warm start of a browser, like 5 secs vs half a second afterwards.

 

OK, thanks for that information. Here is a cool (portable) utility that lets you examine the contents of your prefetch folder and it even allows you to see the creation dates:

View the content of Windows Prefetch (.pf) files

Here's mine:

 

Mine, looks deserted, almost sad.

 

I f I remember correctly, you said the prefetcher still runs even with it disabled in the registry; correct? If true, then the prefetcher folder should start to fill back up in a day or so. With that said, could you refrain from running CCleaner for a day or so and then check your prefetch folder again because I really thought that disabling the prefetcher worked; however, if you are correct, it should start to fill up again; right?

 

I know this thread has been inactive for some time, but I was looking for something and came across this and thought I would add my little bit of knowledge to the information. It might be useful. It might be interesting. It might not. Enjoy anyway.

leaving SuperFetch aside, which is an operating system service, when an application or data is loaded into memory, it takes up a certain amount of disk I/O time. To alleviate this problem, the system operates a caching operation. This is controlled by a function simply called caching. The system operates read-ahead caching and tries to pre-empt the data to be loaded (how it does this is the subject of a different discussion) and write-behind caching, where it keeps the data in memory for a certain period of time before actually writing it to the hard disk, whether this is a HDD or SSD, is not relevant.
The advantage of keeping applications in memory during a single boot, is that if you exit and then reload an application, it does not need to access the disk anywhere near as much. If you watch the disk activity light, you will see only a slight flicker if it is already is system cache.
The downside is the write-behind caching. If by chance your system crashes a moment after you have saved your data to disk, there is a possibility that it will not have actually been written to disk and is actually being held in this write behind cache and could be lost.
Windows does load managers for this process to make sure that any data not accessed for a short time is properly written to disk and to analyse active data, to assess when it can be written to disk without any detriment to the speed of access for the user. The process created for this purpose is called a lazy-writer and one is loaded every second to monitor what it going on.

There are two aspects to this. firstly, a lot of windows programs operate an auto save function, so you may have an ability to recover some of the lost data through the application auto save function. Secondly, the write-behind function can be disabled in the properties of the disk in device manager.
Unless you have a particularly slow system, disabling write-behind caching will not affect you in any noticeable way.