superfetch

[mbossman2]

for this on the web:

Got XP? I found this tonight on the internet. The new version of Windows, Longhorn, has a registry entry called superfetch. Its registry entry is: (deleted by poster for safety's sake) Apparently, this feature is available in XP, but MS was holding back to introduce it in a future release. There’s a noticeable kick in the pants. Enjoy the speed. For the wary folks, Google up superfetch. Here's a how-to link: (ditto as above) No crap, this compares to enabling DMA back in the Win95 days.

any ideas about this, its affect and whether it is a safe thing to do?

[glc]

http://www.edbott.com/weblog/

No, Virginia, there is no Superfetch in Windows XP
July 23, 2005

The same yokels who insist on spreading the "clean out your Prefetch folder" BS are now spreading the word that there's a super-double-secret registry setting in Windows XP called SuperFetch that will slice your boot times dramatically.

No, there isn't. A commenter asked me about this the other day and I didn't have an answer. Fortunately, Bink.nu tracked down the real story and posted the details in a terse but accurately headlined story, Inquirer "Superfetch" story is crap:

So I checked with Windows internals guru Mark Russinovich, he said this won't work, "SuperFetch" string isn't even in the kernel (check with strings.exe)

Mark Russinovich knows as much about the guts of Windows as any living human being. If he says this setting doesn't exist in Windows XP, you can take it to the bank. (The Superfetch setting will be in the upcoming Longhorn Windows Vista beta, but that's a completely different story.) And if you see any Web site that tries to insist that there's any benefit to cleaning out your Prefetch folder or enabling this latest bogus tweak, you should assume that any other advice they give you is worthless as well.

[mbossman2]

thanks glc...