Is This True About SuperFetch?

[Undesirable]

Is it true that when you disable SuperFetch, it disables prefetching altogether? I've noticed that when I turn it off, startup applications take a lot longer to open when I boot my computer, and the order in which they load also appears to be different.

I've tried both stopping the SuperFetch service and changing the "HKLM / System / CurrentControlSet / Control / Session Manager / Memory Management / Prefetch Parameters / EnableSuperfetch" registry key value to 0,1,2 and 3. A value of 0 stops it churning my hard drive loading stuff into RAM, but startup apps again become slow to open. Same thing happens when I stop the Superfetch service altogether. Any other value causes the annoyance to reappear upon booting.

Does anyone know if there's a way to disable Superfetch without causing startup applications to open slowly?

 

[Undesirable]

I'm an avid tweaker, so I have disabled every service I can get away with.

I enjoy having my startup apps loading quickly, but do not like the hard drive churning. If I could choose exactly which apps to Superfetch, then I might like it more. I personally do not notice much of a benefit from having Superfetch enabled except boot up time. XP was perfect without the HDD churning (but I'm not going back, before you say anything).

So I've got a batch file running on startup as administrator with the command "net stop superfetch" (doesn't disable Superfetch altogether, just stops the service until next reboot). UAC confirmation pops up, but it'll have to do until I get Windows 7 with SSD(s).

Hibernation seems to be more trouble than it's worth with my motherboard. Half the time it just reboots when I try to resume, other times my network card stops functioning etc.

 

[Undesirable]

I do lots of cold-booting to save power. Used to have it on 24 / 7 when file-sharing, but have since discovered how pointless that all is with our mediocre upload bandwidth on UK residential broadband. I may give Superfetch another chance one day.