No, Virginia, there is no Superfetch in Windows XP

Windows, Windows Vista 1 Minute

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.

Welcome, LangaList readers! To read more about why you shouldn’t clean out your Prefetch folder, start with this post and just follow the links.

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Published by Ed Bott

Tech journalist. Author of 25+ books. ZDNET Contributing Editor since 2006. Contact info: https://edbott.com/contact-me/

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13 thoughts on “No, Virginia, there is no Superfetch in Windows XP”

  1. Im not find any information about Superfetch in Mark Russinovich.

    This information proceed?

  2. The person who wrote the story for Bink.nu contacted Russinovich and asked him about this. He reported on that conversation.

  4. My sources? Just some guy who knows more about Windows internals than anyone. So much that he speaks at Microsoft conferences on the topic and has developers who are in his fan club.

    Who are your sources?

  5. You mention something about * NOT * cleaning out the “Prefetch Folder”. Can you link to more info on this? Or explain it?

    Thanks

  7. I can go along with the Superfetch=worthless, I thought it was bunk when I first read it.

    As for the “Prefetch Folder” Hmmm, I can think of a reason it should be cleaned, the same reason that many other folders in Windows need to be cleaned “When they become full of worthless junk you don’t use or need “

  8. There’s a pretty interesting thread about it here:
    http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,13937675~mode=flat~days=9999

    I agree that not finding the string in the kernel is damning, but does that absolutely guarantee that the technology does not lay dormant in XP in some other way? I wish Mark had gone that extra step. At the very least, MS should weigh in on this. I’m not sure how to explain away the sizeable number of people who try this and meet with success…it’s a few too many for comfort.

  10. I don’t know, I give the DSLReports crowd a little more credit than that. They’re usually the ones to tear things like this apart, not build them up. Some systems are getting results, and since results are measured (by the clock), it’s hard to attribute this to something like a sugar pill making you feel “better.” Either it’s faster or it isn’t. Hopefully, MS will comment on this before long.

  11. Rick,

    The FACT that there is not a reference string in the XP Kernel for this means it is IMPOSSIBLE for it to do anything. You can look yourself with the Strings program. Alot of people on the internet are gullible, DSLReports has its fair share. Use you head this is not complicated.

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