How to Configure Windows Prefetcher

Prefetching is a Windows 7 performance feature that analyzes disk usage and then reads into memory the data that you or your system accesses most frequently. The prefetcher can speed up booting, application launching, or both.

You configure the prefetcher using Registry Editor. Press the How to Configure Windows Prefetcher 7W6b39o keys to open Run, then type regedit in the search box.  This will open Registry Editor.

From Registry Editor navigate to:


HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SessionManager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters\EnablePrefetcher


There’s also a SuperFetch setting:

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SessionManager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters\EnableSuperfetch


In both cases, set the value to 1 for application-only fetching, 2 for boot-only fetching, or 3 for both application and boot fetching (this is the default for both settings). You can try experimenting with boot-only fetching to see whether it improves your startup times, but my own testing shows only minimal startup improvements. The more programs you run at startup, the more your startup performance should improve with boot-only fetching.