Disabling Prefetch And Superfetch In Windows 8

Superfetch and Prefetch are technologies developed by Microsoft that enables you to have faster system responsiveness. By predicting which application a user is most likely to execute next, Windows loads the required files in advance. This enables faster and smoother system response.

However, this feature is rendered void in systems with Solid-state device (SSD) storage. In fact, this service may be harmful to the system in the longer run because new writes are generated every time. In such cases, it is better to disable Superfetch and Prefetch.

Disabling Superfetch Manually

• Right click on the desktop Start button and click on Run in the drop down menu that appears. 
• A new dialog box will appear where you have to type in services.msc. This will open the Windows Services manager. An alternate procedure for opening the Services manager is to type in services.msc in the Windows Search bar. 
• In the Services Manager window, scroll down and search for Superfetch. This will be found under a Windows service called SysMain. Double-click Superfetch to launch the Superfetch properties window and hit Stop to disable this feature. However, Superfetch will restart upon system restart. 
• Next, locate the Startup Type drop down menu, and click on Disabled. Click Apply and then OK to save these changes. This will ensure that the feature will not automatically start when the system restarts.

There is no need to restart Windows 8 system after changing this setting. It comes into effect immediately.

Disabling Prefetch Manually

• After disabling Superfetch, proceed to disabling Prefetch from the Windows Registry. 
• To launch the Registry Editor, right-click the Desktop Start Button and select Run again. Type in Regedit and hit Enter into the dialog box that pops up. 
• A new Registry Editor window will open up. Navigate to the location: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters 
• Once this location is selected, you will see EnablePrefetcher on the right side of this window. Double click to open the settings. 
• In the Value Data box, you can configure the prefex in one of the following ways:

0 – Disables Prefetcher

1 – Enables Prefetch for Applications only

2 – Enables Prefetch for Boot files only

3 – Enables Prefetch for Boot and Application files 

• Depending on the settings you require, type in the relevant value. Make sure you do not accidentally change the wrong setting because it can lead to serious errors. 

This change in setting will be effective immediately. You do not need to restart Windows 8 for this setting to come into effect.