Enable or disable the Windows 10, 8, or 7 Superfetch (otherwise known as Prefetch) feature. Superfetch caches data so that it can be immediately available to your application. Sometimes this can affect the performance of certain applications. It tends to not work well with gaming, but can improve performance with business apps.
To modify whether Superfetch is enabled or disabled, you can perform the following steps.
Disable from Services
- Hold the Windows Key, while pressing “R” to bring up the Run dialog box.
- Type “services.msc“, then press “Enter“.
- The Services window displays. Find “Superfetch” in the list.
- Right-click “Superfetch“, then select “Properties“.
- Select the “Stop” button if you wish to stop the service. In the “Startup type” dropdown menu, choose “Disabled“.
Enable or Disable from Registry
- Hold the Windows Key, while pressing “R” to bring up the Run dialog box.
- Type “Regedit“, then press “Enter“.
- The Registry Editor window appears. Navigate to the following location in the Registry.
- HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
- SYSTEM
- CurrentControlSet
- Control
- Session Manager
- MemoryManagement
- PrefetchParameters
- On the right side, double-click on “EnableSuperfetch“. If this value doesn’t exist, right-click the “PrefetchParameters” folder, then choose “New” > “DWORD Value“.
- Give “EnableSuperfetch” one of the following values:
- 0 – to disable Superfetch
- 1 – to enable prefetching when program is launched
- 2 – to enable boot prefetching
- 3 – to enable prefectching of everything
- Select “OK“.
- Close the Registry Editor.
Note: If you disable Superfetch and would like to enable it for certain applications, you can use special switch in the program shortcut: /prefetch:1
FAQ
Where is the prefetch data stored?
By default, prefetch data is stored at “C:\Windows\Prefetch“.
John R says
Whatever the ‘experts’ try to tell you, disabling Superfetch WILL benefit your computer’s performance if it has limited RAM. I have a Lenovo Ideapad with 2Gb RAM, and disabling Superfetch boosted its performance significantly and freed up 10% of RAM.
If your device has 8GB of RAM that might not make a huge difference and the price to pay might be too big. If it has 2GB RAM it’s well worth giving it a try.
Tony says
Thank you for the registry instruction. Easy and clear!
Bruce says
Thanks for this! Easy to follow instructions :-)
Betty says
I’m having a problem. Before, I could open prefetch anytime and not have any problems but now it’s not opening at all. How do I solve this issue?
ben says
Thank you. i checked and my superfetch was enabled again.
Dave says
Keep your eyes open though.. I had it disabled then windows updated and kindly put it back on.. pc slowed down again making me go and look at it again.. only to find it back on..
Mitch Bartlett says
I have never seen anybody experience any problems after disabling Superfetch.
Emilia says
Will there be any risks to disabling superfetch regarding my PCs well being, or is it OK to disable it completely?
gimmeaford says
I just found this. I changed superfetch and prefetch to 1 and disk went from constant 90-100% to 0-10% at idle. thanks a bunch for the information.
Joseph says
Great post. Thank you for the help!
Mr. PCMasterrace says
Thanks for the awesome post. It was very ez to follow the steps!
Chris says
Thank you so much!! Superfetch has been the bane of my existence for the last year.
Melvyn says
Greetings, Mitch,
You are a gem and a treasure.
Thank you for sharing your expertise and for your kindness.
Greg Futrelle says
this seems to have worked. I still see 100% disk usage at startup, and superfetch still runs, but only for a few seconds. total startup time doesn’t seem to last as long either. by the way, in Regedit, Superfetch and Prefetch had the same settings, so I changed each from ‘3’ to ‘1’.
Jonni Starre says
Jonni,
Thanks for this post. I disabled SuperFetch and now my computer is running much better; the way it was originally.
yeet boii says
Uh, mine only does it for like 10 seconds and then it goes back to normal.
I have a gaming PC so I don’t know, just got this 3 days ago.
Melissa says
Thanks a ton for this post! It’s super useful and now that I disabled superfetch, my computer is back to running at an optimal speed. It also helps that it was very easy to follow.
Herre says
Thanks a lot for the help. I stopped the system service and performance returned to normal. I still will have to play around with the registry setting but I’m confident it will turn out O.K.