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What is Superfetch?

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Can't Superfetch slow down my system?
Where do you keep the files?
What happens if I delete those files?

Superfetch is the evolution of a technology that appears from Windows XP. The system studies what programs you run and uses RAM to store them before you even use them.

A program or any data to be processed needs to pass from the disk  to the PC memory , this is thousands of times faster than the disk and it is for this reason that programs take so long to start.

Can't Superfetch slow down my system?

No matter how you use your computer, it is very rare that you are using all the RAM memory all the time. Windows takes advantage of this and appropriates it. In case you need that memory, for any of your programs, the system would free it. This will in no case slow down the system.

There are users who complain that this system slows down the system startup but that only happens in extreme cases. If you start the task manager in Windows 7 you will see that it shows you memory information in four blocks with different functionalities:

  • Total.  The one that can use the system.
  • Cached.  This is the one used by Superfetch to speed up your team.
  • Available.  The one you have for your programs will be the sum of the one used by Superfetch plus the one that is free.
  • Free.  Not used by any program.

So do not worry if you have almost no free memory the system is using it to make your computer run more smoothly. The more memory you have the more benefits you will get.

Where do you keep the files?

Inside the system folder use a folder called Prefetch. The most normal thing is that it is in:

c:\windows\prefetch

What happens if I delete those files?

Right now the prefetch folder occupies 33 megabytes on my disk. By size it is silly to delete these files. In addition, the logical thing is that the system takes longer to load the programs you use more frequently if it occurs to you to delete it.


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