I Saw Patrick E’s post on tweaking Microsoft Windows Vista to enable the “Glass” effect and it got me thinking. What about those poor people that don’t have Vista and want some of the added features of Vista on their XP (SP2) computer.

I dug into my LIMITED reg editing library and found this…
This feature will add “Prefetching” (a feature in Vista that makes it much faster at loading Applications AND Applications) If done correctly XP will include the ability to launch apps 15% faster than Windows XP (standard), boot PCs 50% faster, patch systems with 50% fewer reboots, and let firms migrate to Longhorn 75% per cent faster (So I am told 😀 )

The only reason why its faster is they added a superfetch feature to the prefetcher. If you look at the key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SessionManager\
Memory Management\Prefetcher
you will notice in windows xp;
EnablePrefetcher = 3
and you will notice in windows longhorn;
EnableSuperfetch = 1

Well, guess what? You can put the Enable Superfetch = 1 in windows xp and get the same speed.
Wow, Microsoft just added a feature that was already there in XP.
From what I have been reading the tweak is designed for at least Windows XP SP2.

“One of the many claims Microsoft makes for Windows Longhorn is that it will launch applications 15% faster than Windows XP does currently. This is down to improvements in the Prefetch functionality. There’s no need to wait until Longhorn arrives; this improvement is already in Windows XP thanks to Service Pack 2. It just needs to be turned on.”

So-To enable super prefetch:
* Use a registry editing tool to navigate to the following key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\
Memory Management\PrefetchParameters
* Insert a value with the following details:
Data Type: DWORD
Value Name: EnableSuperfetch
Value: 1
* Reboot your computer for the changes to take effect

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I would Recommend You Back Up Your registry before attempting this
(I also take no responsibility for any stuff ups 😛
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Well thats all for now…Good luck with your tweaking;
Patrick S