Speed up winXP

my dad read this online told me to try it because he didn't want to take a risk of something bad happening, so the nice guy he is, he told me to try it.....

One of the advantages of Windows XP over older Microsoft operating systems is the speed with which the operating system starts, but if you'd like to see even better startup performance, you can try this tip shared with us by reader Daniel S.:

Click Start | Run and type regedit to open the Registry Editor.
Navigate to
HKEY LOCAL MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters
In the right pane, right click EnablePrefetcher and select Modify.
Under Value data, change the value from 3 (the default) to 5.
Reboot and watch XP fly.

can i try this and if it infact really works, how much faster are we talking?

It works, don't really know why

The options are
0 = turn off all Windows XP Prefetch
1 = Turn on Windows XP Prefetch for Application launch only
2 = Turn on Windows XP Prefetch for Boot only
3 = Turn on Windows XP Prefetch for both Application launch and Boot

But I set it to 5 as well and it really made a difference.
Some people say it doesn't recognise 5 and sets it to 0, but 5 will go faster.
Could be it adds 2 and 3 to 5

Don't understand this one, but I'm happy with it.

The tweak you mention has been going around for a long time, but the truth is that that tweak is in error. In reality the only values that are valid for EnablePrefetcher are 0, 1 , 2 and 3 (decimal). These correspond to bit patterns with means as follows:

0 = 00 = no prefetching enabled
1 = 01 = app launch prefetching enabled
2 = 10 = boot prefetch enabled
3 = 11 = both app launch and boot prefetch enabled

Somewhere along the line the notion seems to have gotten started that other values were valid. I've seen it said the values can go up to 9. But what setting a value to anything but 0, 1 2 or 3 only does is cause a combination of invalid and valid bits to be set, and the invalid ones are just ignored. For example... If you set the value to 5 this corresponds to a bit pattern of 101. The left-most 1 is ignored, leaving you with the equivalent of 01. So this would have the same effect as an EnablePrefetcher value of 1. Follow?

Anyway, you can try turning off boot prefetching (use a value if 1)to see if it gives you (or your dad) a worthwhile boost. The system won't blow up. And if it doesn't work as you like you can always change it back.

EDIT: Oops. XOR got in before me

if i set mine to 5 it takes forever it seems to load

NY
Good post--good tip
I set my value to 1 and startup was much faster.
Cheers
Ted

Thanks guys, im gonna try it. I will post back with results.

i really dont see any improvement on mine with anything other than 3.

I would guess it would depend on the system
I've seen this before and also have seen other apps try to use an idea like this to speed things up.

To me it seem like it could cause problem when the prefetch files become corrupt or even fragmented.

I disabled it.
I think my hardware can handle it without windows help.

i think i see a difference.

Take this with a grain of salt if you will:

WARNING: I've found many web sites recommending a way of speeding up boot times that may in fact slow down the amount of time it takes to boot up, and will probably slow down application launching as well. The tip recommends going to your C:\WINDOWS\Prefetch directory and emptying it every week. Windows uses this directory as a way of speeding up launching applications. It analyzes the files you use during startup and the applications you launch, and creates an index to where those files and applications are located on your hard disk. By using this index, XP can launch files and applications faster. So, by emptying the directory, you are most likely slowing down launching applications. In my tests, I've also found that after emptying the directory, it takes my PC a few seconds longer to get to my desktop after bootup.

This doesn't apply to hacking it in the registry of course, but in my experience, i just leave it alone.
One that 'has' helped a' bit however,is this one:

Enable Quicker Startups with a Boot Defragment
There's another way to speed up XP startup: make your system do a boot defragment, which will put all the boot files next to one another on your hard disk. When boot files are in close proximity to one another, your system will start faster.

On most systems, boot defragment should be enabled by default, but it may not be on yours, or it may have been changed inadvertently. To make sure that boot defragment is enabled on your system, run the Registry Editor [Hack #68 of Windows XP Hacks], and go to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Dfrg\BootOptimizeFunction
Edit the Enable string value to Y if it is not already set to Y. Exit the Registry and reboot. The next time you reboot, you'll do a boot defragment.

Compliments to O'Reilly Network...

Setting pretch parameter to 5 makes boot up slow. Tried bootvis with parameters 3 and with 5. Slower by 16 seconds with 5. Anyone check this out?

Just to repeat, there is no value of 5. Putting in 5 is the same as putting in a value of 1 (only app launch prefetching). Since the default is 3 (app and boot prefetching), it makes sense that preventing boot prefetching could show a slow down.

Best way to speed up XP is to eliminate un-needed crap from startup and disable that godawful indexing service.

Speaking of Prefetch tweaks:

Decrease your Applications startup time


By default, Microsoft includes the /prefetch:1 switch to speed up it's Windows Media Player application start time. This switch can be used for other Windows applications and also many third party programs.

Example #1

You have AOL 8.0 installed on the computer. Complete the steps outlined bewlo to add the /prefetch:1 switch to AOL's Target path.

1. Right click on the AOL shortcut and select properties from the menu.

2. In the Target: Field add the /prefetch:1 switch to the very end of the path, like this: "C:\Program Files\America Online 8.0\aol.exe" /prefetch:1 and then click ok.

Now start AOL. It would load at least 50 times faster than ever before.

Steve Jones, Tried it on IE6, but it wont then open home page.

Tried it on some other progs with odd behaviour.. some of them will only open minimised when this tweak is used!

Applied it to photoshop but it seems to delay launch as the prog goes about trying to open a file calle "/prefetch:1" !

But some other progs respond well. Doesnt seem to make sense

As was found, the /prefetch parameter isn't valid across the board. Many apps will interpret it as one of its inputs, like a file name or such. When it does work it really isn't doing anything accept forcing prefetch tracking an/or prefetch loading upon the launch of the given app. And if prefetching was on globally for app launches (via the regostry) that would happen anyway.

By the way, to reap the full benefits of prefetch you have to have to task scheduler enabled so it can do some optimization of the files on disk occassionally.

Dr MDj,
Quite right about the need for Task Scheduler , It took me a long while to realise that Task scheduler was necessary for this and also for bootvis to work properly.

I find it so interesting that everyone talks about how to speed up the boot times for XP, but for me the bottom line question is how does it run overall after it has booted up? I see that it is a slow, weighted down OS, with all kinds of junk in it.
I see it as not being faster than Windows NT overall in performance, and definitely slower than Windows 2000, (which is the same OS without all the Bloated junk in it).
It might not crash on you, but it is a dog to run because you need just about a Super system to run it, and it was designed to force the users (us) to buy new machines, even if the ones we have, in many cases runs just fine.

I would like to see us talking more about what it takes to make the silly OS run faster, and more effeciently once it has booted up in the 20, or 30 seconds it takes with all these tweaks.

I need to mention that I have two machines that run XP Pro, and they never crash on me, and boot really quick. I do not use them very much because they are so Sloooww!!
I prefer to use my lean mean Win2K machines anyday.
I'm using Win2K right now to respond to this message.

I fully expect to get bashed on this, but it the truth as I see it....
:D

so if we get rid of all the junk we will have a fast machine like you except ours has a better forum.

That may be true about the forum, but I just want to see us all talking more about more ways to speed up the actual operation of the OS, not just the boot strap processes.
The forum is bigger for XP, I have to admit, but Win2K's forum is not to shabby either.

I do use my XP machines from time to time, so I am not against it or anything like that, I just think it needs more work, and with all the knowledge in the forum, we can make a big difference.

I think I will go over to an XP machine right now, as a matter of fact.
Thanks for the response.

And yes, getting rid of all the junk will make it a much faster OS too.

Ecrosson, Your problem is that you are using XP Pro!
It is full of junk and very slow. I use XP Home version and since I installed SP2 it is even more fast.

In fact I once installed XP Pro only to uninstall it and go back to the Home Edition for the gain in speed of the OS itself.

Down the same reg path (or the level above) there is a key DisablePagingExecutive. On my old slower system which did have a lot of memory setting this did seem to make a difference to things like starting IE or command prompts.