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How can I disable the Windows XP prefetcher?
John Savill
February 27, 2002
1 Min Read
A. XP's memory manager module includes a prefetcher component that runs at system startup and fetches commonly used programs to speed their execution. This component slightly increases the amount of time to start the OS. Although Microsoft doesn't recommend disabling the prefetcher, you can disable this component (e.g., for troubleshooting purposes or to speed boot time) by performing the following steps:
Start a registry editor (e.g., regedit.exe).
Navigate to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlSession ManagerMemory ManagementPrefetchParameters subkey.
Double-click EnablePrefetcher, set its value to 0, and click OK.
Close the registry editor.
When you reboot the system, the prefetcher won't execute.
EnablePrefetcher actually consists of two values:
0x00000001 = Application launch prefetching
0x00000002 = Boot prefetching
XP uses an AND statement to join these values; hence the Prefetcher default value is 3 because XP enables both application launch prefetching and boot prefetching.
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