What’s the point of vista superfetch when it takes second of so for loading apps into memory anyhow? With superfetch on my PC is slow and sluggish, particularly my hard disk continually being access by Vista which does_not know best. Users should be given the choice of what they want cached. Sometimes programmers are too smart for their own good. Thankfully Windows 7 will fix this feature!
This is a good article but is does make one error. A common misconception is that the Available memory in XP is actually free. This is not true. A great deal of this will usually be in use. In Windows available and in use are not contradictory.
As a part of it’s normal activities Windows will trim rarely used memory from a process’s working set to make more available for other uses. This wil be saved to the pagefile if necessary. But this memory is not made free, if the owning application requires the data it is still there. On the other hand, if the memory is needed for other purposes it is immediately available. All NT based systems use this system.
But as good as this stystem is it does not make as full use of memory as possible. This is where Vista’s Superfetch comes in.
Larry Miller
Microsoft MCSA
donno why the heck vista consuming all the memory is good!!@#@#…can’t run any game properly with even huge ram and best processor…vista consumes everything and runs out of memory!!!..linux on dumb machine works better
Ok, than why is Vista using up all my memory and still swapping like crazy? :S
I think it’s amusing how some people post comments, strongly defending Vista…
Here’s a question for the people who defend MS: Have you ever stopped to think, this software is designed for people to use? Since that’s the case - if the people don’t like it, doesn’t that mean the software didn’t quite do what it was intended to do?
It’s like, if an automaker was building only one model of a car that could only be driven on rainy days… After that, the automaker (and it’s sworn followers) tell everyone else they’re stupid for not wanting to buy it, or for being frustrated with it not working on dry days, just to get them to work and back.
People can talk about VISTA’S underlying infrastructure til the cows come home, but given a set of working softwares/environment (even if you limit this to just the popular softwares around), VISTA simply fails to provide a high standard of observable performance.
I have read half of the comments on this page - and that’s a lot…
Regardless which side you’re on, or on the fence,
THE MARKET (that’s everyone)
DEMANDS AN OS THAT FULFILLS ITS NEEDS.
(and of course like EVERY INDUSTRY, this NEED ‘EVOLVES’, constantly.)
Whether techie or not, based on superficial/apparent observable results, the MARKET’S NEED/DEMAND IS FOR VISTA TO RUN SMOOTHLY WHEN OTHER MARKET-POPULAR SOFTWARES ARE LOADED.
Fact is simple: Any standard SALE OF VISTA/LAPTOP/PC will see a handful of STANDARD APPLICATIONS loaded onto the OS.
INSPITE OF ALL THE apparently increase in physical specs, VISTA DOES NOT DELIVER PERFORMANCE - there is no excuse because the people PAY for some quality assurance based on forcasted/expected market appetite.
Vista clearly doesn’t deliver a lot.
People can talk about VISTA’S underlying infrastructure, but given a set of working softwares/environment, it simply doesn’t provide a high standard of observable performance.
This is not news, i have advised everyone requiring performance to get away from Vista - not as an anti-MS stance, but really as a performance decision.
I was horrified initially when I found 10 mb out of 3 GB of physical memory left on my system. This description clarified my doubt.
Thanks 
Regards
Jyotiraditya
I FIND THAT WINDOWS XP AND WINDOWS VISTA, IS VERY POOR
My sister as had both ,for example when viewing items on ebay, the browser pixels are to light . you can not make out the jpegs.
were as at home I have Windows ME ,its and old system, but does not give half the problems of XP and vista. people think by up grading to XP or Vista, they are onto a good thing, but in actual fact they are a load of rubbish ,give me Windows ME any day, yes I do have teething problems from time to time. but its served me well.over the last 6 years.
my email address is les-hughes@blueyonder.co.uk
can some one give my the correct pixcels setting for windows Vista aspire 7520. I need to ajust the browser setting on my sisters laptop.
for when I check out Ebay items
any help will be greatly appreciated.
Les Hughes,
Liverpool ENGLAND
I have vista and iv been freaking out because my computer is running at 100% usage, starting about an hour after i turn it on, bofore then it runs great. So what your saying is that whats going on is a good thing, because i changed everything on my computer my security center and my internet explorer and everything, but nothing brought my cache down. i thought it was bad that i put in almost 5 G’s of RAM and came out with 179 mb because of cache? would that not freak u out?
I play this warrock game which is masivley multiplayer online with like 36 people rooms,and i try to free up as much RAM as i can but it seems the more i try to free up space it takes more away…
Cmon Dan. Seriously. You are either a MAC person or you are still using Windows 98SE… lol.
Look, when Windows 2000 was the best, people whined and moaned about how XP was worthless. Now, people who can’t afford Vista or current hardware are whining again. This time its how XP SP3 is the best and how VISTA is worthless. I laugh when I read posts such as yours (6 up from this one).
Vista (32 or 64-bit) perform just fine. SP1 cleared up quite a few issues. This was the case with XP as well. Most people didnt even consider it until SP1 was out.
In any case, get used to it bud. Windows 7 will be here before you know it - and its even more stable than Vista (not that Vista isn’t stable, it is). That’s right. Just google Windows 7 and see what people are saying. Time to roll with the changes Dan.
Vistas Memory Management is broken. It pages out every crap and is not even close to the efficient Memory Management of Linux - which by the hand does NOT cache out everything back to the disk in that slow and endless manner like vista does. I had Vista and it is damn slow even *with that *neat approach to using the RAM as much as possilbe. If you use your Computers Ressources… DONT use VISTA because it uses them first. (that should be the slogan TM) Windows 7 is just another Marketing joke. Nobody needs it.
I have been skimming over all the info but I didn’t see where you type in the command of not having superfetch or what ever it’s called.
I got on here because I have the same problem.
I have 4GB of ram and I am running VISTA 32.
My Task Manager says:
PHY MEM
TOTAL 3029
CACHED 2122
FREE ANYWHERE FROM 50 DOWN TO 25 when I run IE7
So I was hopeing to get answers on what to do.
I was going to contact DELL support to logon and see what my problem is.
thanks
Great feature
You turn SuperFetch on and off with the services command:
services.msc
You input that command in the Start Search box.
When the Microsoft Management Console launches, scroll down through the services to the Superfetch entry and change the Startup type as you wish.
XP is best at all times.
I don’t think Vista can retain in market in the future.
http://slsecurity.blogspot.com/
The Lanka Reporter
You know, every other modern OS in the world solves this problem by improving the buffer cache logic. Only Microsoft would make the problem WORSE instead of actually fixing the lousy caching algorithms in XP.
now thnx to you I finally know why is my vista SUCKS lot of memory.
the unforgetable experience on my is half of my memory has been decreased because i OPEN notepad and create HTML project for only 8kb -.-.
sometimes if i done nothing to my computer it will refresh its memory!..
The real thing is that Superfetch un-necessarily loads all the files that might be used. This is not quite intelligent. It slows down boot up time and although runs as a background tasks it constantly accesses disk drive for caching contents. So, this has a considerably reduces battery life.
When superfetch service is disabled my computer stops disc reads in a few minutes of start up. when superfetech is enabled the disc is accessed for a longer period.
the act of using RAM as a temporary cache for all the files that one may not use is a pretty dumb idea. Superfetch needs to be more selective to what it loads into the memory. Although it might learn over time, I have grown impatient with it constantly hogging up disc access and consuming RAM for no good reason. So I prefer to have it turned off!
I posted some time ago here (great article Jeff) about getting 8gb of ram to run Vista x64 with. At the time superfetch on vista SP1 would leave pretty much no ram left. Yes it may be putting it to good use but still.
Anyway after running Vista SP2 for about 7 days now I have noticed that Superfetch only uses 3GB out of the 8GB I have now. Less than half compared to SP1!
My usage of Vista has not changed between Sp1 and Sp2 so clearly something to do with Superfetch has changed for the better. It is guessing and prioritising my ram far better than before.
It may not be perfect but right now it is a considerable improvement (50% I would say)over it’s SP1 version. Much more sensible and beneficial now.
YMMV but that is certainly my experience so far.
HTH
good thread…
at the end of the day i think whether this is a good feature or not remains with how one uses ones machine. i’m in the IT business and work exclusively on an xp machine with 2gigs. i just bought my wife a laptop running vista64 with 4 gigs so i thought that i would be drooling over the speed of that machine. not so!
the question will be whether superfetch can actually determine what you need ahead of time! i’m afraid that with the huge number of applications that i need at anyone time then its not going to be able to help me much. and what is the cost of it stopping what it is doing in the background simply to service my ‘page down’ key? too much for me…