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Question

Superfetch precaches "Command & Conquer" and "Supreme Commander" BEFORE logon

Applies To:
Vista 64, 4 GB, 6 GB swap, Quad core, more than one hard drive.
Vista is installed for 4 month, works well enough so I won't go back to XP.
Two month ago I saw superfetch precaching unneeded file for bootup, making the bootup process slower, so I changed in the registry "EnableSuperfetch" to 2, (= boot files only), which helped by that time.
At the 30 of December I saw (using perfmon.exe and boottrace) it prefetching "Command and Conquer Generals Zero Hour" and "Supreme Commander" files BEFORE logon, and rattling on the harddrive DURING logon on those files instead of taking care of Virus Scanner, Realtek-Audiomanager etc.
My Autostart part is very clean, there are not even icons on my desktop for those two games.
I did not use som strange "Vista Optimizer" tools, everything I changed was under my own control.

What I saw in perfmon (after logon):
svchost.exe (LocalSystemNetworkRestricted) accessing "G:\Supreme Commander" + "G:\Command & Conquer The First Decade\Command & Conquer(tm) Generals Zero Hour", all subdirectories, not linear, multiple files at the same time.
Those two add up to about 9.7 GB, more ram than I have (real + swap make up 10 GB).
So, Superfetch worked fine for first two month, then I had to restrict it to "boot files only", and now two more month later Superfetch runs HAVOC precaching Gamedata files before logon, trying to precache 9.7 GB of data.

The Superfetch service is set to "manually" now, but I would like to reenable it. If it works the way as expected it is great, but how can I configure more precisely what is is allowed to precache during boot and what not? Where is the information stored what files to precache?
Why does it even with "superfetch=2" precaching files like:
"G:\Supreme Commander\gamedata\*.scd" = 1.93 GB.
"G:\Supreme Commander\movies\*.sfd" = 2.3 GB
etc etc etc (lots of examples).

Please help, Superfetch worked so fine, but now it runs amok, even when I start the service manually it does again do the same stupid thing, reproducable.

Set
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Setsunaaa

Setsunaaa

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Answer

Hi Set,

I just wanted to verify that you changed both EnableSuperfetch AND EnablePrefetcher as your original post indicated that you had only changed one key (EnableSuperfetch) and had not changed EnablePrefetcher.

No harm done, since I work in the computer department I understand why you ask so specific, there is often a difference between what the user says and what he did.

Do you know where superfetch stores it's information?

My current info / trace is that it is five files:
C:\Windows\Prefetch\AgAppLaunch.db
^^ contains some readable string, including supreme command and C&C
C:\Windows\Prefetch\AgGlFaultHistory.db
^^ contains unreadable data except for "MEMO" at the beginning.
C:\Windows\Prefetch\AgGlFgAppHistory.db
^^ contains unreadable data except for "MEMO" at the beginning.
C:\Windows\Prefetch\AgGlGlobalHistory.db
^^ contains unreadable data except for "MEMO" at the beginning.
C:\Windows\Prefetch\AgRobust.db
^^ contains some readable string, including supreme command and C&C

When I delete those files while the service is stopped superfetch behaves "normal" again, Vista ist fast.
I suspect it will do it for a few weeks until it runs havoc again, then I have to kill those files again.

This is not a good solution, but a working one, I hope MS has already adressed this in SP2 or in a hotfix so superfetch does not run havoc or we have more control over its fetching parameters (i.e. which  drives / directories to include or exclude, either via cmdline/powershell tool or a .mmc).

Set
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Setsunaaa

Setsunaaa

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Hi Setsunaaa,

Unfortunately there aren't any advanced options where you can configure what you want and don't want to be included. I see that you went into the registry and changed EnableSuperfetch to 2.

If you haven't already, change EnablePrefetcher to 2 to see if that helps your issue.

Note: Modifying REGISTRY settings incorrectly can cause serious problems that may prevent your computer from booting properly. Microsoft cannot guarantee that any problems resulting from the configuring of REGISTRY settings can be solved. Modifications of these settings are at your own risk.
  1. Open the Start Menu
  2. Type regedit in the Start Search area and press Enter
  3. Click on Continue in the UAC prompt
  4. Navigate to the following location: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchParameters
  5. Locate EnableSuperfetch and EnablePrefetcher
  6. Double-click one of the keys and set the Value data to 2 - Repeat for the other key

The keys have the following values:

0 = Disabled
1 = Application launch prefetching enabled
2 = Boot prefetching enabled
3 = Application launch and boot enabled

If you or anyone else is interested in hearing more about SuperFetch, here is an interview with Michael Fortin: http://channel9.msdn.com/shows/Going+Deep/The-Advancement-of-Windows-Michael-Fortin-Windows-Vista-SuperFetch/

Hope that helps!

Matt
Microsoft Answers Support Engineer
Visit our Microsoft Answers Feedback Forum and let us know what you think.
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Matt - Support Engineer

Matt - Support Engineer
Matt
Microsoft Answers Support Engineer
Visit our Microsoft Answers Feedback Forum and let us

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Matt - Support Engineer said:

Hi Setsunaaa,

Unfortunately there aren't any advanced options where you can configure what you want and don't want to be included. I see that you went into the registry and changed EnableSuperfetch to 2.

If you haven't already, change EnablePrefetcher to 2 to see if that helps your issue.

Well, as I wrote in my first post:
I already did change that value.
That is the reason why I am so puzzled why it prefetches unimportant game data at boot time and not a few minutes later. And why it prefetches more data than physical RAM available.
And why I asked here for help where superfetch stores it's "prefetch this" information : ).
BTW: I already tried deleting the contents of %SYSTEMROOT%\Prefetch, but it applies to the normal prefetcher only.

Set
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Setsunaaa

Setsunaaa

Was this helpful?

Setsunaaa said:
Matt - Support Engineer said:

Hi Setsunaaa,

Unfortunately there aren't any advanced options where you can configure what you want and don't want to be included. I see that you went into the registry and changed EnableSuperfetch to 2.

If you haven't already, change EnablePrefetcher to 2 to see if that helps your issue.

Well, as I wrote in my first post:
I already did change that value.
That is the reason why I am so puzzled why it prefetches unimportant game data at boot time and not a few minutes later. And why it prefetches more data than physical RAM available.
And why I asked here for help where superfetch stores it's "prefetch this" information : ).
BTW: I already tried deleting the contents of %SYSTEMROOT%\Prefetch, but it applies to the normal prefetcher only.

Set


Hi Set,

I just wanted to verify that you changed both EnableSuperfetch AND EnablePrefetcher as your original post indicated that you had only changed one key (EnableSuperfetch) and had not changed EnablePrefetcher.

If you did indeed change both values then I apologize but I just wanted to make sure that was the case. :)
Matt
Microsoft Answers Support Engineer
Visit our Microsoft Answers Feedback Forum and let us know what you think.
    • Child exploitation or abuse
    • Harassment or threats
    • Inappropriate/Adult content
    • Nudity
    • Profanity
    • Software piracy
    • SPAM/Advertising
    • Virus/Spyware/Malware danger
    • Other Term of Use or Code of Conduct violation

Matt - Support Engineer

Matt - Support Engineer
Matt
Microsoft Answers Support Engineer
Visit our Microsoft Answers Feedback Forum and let us

Was this helpful?

Answer

Hi Set,

I just wanted to verify that you changed both EnableSuperfetch AND EnablePrefetcher as your original post indicated that you had only changed one key (EnableSuperfetch) and had not changed EnablePrefetcher.

No harm done, since I work in the computer department I understand why you ask so specific, there is often a difference between what the user says and what he did.

Do you know where superfetch stores it's information?

My current info / trace is that it is five files:
C:\Windows\Prefetch\AgAppLaunch.db
^^ contains some readable string, including supreme command and C&C
C:\Windows\Prefetch\AgGlFaultHistory.db
^^ contains unreadable data except for "MEMO" at the beginning.
C:\Windows\Prefetch\AgGlFgAppHistory.db
^^ contains unreadable data except for "MEMO" at the beginning.
C:\Windows\Prefetch\AgGlGlobalHistory.db
^^ contains unreadable data except for "MEMO" at the beginning.
C:\Windows\Prefetch\AgRobust.db
^^ contains some readable string, including supreme command and C&C

When I delete those files while the service is stopped superfetch behaves "normal" again, Vista ist fast.
I suspect it will do it for a few weeks until it runs havoc again, then I have to kill those files again.

This is not a good solution, but a working one, I hope MS has already adressed this in SP2 or in a hotfix so superfetch does not run havoc or we have more control over its fetching parameters (i.e. which  drives / directories to include or exclude, either via cmdline/powershell tool or a .mmc).

Set
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Setsunaaa

Setsunaaa

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