Microsoft has developed many ideas for Windows over the decades. Some hit the mark perfectly, others were rejected outright, and then there are those with defenders and detractors alike. SuperFetch fits into that last category. Presented as a technology capable of accelerating the applications most used by the user, not a few rush to disable it as soon as they get the chance, while on the other side, they swear by the effectiveness of its automatic operation…
SuperFetch: What Is It?
The SuperFetch service shares roots with the old "Prefetcher" from Windows XP, but it made its formal debut as part of Windows Vista in November 2006. Redmond adopted a slightly different strategy when it comes to RAM, which in relaxed terms can be explained as "unused memory is wasted memory". The goal of SuperFetch is to monitor how the user uses applications and, from there, create a preloading pattern that places those applications in RAM to speed up their execution. In theory, it sounds good…
… but in practice, many users crucified it. The combination of SuperFetch and other modules like the Windows index led to a noticeable loss of performance on a significant number of computers, and their users concluded they could reduce that impact by disabling SuperFetch and the index. After having suffered firsthand with the "gold" build of Windows Vista with the CPU and disk activity at 100 percent, disabling SuperFetch became routine.
The Windows 10 Era
Fast-forward to the present, the truth is that the essence of SuperFetch remains intact, but its environment changed completely. Windows 10 is not Windows Vista, computers have a larger amount of RAM at their disposal (do you want to know how much RAM you need today? We have a whole article on that subject) and solid-state drives are no longer luxury items. So, is it recommended to disable SuperFetch or not?
As with many other things in the Microsoft universe, the answer is "it depends". Part of SuperFetch's management is determining the performance characteristics of the computer's drives, which is not always easy due to the existence of "exotic" configurations. For example, imagine a computer with an SSD as the boot drive, and a hard disk that, in addition to serving as mass storage, also has some apps installed. SuperFetch automatically disables itself if the computer is "pure SSD" of high speed, but if there is at least one mechanical drive, leaving the service on "auto" is not a bad idea.
How to Disable SuperFetch in Windows 10
However, we will never deny you the right to experiment on your own computer. Over time we have learned not to give Microsoft the benefit of the doubt, and if you suspect that SuperFetch might be affecting overall performance, then today we'll explain how to disable it. The good news is that it's completely reversible. The bad news is that SuperFetch is no longer called SuperFetch…
That's right: the module changed its name. Now it's known as SysMain, a perhaps more intimidating expression if you will, but that hasn't stopped us before. Go to the Start menu, open "services.msc", scroll down the list until you find SysMain, and change its state to "Disabled". Restart the computer, and that should be enough. Give it a try, and tell us how it went. Good luck!
