Superfetch on or off?

Sorry I did realize that. I think updates are important and should not be skipped, I only wanted to point out that every update does something, they make changes to the system. So I urge users to read up on them and known about what they do because If your not having a problem with something like USB support for example, and an update says it will fix USB ports not working correctly then why install that update when everything is already working correctly ? I am not saying to skip them but to be very careful and know what they are doing. I would not take updates lightly, they are powerful system changes that should be applied with care.

I know this is a very old thread, but I think it is good to have to correct answer. I didn't read the entire thread so forgive me if someone already posted this information. The reason superfetch was having such a great impact on the user's computer was because superfetch uses a lot of memory to load executables into memory with executable privilege in order to gather information from the executables. Superfetch loads applications into memory instead of reading them from the disk. If the application has been accessed often then Superfetch will add it to the prefetch to speed the computer up. The key here is that Superfetch actually opens many applications at the same time into memory, and sometimes executables that are not even installed on your system. I have a lot of installers on an external hard drive, and Superfetch actually loads them into memory. I don't know if this is a bug. I will need to check with Microsoft to see if this is intended behavior. This link may give you an ideal of how much memory Superfetch may use. It gives a decent description of the what Superfetch does, but it could have been better. What is Windows SuperFetch

I was just given a new system by our IT department. My old system worked great: fast and running just the way I like it. But we were bought by a larger company and are being moved onto their domain. So, new laptop. The new system had 4 times the amount of ram and a much bigger hard disk. My old system actually had an SSD.

As soon as I started using the system, it crawled. CPU ran about 20%, memory about 10%. Yet, apps loaded very slow and when I typed in any application including Outlook, any Office product, even Firefox, I would be typing 4 or 5 words ahead of what it showed. You could watch websites be painted on the screen. I updated the BIOS and all drivers. Then I turned services off and on one at a time to see what the issue was. When I got to SuperFetch, as soon as I turned it off, the system became very, very fast. Apps popped up almost instantly, websites were quick. And typing was appearing instantaneously.

Maybe things would get better over time when SuperFetch learned but it's been a week since I received the machine and this is the first time it's actually useable.

OS Name Microsoft Windows 7 Enterprise
Version 6.1.7601 Service Pack 1 Build 7601
System Manufacturer Dell Inc.
System Model Precision M4800
System Type x64-based PC
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4810MQ CPU @ 2.80GHz, 2801 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 8 Logical Processor(s)
BIOS Version/Date Dell Inc. A14, 5/19/2015
SMBIOS Version 2.7
Windows Directory C:\WINDOWS
System Directory C:\WINDOWS\system32
Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume1
Locale United States
Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 32.0 GB
Total Physical Memory 31.9 GB
Available Physical Memory 20.3 GB
Total Virtual Memory 63.9 GB
Available Virtual Memory 51.8 GB
Page File Space 31.9 GB

Some of the physical memory is being used as a RamDisk. I did that today and loaded some applications there. They are now even faster than ever. Opening an app is almost instantaneous.

SuperFetch is disabled here as per SSD optimizations, however I don't have much knowledge about a RAMdisk. I have 16Gb RAM, 4 GB is used by the OS, I may have 2 Virtual Machines running with 4GB each. That leaves me with 4GB. Considering my usual daily usage is pretty much browsing, would I see any improvements using a RAMdisk and what should I run from it?

I'm not sure why anyone would resurrect a 3 year old thread to discuss SuperFetch. Are that many people using systems with 1 GB or less in them? It's been pretty well decided that once you go over 1 GB, SuperFetch isn't going to help you out at all. Considering what baseline system are these days, SuperFetch is a thing of the past.

Thanks for the detailed reply. Much appreciated. I have also seen this tutorial - RAM Disk - Install for Browser Cache File Storage