If you like tweaking your Operating System to squeeze the most power out of it, you may have come across a number of different hacks that don’t actually work. Everything from clearing prefetch data to optimizing RAM is touted as great ways to speed up your system and get more from it. However, many of these myths are harmful and actually work against you if you use them. A site dedicated to XP Myths is a good one to bookmark to prevent wasting your time and money on utilities that don’t work.
EnablePrefetcher TweakMyth – "Setting any Value higher then 3 to EnablePrefetcher will improve performance."
Reality
- "The Prefetcher component in Windows XP is part of the Memory
Manager, and helps to shorten the amount of time it takes to start
Windows and programs. You may want to disable this component for
troubleshooting scenarios or in lab environments. The following list
describes the different possible values for the EnablePrefetcher key.
To disable Prefetch, set the Value to 0.0 = Disabled
1 = Application launch prefetching enabled
2 = Boot prefetching enabled
3 = Applaunch and Boot enabled (Optimal and Default)
By default the Prefetcher is set to a Value of 3 in Windows XP. Values
such as 4, 5, 6 ect… do not exist and are thus useless. Leave this at
the default value of 3 which is already optimal for maximum
performance."
Link: XP Myths
Technorati Tags: myths, xp, tweaks, hacks
{ 1 comment }
This is, without a doubt, one of the best sites I’ve ever seen. It’s good to see someone finally bashing the stupidity that’s out there.