Working with the Windows Prefetcher

What is the Prefetcher? It is a very nifty component of Windows XP that can seemingly read your mind and will start loading your program seconds before you actually start it to boost the startup of the application.

Although the Prefetcher keeps track of the applications that you run, creates optimized copies of them, and stores them in a special cache on your computer, this special cache is simply a location on your hard disk that has no, or very few, file fragments and stores application setting files. The next time you start your program,Windows will load it out of the Prefetcher cache, which is what causes the application to start up quicker.

If you really want to investigate this matter further, take a look at the Prefetcher cache. It is located in the Windows directory inside the Prefetcher folder. You will notice that the cache does not have an exact copy of each application because the files are a fraction of the size of the actual application executable file. Rather, it just has fragments of applications that are used to boost the performance of the startup.
The Prefetcher constantly monitors what applications you are running, even during parts of the bootup. That information is then passed on to help the disk defragmenter optimize the boot files.

The Prefetcher is a very complex component. The majority of the settings can be changed by hacking the registry; however, due to a lack of documentation on these settings, changing them without any guidance would be very risky. Thankfully, a few tips have surfaced in the vast documentation buried at Microsoft’s site and revealed in Microsoft’s applications.

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Do you know to disable the system boot screen?

So, are you enjoying the fun blue bars moving across your screen when your system starts up? Not? Are you finding that you can live without the daily reminder that you are running Windows XP? If so, then you might want to consider removing the boot screen. One added advantage to doing so: You will be getting a boost of performance in return.

Disabling the boot screen might only save you a fraction of a second off your boot time. But keep in mind, every fraction of a second counts.

This performance improvement works on a very simple principle. It takes time for the computer to do anything.Taking away some work that it has to do, such as loading the boot screen, will free time that it can spend loading your system files instead.

The process for disabling the system boot screen is similar to the process for modifying the default operating system in the boot file. If you do not have any other operating systems installed on your system, then you will have to create your own boot.ini file to place in your drive root (that is, the c:\ drive). I am going to show how to create a file first, and will then show how to modify the boot.ini file if you already have one in your drive root or have multiple operating systems installed.

Creating boot.ini file

This section will show you how to create a boot.ini file for your computer if you have just one operating system installed and you do not already have a boot.ini file in your drive root. To get started, let’s go over what the boot.ini file looks like.

The boot.ini file that disables the boot screen looks like the following:

[boot loader]
timeout=0
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS=
"Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect /noguiboot

The above boot.ini file is pretty standard except for the addition of the /noguiboot to the last line of the file. That is the parameter that tells Windows to start up without using the graphical user interface boot screen. To get started, open up a copy of Notepad, found in the Accessories menu of the All Programs entry, in the Start Menu and follow these
steps:

1. On the first line of the file, type in [boot loader].

2. On line 2 of the file, key in timeout=0 so Windows does not show the boot selection screen at all. You don’t want this anyways because you only have one operating system installed on your computer.

3. On line 3 of the file, type in defaultmulti(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
so that Windows knows where to look on your hard drive to start the operating system.

4. On line 4, type in [operating systems].

5. On line 5, type in multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS=”Microsoft
Windows XP Professional” /fastdetect /noguiboot to start up Windows with the
/noguiboot parameter to disable the boot screen.

6. Click the File menu bar item and select Save As.

7. Type Boot.ini in the File name box and change the Save as type to All Files.

8. Then, change the Save in directory to your drive root, which is usually Local Disk (C:).

9. Click the Save button and you are now finished.

You can now close Notepad. The next time you reboot your computer, you will not see the boot screen.

Hacking Techniques