Comments on: Debunking yet another bogus Windows tip

By: chris

chris — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 22:07:04 +0000

When you mention the 10k hits on google I know exactly what you mean.

For example I see a tweak page, I then decide to google the tweak, more often then not its a registry modification.

I will usually get thousands and thousands of hits so I click on a few of the links and its always the same, its people simply pasting the tweak in their own hints and tips they are simply telling others to do the same thing. Yet not one single person explains what the tweak does, usually a few dozen pages in to google you get one sensible reply someone pointing to docs on microsofts website or explaining what the tweak actually does and its usually negative.

By: Dude

Dude — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 16:08:35 +0000

“Maybe inserting /WinningLotto in Excel’s command line might make something happen.”

… Thanks man, I put the command in powerpoint and it gave me the winning lotto combination of the week!

By: antivista

antivista — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 21:25:19 +0000

a very interesting thread… and thankfully someone (andrew k) has finally mentioned the need to always reboot between each test..!!! maybe it’s so obvious that it didn’t get mentioned from the word go, and yet it’s a typical mistake that beginners make that visit sites like this looking for guidance…

yes, that thread mentioned at the beginning of this article was hilarious, even more hilarious is the fact that tweakxp.com (the person asking for the documentation on this prefetch flag nonsence) has this myth posted on their website as a performance improvement..!

By: Ed Bott

Ed Bott — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 21:13:19 +0000

Jeff, it has to do with the way that WMP works. Because WMP can play many different types of media files, its startup behavior varies depending on the type of file you clicked to open it. So there are actually several variations of the /prefetch switch for WMP, not just /prefetch:1. Read the article again and folow the links this time and you’ll see.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 20:52:49 +0000

If the /prefetch:1 myth were true, than why is it only used on WMP? You think Microsoft would use it to boost all of their programs, not just WMP.

By: Larry Carver

Larry Carver — Thu, 20 Apr 2006 21:47:08 +0000

Ed, you’re a c*nt and an a$$hole but on this occasion, I’m happy I listened to you!

By: Andrew K

Andrew K — Mon, 10 Apr 2006 10:10:12 +0000

The Wizard, NO it does NOT work. I’ve tested it on various systems and with various applications. It does absolutely nothing but create ANOTHER prefetch file.

You have to cold boot in between tests! Otherwise the second time you lauch the same application in the same session various files will already be preloaded into memory from the last time you launched it. Just because you close an application down does not mean all the files it used get flushed from memory immediately.

Stop spreading this Myth Wizard!!!

By: The Wizard

The Wizard — Sun, 26 Mar 2006 23:48:43 +0000

I’m the one who discovered this tweak and stand by it. You can throw all of your negative authoritative pronouncements that you want at it, but the bottom line is that it works.

started xp’s sys restore utility and it took approx 3 seconds to display on the screen. added the switch and it displayed immediately. there’s no way you can tarnish that!!!

The Wizard

By: mark

mark — Sun, 11 Dec 2005 23:58:39 +0000

Thanks for the tip! I was just about to do this when someone pointed me to your tip.

By: spam2lucas

spam2lucas — Wed, 23 Nov 2005 15:23:36 +0000

Did you know this one:
Start firefox (1.0.7 or later) with that /abracadabra switch in the command line.
Click the Help menu, then push ctrl + Shift, and holding those click ‘Info’.
You”ll see Harry Potter in the muggle-world.

By: CIA

CIA — Thu, 13 Oct 2005 04:00:57 +0000

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=309776

Goto Google. Search for ’selinux’.

You now have a Cookie from NSA.gov, and your Firefox browser has downloaded http://www.NSA.gov. Nice implementations of privacy Firefox team. Good job.

By: Laurent

Laurent — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 17:00:00 +0000

Thanks for clearing that one up, Ed. I was always very skeptic about the effectiveness of this ‘tweak’. I’ve come across it so many times, especially in the Firefox forums. And a lot of people seem to be completely convinced that it works.

By: Ed Bott

Ed Bott — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 17:00:00 +0000

You're welcome. And just to make things completely confusing, be aware that there is a Firefox-specific prefetch feature, which has nothing to do with either of the things I wrote about here! The Firefox prefetch loads Web pages based on tags put into the page itself. I've written about this feature here and here. So that's three completely different features, all with the same name (prefetch), that can be found on a typical Windows user's computer. No wonder people get confused!

By: Zaine Ridling

Zaine Ridling — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 17:00:00 +0000

That’s the funniest article I’ve read online in a week! I do recall the Firefox prefetch parameter being hocked as one that increased startup speed, but with Firefox 1.x, I think it’s no longer needed. Although the /abracadabra switch might be worth trying with OpenOffice 2.0. Maybe inserting /WinningLotto in Excel’s command line might make something happen.

By: Ken

Ken — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 17:00:00 +0000

This stuff is a hoot! I have learned, mostly the hard way, never to accept “tweaks” like this one on the word of someone who acts like he knows what he is talking about when, in fact, he doesn’t. In my experience, 99.9 percent of these “tweaks” are offered without any persuasive explanation of exactly why or how they supposedly “work” (e.g. they don’t link to any Microsoft KB articles) and without any suggested method or gauge by which a user can objectively verify any actual,transparent improvements in performance.

Ken