"Make Windows Run Faster" Worth it or neglible?

[Assmitten]

Hi Nerdy Nerds Whom I Admire,

I am almost out of disk space and too impatient to just sit tight and wait for my computer to come in a week. So I am poking Windows to make my biz run faster/better, because I have just lost some graphics on CivCity Rome, and it's running like molasses, anyway.

Anyway, I came across this, which made me curious if it's worth it:

9. Make Programs Load Faster

This little tweak tends to work for most programs. If your program doesn't load properly just undo the change. For any program:

   1. Right-click on the icon/shortcut you use to launch the program
   2. Select properties
   3. In the ‘target' box, add ‘ /prefetch:1′ at the end of the line.
   4. Click "Ok"

Voila - your programs will now load faster.

Useful or BOOshit? Good for the Sims 2 as well?

Admiringly,

Stuck in Remedial Tech

If anyone's interested, I got this from Leo Notenboom--Ten Intermediate Ways to Speed Up Windows.
http://www.connectedinternet.co.uk/2005/12/05/652/

[lindaetterlee]

http://computing.net/windowsxp/wwwboard/forum/36375.html

Do some reading. Seems valid. Never tried it.

[Paperbladder]

Windows already does this with a quite few programs like Firefox, you can check which ones it does by going to the C:/Windows/Prefetch directory.  Prefetching will only help load your programs about a second quicker, it won't improve performance otherwise.  Same goes for Vista's SuperFetching.

[KatEnigma]

It will slow you down at startup, that's for sure. I don't want Windows to start or fetch anything until I tell it to.

[witch]

I turn off Office, that starts a whole lot of preload stuff, as I don't always use it and it starts quick enough when I want it, I don't let it load anything in advance.

[jrd]

Bullshit. Windows does this prefetching anyway, so there's no need to do this. All it will do is slow down your program's startup since it will be forced to check the prefetching each time.