Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 11th May 2009 20:43 UTC
SuperFetch is a technology in Windows Vista and onwards that is often misunderstood. I decided to delve into this technology to see what it is all about, and to dispel some of the myths surrounding this feature.
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Member since:2008-11-18
By OSX do you mean Linux/UNIX? Because most (if not all) have been doing that for quite some time. You always hear from noobs, on forums, about "I barely have anything running but says I only have x% free!" because they are all used to Windows using only 'what-is-running'. Hell, I was a culprit of it at one point...
Just an FYI
Just an FYI
Actually no, it is not similar to super fetch. Super fetch is thought to be an automatic technology active when you boot up the computer. You turn on the computer and, it checks your history, saved on disk, and then it starts a silent launching in the background.
Mac OS X and some *NIXs do differently. They are slow to lunch the app, but when you quit the app, not all resources are flushed out of memory... So if you later decide to re-open the application, the application will open faster. Just in that case. However, once you turn off your computer, all RAM memory is flushed, and those RAM caches are lost. The next time you turn on your computer the process start all over again. What Apple and *NIXs providers recommend is: Do not turn off your Mac or Workstation, unless you have to.
Super fetch tries to do something different. It is trying to guess what your habits are, how you use your computer and opening those apps you use according to your habits... All without asking. It can work sometimes. If it works is wonderful. But when it fails, it fails really badly, like a Pentium IV branch prediction.
So I believe it is not perceptually right for the user. It is like a roller coaster. Sometimes, the system would be incredible fast. Other times, it would be too slow. So users complain about it. If the system were slow always, the user would adapt to the speed of the system and it would not feel the difference... After all, we all have used slower computers in not a distant past. But the ups and downs in the speed is what get users frustrated.
Edited 2009-05-12 05:11 UTC
Member since:2005-06-29
Mac OS X and some *NIXs do differently. They are slow to lunch the app, but when you quit the app, not all resources are flushed out of memory... So if you later decide to re-open the application, the application will open faster.
As explained in the article, Windows does that as well.
Member since:
2008-06-24
By OSX do you mean Linux/UNIX? Because most (if not all) have been doing that for quite some time. You always hear from noobs, on forums, about "I barely have anything running but says I only have x% free!" because they are all used to Windows using only 'what-is-running'. Hell, I was a culprit of it at one point...
Just an FYI