Prefetch feature for W2k

[pointertovoid]

Hello everybody!

Having tried Xp, I'll stick to W2k, but I wish W2k had the Prefetch that really speeds up starting Windows and applications on Xp.

I should have opened a thread before, sorry to have polluted the other:

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showto...13355&st=20

I feared adding the Prefetch would require in-depth modifications to W2k's kernel, but then I saw at Microsoft a description of the filesystem filters.

From what I have (properly?) understood, any request to access a file goes through a stack of Windows programs, ending with the driver, but going through filters. These filters typically call antivirus software provided by independent companies, and this looks to me like a relatively easy way to add the prefetch feature.

Imagine: the prefetch program (but call it an antivirus if Windows wants it) would ask Windows to be informed of every file or cluster any application requests and could keep notice of it as Xp does. After a few starts, the prefetch knows which files belong together: as the application's main file is started, the prefetch can request "for its own needs" to read the related files that the application will supposedly need and release these files as soon as they are in Ram where the application will find them.

Apparently, we get the desired result, and it doesn't need any change in Windows - we just add a special application.

Does this make sense?

Marc Schaefer, aka Pointertovoid

Edited February 3, 2009 by pointertovoid