We’ve got some finalised names in for some “performance enhancing” technologies in Vista. Already I’ve written articles on the Superfetch feature, but I’ve been holding off writing this until the real named of codenamed “END” and “Piton” were announced.

These are designed to help improve performance, whether you have the hardware requirements or not, you can still use these features regardless. It’s to help make applications load faster, enable Windows to load almost instantly, and rely on Windows to maintain performance and to keep at a stable state over time. Just a quick overview - click a topic to go to that relevant page.

 Windows SuperFetch
The SuperFetch was unofficially found in XP but actually did very little really. It’s a memory management technology which tracks and monitors which applications and files you use on a regular basis, and then pre-empts what you need before you actually load them up, therefore the computer being one step ahead of itself. It then loads into the background a common file which you use so that it’s faster loading when you go to use it. The SuperFetch can be turned off if you don’t want it running (because on slower computers with 512MB RAM can make your system perform slower as it runs as a system service), and SuperFetch is very secure so it won’t compromise your security in any way.

 Windows ReadyBoost (codenamed “EMD”)
This technology uses external memory devices such as USB flash memory, removable storage on SD cards etc. to boost system performance by adding a separate pagefile (a file which the computer uses as if it was RAM, sometimes called “virtual memory”) to that device. Essentially, plug in an external memory device and your computer may run much faster.
Note: only 256MB and above flash drives work. 8MB, 16MB, 32MB, 64MB and 128MB sized drives aren’t supported.

 Windows ReadyDrive (codenamed “Piton”)
This new technology enables new Vista ready computers which have a special hard drive fitted (a mix of standard hard drive with a bit of stable flash memory sector) which enables better management of battery power for notebook computers, and also that hibernation is much faster. This essentially means that you can resume your computer from hibernation almost instantaneously.