Is Superfetch really safe to stop?

In Task Manager, there's a task called ServiceHost Superfetch that takes up a lot of resources and caused the disk to run at 100%. I've googled this and found other people have had this problem. When they asked about ending that task, it's usually said to be safe, and those who have done so say it speeds up their computer in a major way. However, when I looked up what it is and what it does, it sounds like it does quite a bit, hence the reason for taking up so much resource power from the computer. This makes me wonder if ending it does any harm. If all the many things it does is so resource intensive, aren't any of those things actually important enough to be done?

BTW, when I attempted to end that task, I got a stern warning that it could cause problems if I end it, and even said I would have to restart my computer. Sounds pretty integral to the operation of things.

Restarting is a common to many Windows operations. If you are curious just try disabling it. You can always restart it again. Nothings going to blow up :)

Another thought might be for you to research why its using 100% of the resources. I just checked mine and its virtually off the scale at the low end.

Brink said:

I wouldn't recommend to disable a bunch of other services without knowing exactly what they affect. That could indeed cripple Windows.

The link you posted got blocked by Malwarebytes, so I'm not sure how trusted that site is.

Whoa! Sorry about that! I'm using a public computer which doesn't have Mbam on it. Maybe that warning would have come up for me otherwise. That makes me wonder about the advice on that site. I googled for something similar and am not finding a list of services that can be disabled in the same way. But for the list provided by the site that got blocked, here's what I was able to copy/paste from it so you can see the list of services it was making reference to:

Disable a Service in Win 10

1. Open the Start menu.
2. Type Services and open the app that comes up in the search.
3. A new Window will open and will have all the services that you can tweak.
4. Double-click a service you want to disable.
5. From Startup Type: choose Disabled.
6. Click OK.

If you want to play even more safe and looking for extreme speed boost in Windows 10, consider using the RegInOut System Utilities and it’s Services Optimizer feature. RegInOut’s extreme-gaming profile feature is quite useful to quickly optimize your Windows 10.
Now let’s take a look at which services you can manually disable safely.

1. Xbox Live Game Save: This service is responsible for syncing any saved data for games that have Xbox Live save enabled.
2. Xbox Live Auth Manager: This service provides the authentication and authorization services to communicate with Xbox Live.
3. AllJoyn Router Service: This service is used for routing the AllJoyn messages for AllJoyn clients.
4. Bluetooth Support Service: This service is in charge of discovering and working withBluetooth devices. Turning it off is safe if your computer doesn’t have a Bluetooth module.
5. Geolocation Service: This service is responsible for monitoring the current location of your system.
6. Phone Service: This service manages the telephony state on the computer.
7. Touch Keyboard and Handwriting Panel Service: This service handles touch keyboard and handwriting panel pen and ink functionality.
8. Windows Biometric Service: This service is responsible for capturing and storing biometric data without gaining access to the biometric hardware.
9. Windows Mobile Hotspot Service: This service enables a user to share cellular data with other devices.
10. Adobe Acrobat Update Service: This service manages the updates of all Adobe Acrobat applications.
11. Downloaded Maps Manager: This service allows different installed applications to have access to the downloaded maps.
12. Internet Explorer ETW Collector Service: This service collects real time ETW events from Internet Explorer and processes them.
13. Print Spooler: This service handles the interaction between the printer and the computer. Disabling it will disable the ability to print.
14. Skype Updater: This service helps download and install the latest Skype updates.
15. Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service: This service lets the user share Windows Media Player libraries to other networked players or music devices.
16. Windows Update: This service is used for detecting, downloading and installing latest Windows updates.
17. Auto Time Zone Update: This service works in order to update the time zone automatically.
18. Bluetooth Handsfree Service: This service handles the computer’s connection with Bluetooth headsets.
19. Enterprise App Management Service: This service is responsible for managing various enterprise apps.
20. Hyper-V Heartbeat Service: This service is used for monitoring the state of a virtual machine by sending heartbeats at regular intervals.

Do these services look like they're all safe to disable? I already disable some of these manually each time after I restart my computer and it hasn't caused any problems. I was hoping the same might be true for the rest of these, and could disable them permanently.

Brink said:

No worries. You didn't know about that site.
I wouldn't recommend to just disable services like that though.
There's quite a few services in that list that will break things if disable. For example: Windows Update. Most will not run anyways unless needed.
What determines what is safe depends on what is used or not, and what is needed by Windows. It varies too much from system to system.

Yeah, I was wondering about things like Windows Update as well. I figured maybe disabling it would only disable it until the user clicked on Update in the Settings or something. Other things, like Print Spooler, is one I disable already since I don't have a printer. I don't have an Xbox either, so all those seem irrelevant to my computer. It's the ones that I don't know what they do that worry me. That's the reason I started the thread with the question about Superfetch, which seems to be the biggest offender of them all.