Hack: Use any USB for ReadyBoost

4 Mar, 2008  Vista  Tweet This Post! | Email Post

In Vista, there is this awesome feature – ReadyBoost. You can use nonvolatile flash memory devices, such as universal serial bus (USB) flash drives, to improve performance without having to add memory “under the hood.” The flash memory device serves as an additional memory cache—that is, memory that the computer can access much more quickly than it can access data on the hard disk drive.

Note: Edit registry at your own risk. It’s a risky business. As always, backup, backup, backup! I am not responsible for whatsoever that can happen if you try this!

However, not all USB flash drives are supported. In order for USB drive to be recognized, you can use the following reg hack.

readyboost

1. Let Vista test it, and check the Do not Retest this device checkbox.
2. Unplug the device
3. Go to regedit
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\EMDMgmt
4. Find the key related to you device (the device vendor and name is in the key)
5. Change the follwing values:
Device Status 0×02
ReadSpeedKBs 0×1000
WriteSpeedKBs 0×1000
6. Plug the device, right click on it to open properties and enable cache.

And oh yeah, USB drive is used for ReadyBoost!

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6 Comments so far »

  1. University Update - Microsoft Windows - Hack: Use any USB for ReadyBoost said,

    Wrote on August 15, 2007 @ 10:46 am

    [...] Contact the Webmaster Link to Article microsoft windows Hack: Use any USB for ReadyBoost » Posted at SharePoint [...]

  2. Data Governance said,

    Wrote on August 22, 2007 @ 1:23 am

    Great tip! I’ll certainly use this because I run many different data analytics programs and those paired with Vista just eat up my memory.

  3. Microsoft Talk » Blog Archive » XP Hack: Readyboost with any USB Device said,

    Wrote on August 26, 2007 @ 10:02 pm

    [...] Hack: Readyboost with any USB Device by Alpesh Nakar Just as you can hack Vista registry to take advantage of Vista ReadyBoost feature, you can use this simple guide to [...]

  4. stevesroom said,

    Wrote on November 24, 2007 @ 1:22 am

    the ready boost settings u offer do not work!
    i have written a full help support on my website .

    stevesroom goto e support see reay boost / speedboost vista

  5. Joe said,

    Wrote on December 20, 2007 @ 6:51 am

    Unfortunately it does not work for me.

  6. bonez565 said,

    Wrote on September 20, 2008 @ 11:59 am

    you can also try reformatting the drive to the FAT file system this worked with my ‘unsupported” drives.

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