WXP - c:\windows\prefetch directory

[jbeh]

Can someone please tell me what c:\windows\prefetch directory does.

What rules govern its use?

Can its contents be safely destroyed.

Only just found this directory by chance and am curious

MTIA

John

 

[wolluf]

Have you tried Google? Got a number of hits, eg,

http://leiahteh89.tripod.com/Tips & Tricks/006.html

 

[bcastner]

MS MSDN:
"Windows XP monitors the files that are used when the computer starts and when you start applications. By monitoring these files, Windows XP can prefetch them. Prefetching data is the process whereby data that is expected to be requested is read ahead into the cache. Prefetching boot files and applications decreases the time needed to start Windows XP and start applications."

A popular tweak is to set prefetch only for programs used at boot time. Seems a dubious tweak to me personally, but this is how it is done:

Start, run, regedit
Goto: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\MemoryManagement\PrefetchParameters\EnablePrefetcher

Set the value to: 0-Disable, 1-App launch prefetch, 2-Boot Prefetch, 3-Both ("3" is the default)
Reboot.

You can safely delete the contents of the prefetch folder. It takes roughly three days for XP to rebuild the folder depending on idle time, which is when it does the work. This latter fact is why I am dubious as to the value of the tweak above.

 

[jbeh]

Thanks very both much for that.

I think I'll leave well alone -

John