Cleaning up the Win XP Prefetch file can be advisable for better performance, and freeing some space on your HD. There is a special tool to do this: http://www.majorgeeks.com/download2495.html
Tool for flushing the Prefetch log and controlling the Prefetch Parameters.
Flushing the Prefetch log could initially have a detrimental effect as it will take at least three boots to rebuild the layout.ini file.
If you are concerned about the size of the prefetch folder, you can restrict the files that it monitors, mine is set to only monitor files that run on boot. Currently my prefetch folder is a huge ;D 0.97MB so no space overhead at all.
Good we have that cleared then. I had this program and info from a reliable site as I have experienced "Majorgeeks"to be. The only consideration was privacy related, but as this farfetching crapcleaning bears stability risks as you two so aptly informed, we’d better not tamper with it then. Point taken, lesson learned! But that actually is one of the big advantages of this here webforum to get at and behind the facts. And everybody can be aware of that now. Again thanks for your reaction,
Cleaning up the Win XP Prefetch file can be advisable for better performance
Unfortunately, doing this has just the opposite affect. It will [b]adversely[/b] affect your performance.
This is also a subject we've discussed on several occasions and not always on a nice and friendly basis..... :'(
The only time that I would clear prefetch is after a serious malware infection. More as a tidying up exercise than anything else, so that anti-spy tools don’t latch onto the old files and give the misleading impression of malware still active
I went into the registry a couple of years ago and turned prefetch off. I find it a bit slower when I click “back” since it has to load the page each time from scratch. When loading a new page of course it makes no difference. If I had Win98 or a slow comp on dial-up I would still have prefetch on. Remember, If you do a repair install it automatically turns prefetch back on. This is another topic on which each person seems to have their own preference.
Edit: I found this excellent article in MSDN Magazine by Mark Russinovich and David Solomon that explains how prefetch works in WinXP. I have now started up prefetch. I stand corrected. Thanks guys.
DavidR: You are right, prefetch does not affect webpages. Since it is now loading pages (and going “back”) faster now that I have enabled prefetch, I assume that browser settings are prefetched however. Thank you for getting me thinking about prefetch.
Hi, I use ccleaner like so many people do,and it cleans ‘old prefetch data’ by default.I’ve never noticed any problems using this.So is it adviseable to uncheck this option in ccleaner?
Gene the prefetch we are talking about has nothing to do with your browser, back button or cache. It registers the location on the HDD of programs that run on boot and after depending on settings. Since the location of the file on the HDD is known it loads it doesn’t have to search for it.
Flushing prefetch data is only recommended after very long periods of time (2 years for example). And even here i think Windows clean old stuff automatically anyway…
If you never run the program again, that .pf file never gets used, and in fact it gets deleted eventually.
But I did not find any technical answer: how, when, why... Windows delete a .pf file ::) ???
I’ve also found this:
Windows cleans out old files here automatically, and it uses the current information simply as instructions to help load programs more efficiently. If you delete a program, its layout and trace files go unused and are deleted within weeks.
I’ll have to believe, although I can’t understand how it’s being done…
Guess that’s something you’ll have to ask Microsoft about.
The article however does poin’t out that the prefetch log should NOT be deleted or cleaned out.
The only reference I can see to Prefetch files being deleted is this:
For one thing, XP will just re-create that data anyways; secondly, it trims the files anyways if there's ever more than 128 of them so that it doesn't needlessly consume space.
I fully agree with this… I just want to know the other point.
Discussing if Windows XP Prefetch folder should be flushed or not is useless… you should not clean it.
What I can’t understand is why CCleaner, for instance, still have this option there :
According to the MS man, the number of Prefetch files will not be allowed to go over 128. I assume Windows will delete the least used, but that’s just a guess.
What I can't understand is why CCleaner, for instance, still have this option there
The reason I heard on the CCleaner forum is that you might want to remove all traces of a program you installed. Somebody put it more bluntly on Warp2Search:
Commentary misses the point with knee-jerk reaction. The prefetch cleaning option is not intended to increase performance but simply remove a run history of applications. Users may not want it recorded that they ever ran pr0nmaster5000.exe or continue to do so from a removeable flash drive.
God why does this Myth never die? The Windows XP Prefetcher has nothing to do with loading websites faster. You are confusing Browser Prefetching such as Fasterfox with Windows XP Prefetching. Windows XP Prefetching is already configured optimally by default and should never be cleaned or disabled. Unless of course you want Windows and all of your applications to load SLOWER! Prefetching simply optimizes how applications and Windows XP loads.
Anyone who recommends cleaning the folder, disabling the Windows XP Prefetching or “tweaking” it in ANY way has absolutely NO idea how it works.