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Clean your prefetch to improve performance.
Published 8/12/2002 in Windows XP Performance Tweaks by TweakXP Member with 51,062 views

This is an unique technique for WinXP. We know that it is necessary to wash registry and TEMP files for Win9X/ME/2000 periodly. Prefetch is a new and very useful technique in Windows XP. However, after using XP some time, the prefetch folder can get full of rarely used or obsolete links which can slow down your computer noticeably. My suggestion is: open C(system drive):/windows/prefetch, delete all files (or at least those more than 3 weeks old), reboot. I recommended that you do this every month.

Editor Note:  Deleting prefetch files too often (Every reboot) can decrease system performance!

 
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Comments
This seems to be done on my XP system right now. I have nothing older than a week in prefetch. Maybe I have another utility that is doing that.
339 days ago
dreadmyst
i wonder if microsoft is deleting old prefech data now.. like the other poster my prefetch is not more than a week old and as far as i know i have no programs that do that kinda work.
312 days ago
Jim
It isn't necessary to delete files in the prefetch folder. XP maintains it for you.
83 days ago
Larry Miller
The prefetch folder is totally managed by the system and there is no need or benefit in manual deletion of these files. Deletion of active prefetch files will impair performance. The whole concept of cleaning the prefetch folder is based on a complete misunderstanding of how prefetch works.

Larry Miller
Microsoft MCSA
79 days ago
Mark
The Task Scheduler service must be set to Automatic for the Prefetch Folder to work properly. Files in Prefetch Folder that are not or rarely used are automatically deleted when the folder reaches 128 items (at least I think it's 128 items). Therfore it isn't necessary to perform any maintenance on the Prefetch Folder. Doing so will hurt performance. Here is one of several articles on this issue:
http://www.edbott.com/weblog/archives/000743.html
18 days ago
 
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