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From: db on 22 Feb 2010 10:07
the link you refer to
applies to windows vista.

further, the information
provided requires clarification:

though it states that programs
take longer to start the next
time they are launched after
the prefetch's are cleared out.

those programs will start
quickly after the windows
builds a prefetch for them.

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"Jose" <jose_ease(a)yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:005e7ede-eb8f-4de7-977c-179c63003ce7(a)g26g2000yqn.googlegroups.com...
> On Feb 21, 3:48 pm, "Bill in Co." <not_really_h...(a)earthlink.net>
> wrote:
>> db wrote:
>> > you can delete the files in the
>> > "prefetch" system folder.
>>
>> > deleting them (except for the
>> > ini file) can help with the issue.
>>
>> I thought I had read that was a common misperception, and that it wasn't
>> really true.
>
> Microsoft discourage emptying the Prefetch folder:
>
> http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/What-is-the-prefetch-folder
>
> Other readings refer to the advice as "bogus".
>
> Ryan Myers, a developer on Microsoft's Windows Client Performance Team
> says:
>
> XP systems have a Prefetch directory underneath the windows root
> directory, full of .pf files -- these are lists of pages to load. The
> file names are generated from hashing the EXE to load -- whenever you
> load the EXE, we hash, see if there's a matching (exename)-(hash).pf
> file in the prefetch directory, and if so we load those pages. (If it
> doesn't exist, we track what pages it loads, create that file, and
> pick a handful of them to save to it.)
>
> So, first off, it is a bad idea to periodically clean out that folder
> as some tech sites suggest. 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. So
> not only is deleting the directory totally unnecessary, but you're
> also putting a temporary dent in your PC's performance.
>
From: glee on 22 Feb 2010 10:11
Bill in Co." <not_really_here(a)earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:ecHw9czsKHA.5976(a)TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
> db wrote:
>> you can delete the files in the
>> "prefetch" system folder.
>>
>> deleting them (except for the
>> ini file) can help with the issue.
>
> I thought I had read that was a common misperception, and that it
> wasn't really true.

Your right, Bill. While it doesn't actually "hurt" anything to delete
the pre-fetch files, it does not help anything either, and in fact
slightly slows down both the boot process and the loading of commonly
used applications. So, instead of helping with a "slow computer" issue,
it will probably make it a little worse. ;-)

Here's some info in "plain English".....
Beware of Bogus XP Advice
http://www.edbott.com/weblog/archives/000024.html

--
Glen Ventura, MS MVP Oct. 2002 - Sept. 2009
A+
http://dts-l.net/

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