Not sure why the original comment was buried....digg title: Do not delete the Prefetch folder on Windowsarticle title: Do not clean out your Prefetch folder!There's a difference and the original comment was trying to reflect that.
In all reality, it doesn't hurt to empty the prefetch folder. The worst it can do is slow down some stuff. I have occasionally cleared it when uninstalling/reinstalling major apps (like firewalls and antiviruses). If you really want to speed up boot performance, look at your BIOS settings and download a tool like Autoruns from Sysinternals to evaluate all the junk that starts up at boot time.
I did it and my boot time went from over a minute to around 40 seconds. Here is why, the prefetch loads your most used programs into memory so they load faster, this makes boot time slower because its loading all those programs into memory. So yes it will make your boot time faster, but program loading will be slower. Then again all those programs have to be unloaded from memory when you shutdown, so that might get faster too. Funny thing is I can't tell a difference in program load times, but my boot time was definitely faster.
prosperoltSep 9, 2006
Not sure why the original comment was buried....digg title: Do not delete the Prefetch folder on Windowsarticle title: Do not clean out your Prefetch folder!There's a difference and the original comment was trying to reflect that.
Closed AccountSep 9, 2006
Who cares about shutdown time? Who shuts down these days?
Closed AccountSep 9, 2006
5. You overbid, so you lose.
mrfloppySep 9, 2006
but, but, but... oh never mind.*sigh*346 days uptime and counting.
mrfloppySep 9, 2006
oh wait, my bad.... I hadn't checked the hour347 days uptime and counting.
hellfire51Sep 10, 2006
In all reality, it doesn't hurt to empty the prefetch folder. The worst it can do is slow down some stuff. I have occasionally cleared it when uninstalling/reinstalling major apps (like firewalls and antiviruses). If you really want to speed up boot performance, look at your BIOS settings and download a tool like Autoruns from Sysinternals to evaluate all the junk that starts up at boot time.
binarycortexSep 10, 2006
I did it and my boot time went from over a minute to around 40 seconds. Here is why, the prefetch loads your most used programs into memory so they load faster, this makes boot time slower because its loading all those programs into memory. So yes it will make your boot time faster, but program loading will be slower. Then again all those programs have to be unloaded from memory when you shutdown, so that might get faster too. Funny thing is I can't tell a difference in program load times, but my boot time was definitely faster.
jacks0nSep 10, 2006
no, this site is wrong. he directly says any programs in the prefetch aren't loaded under bootstrap. bzzzzt!"Prefetch is a utility that loads commonly used applications to RAM when the system starts."from microsoft themselves: <a class="user" href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/xpehelp/html/xetskDisablingPrefetch.asp">http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/xpehelp/html/xetskDisablingPrefetch.asp</a>marked as inaccurate.
eledu81Sep 10, 2006
There are only 2 files in my prefetch folder...