March 19, 2007

Clear out the Prefetch folder

Our day to day computer usages overload the prefetch folder of Windows XP which may slow down our computer. XP uses a system called ‘prefething’ to organize and preload some of the data necessary for commonly used application.

It is a good idea to clear the prefetch folder that become overloaded with reference to files longer in use.

We can manually delete the older files from the prefetch folder. To do this go to C:\Windows\prefectch and delete all the .PF files that are older than a week or two.

How can you find the older files? Just place mouse over a file and see the date.

Clear out the prefetch folder every few months or so.

1 comment:

  1. The Prefetch folder cannot get "overloaded" that is absolutely impossible. Nothing is "preloaded" at Windows Startup that is not already loaded and applications are not prefetched until the application load is initiated (you click on the icon). Unused entries do nothing but take up a ridiculous small amount of disk space and are automatically cleaned by Windows when it reaches the 128 limit. Cleaning the folder is a Myth and will REDUCE performance.

    http://mywebpages.comcast.net/SupportCD/XPMyths.html

    ReplyDelete