Empty Prefetch on your system to gain speed

The prefetch folder is used to help speed up the loading of programs; XP will load programs it thinks you need before you ask for them yourself. If XP (or 2003) tries to prefetch applications you don’t regularly use, then you may be wasting memory. In this article, we look at how to speed up performance by emptying the little known prefetch folder and allowing XP to start the prefetch determination and archiving process over again.

The prefetch folder resides on your local hard disk, under the Windows folder.

C:windowsprefetch

Use above if u have windows install on your hard disk partition C:, the prefetch folder is located in the windows directory.

The prefetch folder is used for speeding up your system. The way it does this is by doing the following:

• Windows XP is configured to prefetch application and program components so that when you load them to memory; it appears to be very quick.
• When XP does this the first time, it winds up copying portions of the program to the prefetch area of your local disk.
• When XP boots up, XP will prefetch portions of the files you use the most.
• XP loads all associated files, libraries, and pointers necessary to run the program in advance, the preloaded subset makes your system appear quicker.

Prefetch when unattended can also slow down your system. This is because over time

• XP will retain a copy of a portion of a program in the prefetch folder even if you only use it one time, which is not good. Since you may not use the program again, you may impact the performance of your system by having portions of a program you do not use loaded in your system’s memory.
• XP systems with very low hardware resources (such as memory and hard disk space) will definitely be affected by an over-bloated prefetch folder.

To view the contents of your prefetch folder, you only need to open to it. To delete all files press Ctrl + A and then Del or you can select files that you want to delete then press Del. However XP will go back through the same process and prefetch what you need.
Note:  The layout.ini file can also be deleted without a problem.

You shouldn’t delete these files often because then your system is constantly taxed in creating file and then you deleting them. This of course will put a strain on your hard disk and leave you needing another defrag.

To change settings for your Prefetch folder, you may need to take a trip into the system’s Registry. You can do this with Regedit.

Start => Run => type Regedit => Enter

Now that you are in the Registry, you can change the way that Prefetch behaves by making a change in the registry. This is helpful when you want to alter Prefetch or disable Prefetch completely. Low resource (memory, hard disk space, etc) systems may need this functionality disabled to get the system to run more efficiently.

When the Registry Editor Dialog box opens, navigate to this value:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlSession ManagerMemory ManagementPrefetchParameters

In the right side pane, look for the key named EnablePrefetcher. The value of this key represents how Prefetch will operate.

Values you can choose from include:

0: Disable

1: Application Launch Prefetch

2: Boot Prefetch

3: Prefetch everything

Simply type the number in that you want (keep all other settings the same) and click OK. Rebooting the system will give you the new Prefetch setting.

~ by culpritz on February 27, 2008.