[janlafata]

I have Windows Vista Home Premium. I like to clean out my C:\Windows\Prefetch folder every now and then, especially when I have just installed something big, used system restore etc etc.

Usually when I clear out the prefetch, I open the folder, choose "Select all" and hit delete. Then, usually, I close the folder out fairly quickly. Well I have had some problems with Trojans lately and I got them out, thanks to Kaspersky and Spyware Doctor but I'm still getting that feeling that something else is going on, on my system.

So this time I cleaned out the Prefetch folder, but instead of closing it out right away, I left it open. After about 5 seconds DLLHOST.EXE appeared, then after a few more seconds, a few other.exe's appeared. The exact tiltle for the DLLHOST was DLLHOST.EXE-71214090.pf. Another pf was WERMGR.EXE, TRUSTEDINSTALLER.EXE and a few others. Many of them just appeared right before my eyes even when I wasn't doing anything on the computer.

So I just want to know...Is this all legit? I did some research that said the DLLHOST in System32 is normal. Anywhere else it could be bad. An with the trouble I have had recently with trojans, I'm just a little suspicious.

[Elvandil]

There is never any need to clean out the folder since new entries displace older ones and it cleans itself that way. And, yes, it is normal for all programs that are executed to create an entry in the prefetch folder and the layout.ini file inside that folder so that defrag can use the results to optimize file placement on your hard drive.