[Stingray10]

Should this folder be cleaned periodically?If so is there a safe way to do it.Thanks.

[brendandonhu]

Prefetching periodically cleans out old data automatically.

[Stingray10]

So it is safe to delete the contents of this folder?

[KeyesZX]

Yes, but I believe you'll experience a little degraded performance until it repopulates. That's at least what I have learned. I did it once with KillBox .

[Stingray10]

Is there a cleaner that will do this for me?

[KeyesZX]

As brendandonhu said, Windows does it for you. Why would you want to do it yourself? If you really wanted to, you could just go to C:\WINDOWS\Prefetch and delete the items in there, I think.

[Stingray10]

If windows cleans it i'll leave it at that.Thanks for the answers.

[Mastertech]

There is no reason to clean the folder, Windows cleans this automatically at 128 entries. If you clean the folder Windows and all your applications will take longer to load. The folder is also very small in size. XP Myths

[redoak]

Originally Posted by Stingray10

Is there a cleaner that will do this for me?

"CCleaner" will routinely do it, but the item in the menu should be UNCHECKED. As noted, the Prefetch folder should be left alone.
{redoak}

[Noyb]

There are those who say don't clean the Prefetch.
There are those who say clean the Prefetch.
I've tried the Prefetch both ways ... and can't tell any difference.

If you let CCleaner clean the Prefetch ... It'll remove entries older that 2 weeks.
I figure this is a good compromise between the two arguments.

[JohnWill]

I figure the "massive" 5.2 megs of stuff that's currently in my Prefetch folder isn't much of a burden, cleaning appears to be a waste of time. FWIW, I've never done anything to the Prefetch folder...

PS: The oldest file in there appears to be from 9/2/06, so it's not like someone isn't sweeping up the place.

[Mastertech]

Originally Posted by Noyb

There are those who say don't clean the Prefetch.

All of which are members of the Microsoft Windows Client performance Team and Mark Russinovich and Ed Bott.

Originally Posted by Noyb

If you let CCleaner clean the Prefetch ... It'll remove entries older that 2 weeks. I figure this is a good compromise between the two arguments.

Which is ridiculous because you should not delete a prefetch file for an application you still have installed unless you want it to load slower the next time you launch. If the NTFS last access date is disabled than CCleaner will delete all you prefetch files each time you run it, which is completely ridiculous. The folder is self cleaning at 128 entries.

[clmowers]

Bottom line You will not improve Windows performance by cleaning out the Prefetch folder. You will, in fact, degrade Windows performance by cleaning out the Prefetch folder. Also it will only just recreate the data that is in there and for that time its doing that, You will have a slower pc. Just dont do it. It may be a decent size foler but you are not gaining any performance by doing so and 10 mb of HD space or so is not worth having a slower pc.