Windows PreFetch - Comments Page 1

I would like to thank you for publishing your hints and fixes. I have spent the better of two days trying to increase the speed of my grandaughters computer. I took most of the information provided by you in, "Make windows XP run faster". After applying the suggestions and adding an X-ray program you suggested, her old machine is working much better and the speed has increased. She is happy with it now and that is the main thing. She also thinks I am a genius. I don't think I am going to tell her that the real genius is you. Thanks again.

Related to this is perhaps another Myth: There exists software which enables the operating system to be tailored only for the application being used. Consequently this pairs down all the unnecessary processes and calls. Apparently it is able to search for all the drivers used by an application and match them with windows,and shuts down everything that is not vital to the application being used. This way all the memory and cpu power is devoted only to the desired application. Is there such a thing? I have not seen it anywhere. And if not what is the next best thing to optimize PC performance and speed with respect to Windows?

EDITOR'S NOTE: That's the job of the operating system to allocate resources to the task at hand, manage the cache, etc., to optimize performance. I wouldn't use such a tool, because it might end up fighting with the OS.

Is X-Ray capable of speeding up My PC significantly?

EDITOR'S NOTE: It depends what you do with it. X-RayPC shows you everything that's running, and gives you the option to kill running tasks, and optionally remove them from the Startup list. Use with caution, it's a power tool.

So why not tell those of us who may have disabled prefetch how to restore it?

EDITOR'S NOTE: To re-enable prefetch, run REGEDIT. Locate HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE -> SYSTEM -> CurrentControlSet -> Control -> Session Manager -> Memory management -> PrefetchParameters. Set the value of EnablePrefetcher back to the default value of 3.

Then whats the difference between X-rayPC and MSConfig? You can stop programs from startup as well. IF it goes further than task manager and config are you implying ways to suspend unnecessary Windows programs ? Where can I get X-ray?

EDITOR'S NOTE: X-RAYPC shows all running tasks, and every program that runs automatically at startup, all on one screen. Think of it as MSCONFIG + Task Manager, on steroids. I do not recommend it for novice users, because you can do damage to your system if not very careful.
See http://www.x-raypc.com

Just for grins, I had to try it, and see. I deleted the contents of \Windows\Prefetch (all 322 entries), and... bang! My "boot" time decreased by 22 seconds. That's empirical observation. What can I say, except... "Your mileage may vary".

EDITOR'S NOTE: Okay, but I imagine your frequently used programs loaded a bit slower the first time you opened them. I checked my prefetch folder and found only about 20 entries, none of which were more than a week old.

I deleted windows prefetch accidentally, what should i do?

EDITOR'S NOTE: Don't do anything... Windows will rebuild it for you.

If you have over 128 prefetch files that means you system has either not been rebooted in some time, not allowed to go idle or the prefetcher is broken in some way. On a properly working system the folder is self cleaning at 128 entries. Regardless extra files do nothing but take up disk space. To learn more about these Myths read: http://mywebpages.comcast.net/SupportCD/XPMyths.html

CCleaner can get rid of OLD prefetch data. I'm assuming that is just prefetch data that hasn't been used in a while. I know Windows is supposed to do that automatically, but it isn't perfect and a third party program can clean up behind the Windows automatic process. Just a little more info. It was a good a read and well written.

This is one of the best forums. I use CCleaner weekly. My Prefecth has only 39 entires. Noticed that all of them are programs I use daily and only one entry is 2/12/07. Bob, you are right. XRay is on steroids. Showed me things I hadn't seen with other programs.