Prefetch folder question

[DJS0302]

How does Windows determine what to delete from the prefetch folder? Does it
delete unused entries after a certain period of time or does it wait till the
folder reaches a certain size and then delete the oldest entries. I installed
XP on April 19th of this year and I noticed that the prefetch folder kept
getting larger and larger. Yesterday I opened it and I noticed it was a lot
smaller. What determines how often the prefetch folder gets cleaned out and
can you change it? Anything I've read only mentions manually deleting all the
files except layout.ini and then letting Windows rebuild the information in the
folder.

[Alex Nichol]

DJS0302 wrote:

>How does Windows determine what to delete from the prefetch folder? Does it
>delete unused entries after a certain period of time or does it wait till the
>folder reaches a certain size and then delete the oldest entries.

It will drop entries for programs that have not been used for (I think)
a week - or a bit more. It will also drop the least used ones if there
are more entries than it can handle in an optimisation pass - something
like 30

The folder is not big; it is just a small file for each program
recording the pattern of loading of files when it loads up. Then next
time the system can get loading of all of them under way without being
asked. And twice a week it does the 'optimise' to try to lay them all
out to get best overall load time for the whole collection


--
Alex Nichol MS MVP (Windows Technologies)
Bournemouth, U.K. (remove the D8 bit)

[Alex Nichol]

DJS0302 wrote:

>How does Windows determine what to delete from the prefetch folder? Does it
>delete unused entries after a certain period of time or does it wait till the
>folder reaches a certain size and then delete the oldest entries.

It will drop entries for programs that have not been used for (I think)
a week - or a bit more. It will also drop the least used ones if there
are more entries than it can handle in an optimisation pass - something
like 30

The folder is not big; it is just a small file for each program
recording the pattern of loading of files when it loads up. Then next
time the system can get loading of all of them under way without being
asked. And twice a week it does the 'optimise' to try to lay them all
out to get best overall load time for the whole collection


--
Alex Nichol MS MVP (Windows Technologies)
Bournemouth, U.K. (remove the D8 bit)

[Alex Nichol]

DJS0302 wrote:

>How does Windows determine what to delete from the prefetch folder? Does it
>delete unused entries after a certain period of time or does it wait till the
>folder reaches a certain size and then delete the oldest entries.

It will drop entries for programs that have not been used for (I think)
a week - or a bit more. It will also drop the least used ones if there
are more entries than it can handle in an optimisation pass - something
like 30

The folder is not big; it is just a small file for each program
recording the pattern of loading of files when it loads up. Then next
time the system can get loading of all of them under way without being
asked. And twice a week it does the 'optimise' to try to lay them all
out to get best overall load time for the whole collection


--
Alex Nichol MS MVP (Windows Technologies)
Bournemouth, U.K. (remove the D8 bit)