Clean up and disable Windows prefetch

Time Required: 1 Minute, 5 Minutes, 10 Minutes , 15 Minutes

Notes: WindowsXP has a new feature called Prefetch. This keeps a shortcut to recently used programs.
However it can fill up with old and obsolete programs.

Warnings: This is dangerous if you do not know what you are doing. I do not take responsibility for anything that you do to your computer that harms it or any files on it in any way.

Written By: LB

Edited By: Max Feinstein

How to do it:

• How to clean the prefetch directory:
• Navigate to Start > Run (Click on Run).
• Type in "Prefetch" in the input field and press enter.
• Hold the Control key and press A (Ctrl + A).
• Press the Delete key and then click "Yes" to delete all of the files.
• Close the directory.
• How to disable prefetch: (note: This may negatively affect the time that it takes to start any programs and also Windows.)
• Navigate to Start > Run and click on Run.
• In the input field, type "regedit" and then press enter.
• Navigate to the following key in the registry by clicking on the +'s next to the folders in the left pane (see picture below).
• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Control/Session Manager/Memory/ManagementPrefetchParameters
• Locate a key called "EnablePrefetcher".
• Double click the key.
• Change the value of the key to 0.
• Press OK.
• Exit Regedit.
• Note: This comes into effect the next time your computer is restarted.

<IMG alt="" src="http://www.xpfreedom.com/modules/ContentExpress/img_repository/regedit.JPG" align=middle border=0>

Regedit's left-hand pane.