Have you ever came across any Windows folder by name “Prefetch“. Few techies suggest me that you should clear off your content in Prefetch folder from time to time and it makes your PC load faster. When I went in depth with Windows Prefetch research found that Windows Prefetch folder holds temporary shortcut files so called trace files for fast launching of the Windows applications and hence decreasing the launching time.

What is Windows Prefetch?
Windows Prefetch is a folder in Windows which stores the trace files in hard disk for the fast retrieval of the files. The prefetch folders resides on your hard disk. The path for it is C:\WINDOWS\Prefetch, you can directly go to this folder by Run Command by typing “prefetch” (donot include quotes).

What if I delete the prefetch folder content?
There is not so serious effect on your PC if you do so. The only if you delete the files in prefetch folder is Windows will have to re-create all the prefetch files again while booting and the it slows down the program launching time until the prefetch files are created. Windows automatically handles the Prefetch Folder, so the buffer size of it is 128 enteries holding not more than that.

So, in my opinion its safe not to touch the Prefetch folder. Until Windows XP its was called Windows Prefetch but as Windows Vista lauched need for launching the application very faster became the utmost priority so the same program was upgraded to SuperFetch and ReadyBoost.