Microsoft explains why deleting Prefetch can slow down Windows 11, as it’s “designed to speed up” app launches

Deleting the Windows Prefetch folder doesn’t make your PC faster, and it can make apps open slower. In 2005, Microsoft developer Ryan Myers explained that Windows XP used Prefetch files to load apps faster, so clearing them forced Windows to rebuild that data and temporarily slowed things down. Two decades later, Windows 11 still has a Prefetch folder, and “delete Prefetch” is still a staple of Windows cleanup guides.

I’ll admit, I was doing this until very recently. Win + R, type prefetch, Ctrl + A, Delete, and the satisfying feeling of seeing all those files getting deleted and assuming that my PC was somehow lighter. So, I tested it on Windows 11.

Windows wasn’t loading every Prefetch file into RAM

The cleanup advice you see about Prefetch on YouTube and blogs was based on the wrong assumption that every .pf file in the folder…