Hard time surfing this site?

[Sal Gerace]

Whenever I go to open and read a topic the page takes forever to open. At least a solid minute. I have not had this trouble with any other site and was wondering if anyone else is having this problem?

[bomelia]

Are you a financial supporter of the site? JUST KIDDING!!!

Really, just kidding. Don't anybody pile on, just thought I'd take a shot at you know who....

Mike

[Excaliber]

It's working at normal speed for me, which is pretty quick. Speed DOES seem to vary from time to time, but mostly, it's been normal. Brent did mention something about doing some additional cleanup to improve the speed. That would seem to indicate he is aware that at least some people may be having speed issues.

Speaking of speed, I went out for a drive the other day in my ERA. Shifted casually into second gear and gave it some 'throttle' but not to deep by any means. I was surprised at how fast it responded, man that car is quick! After owning and driving it for a few years you would think that wouldn't surprise a guy anymore. And yet, it still does! Gotta love that.

[Ron61]

I have no problems and have actually noticed a little increase of speed at times when the site isn't really busy.

Sal, try cleaning out all of your cookies, temporary Internet files, and history. You might also empty the Prefetch folder as the computer will just put those files back as you go from place to place.

Ron

[bomelia]

Prefetch? Ron, what are you talking about? Where is that?

Mike

[Ron61]

Mike,

In Windows XP, go to Explorer and open the Windows directory. The folders are in alphabetical order down the sub-directory and you will see the Prefetch folder down aways depending on what other programs you have loaded. I just open it, select all the files and delete them each day. The computer puts them in for each program or thing that you do but I have had them get corrupted and make some things not work well so I just delete them all and have for years. For example when I logged onto CC it put one in there which I had taken out earlier this morning.

Ron

[Excaliber]

Prefetch is also present in Windows Vista, which is what I'm currently using.

[Ron61]

Hey Ernie,

Which version of Vista are you using and do you like it? I have looked at a couple of computers with it on them but there weren't any applications loaded so I really didn't get much of a chance to really try it out.

Ron

[4RE KLR]

Ron,

I use the "Crap Cleaner" everyday. Would this do the same thing in fewer steps as what you have described above? It works for me and it is amazing how many websites put cookies and images on my system just by going to the websites.

http://filehippo.com/download_ccleaner/

This is a free cleaner that cleans all the cookies and it will clean other stuff as well. I have never had any problems with it and I will take no responsibility for anyone else having problems with it. It works for me, but LOOK at what you are about to delete before you delete anything.

[Ron61]

Steve,

No, I have used Crap Cleaner and it won't delete the Prefetch files. I have tried most of the free cleaners and am using Ad Aware at the present, but the best cleaner that I have used is the one that is in the McAfee Security Center 8.0. I have one cleaner that I bought that came from Germany but it is to aggressive unless you are careful it will take out DLL files that you need.

Ron

[4RE KLR]

OK I am trying to find the path as you described above.

Call me stupid, but is windows explorer what I am looking for? All I keep finding is my doc's and I know that is not right.

[Excaliber]

I think my version is the 'Premium'. I also run XP on a second machine because Vista is not fully compatible with some of my older stuff. Vista is "OK", but it has a steep learning curve and I still can't access certain folders and files that I can on XP. Vista security is pretty tight and you have to tinker with it to gain access to even, what I would consider, standard folders. For instance how the heck can I open "Documents and Settings" in Vista? I like to view/tinker with files in there (dangerous though it is). I sure like the "Media Center" that came with my Vista. I now use the computer much like I would a VCR, recording various TV shows for later viewing etc (600 gig hard drive and massive memory required). I even have a remote control for watching TV on the computer!

Would I recommend Vista? Not really, but it's becoming difficult to find XP on a new computer these days. I had to buy a pretty high end lap top for my son (college) in order to get XP for him. Seems like ALL the 'low end' lap tops these days come with Vista and NO option to install XP. Would I install XP over Vista on my current desktop? No way, finding 'drivers' for the various hardware would be nearly impossible. Manufacturers are specing hardware for Vista now and much of it has no XP drivers available.

[Ron61]

Ernie,

Thanks. That was kind of what I expected when they would only load Office in their demo computers. On a couple of older ones with XP they had several other programs loaded so people could try them out. I know the Vista ones that I looked at seemed hard to get into some areas of the root directory also. I never had time to mess with them for more than a few minutes though and figured I just didn't know the little tricks yet.

Ron

[4RE KLR]

Thanks Ron,
I got it done!

[Ron61]

No problem Steve. Most people don't even know about those files. I do a lot of messing with my folders and deleting old files and such. And I have found out the hard way a couple of times that I deleted one that I shouldn't have in some folder, but I always send them to the trash bin and I can go there and tell it to put the file back. I normally leave any that I am not sure of in the bin for a few days before I get rid of them completely. Like old log files and stuff that hasn't been used in months. There are always left over files from programs and such.

Ron

[bomelia]

I have a request in over at Kaspersky (KIS) as to the nature of the Prefetch directory. Regardless, I have been running KIS 7.0 now for about a month (you get a month free). I bought it. Kicks butt compared to Norton and Macafee. I'm not saying Norton and Macafee are not good. But I love the fact that KIS has a VERY small footprint, no tentacles, and a responsive users forum for Q&A. Try that at Norton and Macafee. PCMAG rates all three at the top.

So, with KIS running, I could care less what is in Prefetch... but I am asking about it. BTW, if you ever decide to use KIS on and "older" system, one where the OS has been installed for over a year, I would just start over (rebuild). Too much malware seems to have figured out how to build up "pre-defenses" against new intallations of security s/w.

I read somewhere that a computer (fresh build) connected to the Internet (via cable, etc) with no firewall and no virus protection will become hopelessly infected within minutes. There is so much crap out there.

Mike

[bomelia]

from: http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/is...l/default.aspx

Based on this, I am not sure I understand how this can mess up your system. In fact, by deleting this stuff, it would appear that you are SLOWING down your system, at least for a while anyway until it is reconstructed.

Mike


Prefetch
All versions of Windows except real-mode Windows 3x are demand-paged operating systems, where file data and code is faulted into memory from disk as an application attempts to access it. Data and code is faulted in page-granular chunks where a page's size is dictated by the CPU's memory management hardware. A page is 4KB on the x86. Prefetching is the process of bringing data and code pages into memory from disk before it's demanded.
In order to know what it should prefetch, the Windows XP Cache Manager monitors the page faults, both those that require that data be read from disk (hard faults) and those that simply require that data already in memory be added to a process's working set (soft faults), that occur during the boot process and application startup. By default it traces through the first two minutes of the boot process, 60 seconds following the time when all Win32 services have finished initializing, or 30 seconds following the start of the user's shell (typically Microsoft Internet Explorer), whichever of these three events occurs first. The Cache Manager also monitors the first 10 seconds of application startup. After collecting a trace that's organized into faults taken on the NTFS Master File Table (MFT) metadata file (if the application accesses files or directories on NTFS volumes), the files referenced, and the directories referenced, it notifies the prefetch component of the Task Scheduler by signaling a named event object.
The Task Scheduler then performs a call to the internal NtQuerySystemInformation system call requesting the trace data. After performing post-processing on the trace data, the Task Scheduler writes it out to a file in the \Windows\Prefetch folder. The file's name is the name of the application to which the trace applies followed by a dash and the hexadecimal representation of a hash of the file's path. The file has a .pf extension, so an example would be NOTEPAD.EXE-AF43252301.PF.
An exception to the file name rule is the file that stores the boot's trace, which is always named NTOSBOOT-B00DFAAD.PF (a convolution of the hexadecimal-compatible word BAADF00D, which programmers often use to represent uninitialized data). Only after the Cache Manager has finished the boot trace (the time of which was defined earlier) does it collect page fault information for specific applications.
When the system boots or an application starts, the Cache Manager is called to give it an opportunity to perform prefetching. The Cache Manager looks in the prefetch directory to see if a trace file exists for the prefetch scenario in question. If it does, the Cache Manager calls NTFS to prefetch any MFT metadata file references, reads in the contents of each of the directories referenced, and finally opens each file referenced. It then calls the Memory Manager to read in any data and code specified in the trace that's not already in memory. The Memory Manager initiates all of the reads asynchronously and then waits for them to complete before letting an application's startup continue.
How does this scheme provide a performance benefit? The answer lies in the fact that during typical system boot or application startup, the order of faults is such that some pages are brought in from one part of a file, then from another part of the same file, then pages are read from a different file, then perhaps from a directory, and so on. This jumping around results in moving the heads around on the disk. Microsoft has learned through analysis that this slows boot and application startup times. By prefetching data from a file or directory all at once before accessing another one, this scattered seeking for data on the disk is greatly reduced or eliminated, thus improving the overall time for system and application startup.


Figure 1 Prefetch Directory

To minimize seeking even further, every three days or so, during system idle periods, the Task Scheduler organizes a list of files and directories in the order that they are referenced during a boot or application start, and stores the list in a file named \Windows\Prefech\Layout.ini. Figure 1 shows the contents of a prefetch directory, highlighting the layout file. Then it launches the system defragmenter with a command-line option that tells the defragmenter to defragment based on the contents of the file instead of performing a full defrag. The defragmenter finds a contiguous area on each volume large enough to hold all the listed files and directories that reside on that volume and then moves them in their entirety into that area so that they are stored one after the other. Thus, future prefetch operations will even be more efficient because all the data to be read in is now stored physically on the disk in the order it will be read. Since the number of files defragmented for prefetching is usually only in the hundreds, this defragmentation is much faster than full defragmentations.

[Ron61]

Mike,

I didn't say that they have to be removed, but I can tell no difference in the speed or operation with them in. And I have traced some problems I have had to a file in the prefetch folder. Leave them in as most people do. I just have this carry over from the days of the old, small drives where every byte counts and to me they are an unnecessary bunch of files which can eventually number over 100 that the disk heads have to move over. And as I said anything that the computer does, it will put them right back in. But you may have many from stuff that is gone or you will never use again just taking up space. But with today's huge hard drives, space isn't a problem unless you get so much crap on them that the heads have to hunt all over to find stuff. You are correct that if you leave them in and defrag the disk they won't normally cause any problem, but as I stated earlier in this post I have traced a couple of problems back to a prefetch file and deleted just that file and the computer put in a new one and everything was ok then. I have tried timing my computers with them in and with them removed and with a digital stop watch that reads into the hundredths of a second, I have never noticed enough change to make any difference to me. But, I don't use my computers any more for a lot of stuff that I used to. Another thing that I do which I am sure most people will disagree with is every month or so I clean out System Restore and set a restore point for that day. And if you ever get a virus, some of it can be stored in these restore points. Just ask Ernie.

Ron

[4RE KLR]

This is great information.

Ron,
I was wondering how often you should defrag your system. I do it about every quarter or so but I am not on any schedule per say.

I have found that the more often I do it the less time it takes to complete. That is really the only reason I do it as often as I do.

[Ron61]

Steve,

That would vary with usage. Windows is a messy O.S. and tends to string stuff all over. I defrag this computer nearly every day, but I use it a lot more than the other one, which I do about three times a week. And, yes the more often you defrag, the faster it will go as there won't be so many scattered files that it has to move out into an unused area of the disk to put together and them put them back. And I run the disk cleaner that is on the page where you find defrag too. It will pick up some things, but is not a great tool. Just make sure you have whatever you want it to clean checked. I leave my trash bin unchecked as I don't want it taking out anything I have in there. When I am sure I won't need whatever I have in the trash bin, I empty it by clicking on it and telling it to delete the files.

Ron