Deleting Windows Prefetch files

[Lord]

What is the need of Windows prefetch folder? Can't I delete it free up my hard drive space? I tried doing so but I got the error message saying "Access is denied". But why? Why is it still residing on my C drive, although Windows never uses it (I suppose)? How can I delete Windows prefetch files?

[Bull50]

Windows requires prefetch files and also updates it everytime it boots. If you delete it at any point of time, Windows will automatically recreate a fresh new file in prefetch folder. It basically contains all the information that Windows wants to run at the time of system boot. So any program or software you install on your Windows computer, Windows creates an entry for that application and thus updates this file.

[Macarenas]

The Prefetching is a Windows feature that speeds up the operating system's boot process. As you might know, when Windows starts it loads a lot of processes and programs. Windows keep a small amount of data in this prefetch folder so that it can refer here and retrieve data faster during the time of booting. If this folder is absent (removed or moved to some other location), Windows will create a fresh copy of data which will be helpful to it in the near future.

[ThoMas321]

The Prefetcher is a component of the Memory manager that speeds up the Windows boot process. When a Windows system boots, a large number of files need to be read into memory and processed. This process consumes a lot of system resource and also time. So to shorten this, Microsoft has introduced prefetching. A small data (also called cache) is stored in prefetch folder to increase the boot proceed. Also look at some similar threads:

windows Xp PreFetch Cache Setup
How to Clear the prefetch folder to speed up Windows
Setting the prefetch