Purpose of Layout.INI?

[Terry Pinnell]

I have a 269 KB file C:\WINDOWS\Prefetch\Layout.ini, which seems to
get changed regularly. It contains a long list of paths, and I'm
curious what this is used for? At a very brief glance, some of them,
like this one
C:\DOCUMENTS AND SETTINGS\ALL USERS\DOCUMENTS\MY PICTURES\
don't exist on my system.

 

[Mak]

Google is your friend.
for instance:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/01/12/XPKernel/default.aspx
" 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 "

The path that you listed does exist, use command prompt instead of explorer.

 

[Terry Pinnell]

Google is your friend.
for instance:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/01/12/XPKernel/default.aspx
" 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 "

The path that you listed does exist, use command prompt instead of explorer.

Thanks, but I'm probably now more confused <g>. First, on a general
point, why is the Command Prompt showing directories I've long since
deleted? And how can layout.ini achieve the stated objective if it's
not up to date?