.PF File

The pf file extension is used by Microsoft Windows for its prefetch trace files.

In Windows XP Microsoft has used the prefetcher memory management utility to speed up the start-up of Windows. Put very basically whilst booting up Windows access different parts of the same files at different points in the process.

Reloading each of these files every time Windows needs to access a different section takes time, and hence the prefetcher utility helps by keeping a record (in the .PF trace files), of which files are accessed and when, and then seeks to use this information to expedite the boot up process in future.

The Task Scheduler is the process responsible for parsing the trace data collected by the prefetcher and writing files to the Prefetcher folder. As a result, the Prefetcher will not operate correctly if the Task Scheduler service is not started.

The prefetcher stores its trace files in the Prefetch folder in the root Windows directory (typically \Windows\Prefetch). The name of the boot trace file is always NTOSBOOT-B00DFAAD.PF, and application trace files are a concatenation of the application's executable name, a hyphen, a hexadecimal representation of the hash of the path the file resides in, and a ".pf" extension.

Files with pf file extension can be typically found as so called prefetch system files in MS Windows operating systems. It was first introduced in Windows XP.

How to open:

Windows will access these files automatically, but there is really no way how you can open it manually.

How to convert:

Prefetch files cannot be converted to anything else and there is also no reason to do so.