Recipe difficulty: Medium
Python version: 2.7
Operating system: Linux
Prefetch files are a common artifact to rely on for information about application execution. While they may not always be present, they are undoubtedly worth reviewing in scenarios where they exist. Recall that prefetching can be enabled to various degrees or disabled based upon the value of the PrefetchParameters subkey in the SYSTEM hive. This recipe searches for files with the prefetch extension (.pf) and processes them for valuable application information. We will only demonstrate this process for Windows XP prefetch files; however, be aware that the underlying process we use is similar to other iterations of Windows.
