How can I enable the Windows 2000 System File Checker (SFC) to cache all DLLs?

John Savill

February 17, 2000

1 Min Read
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A. The System File Checker (SFC) maintains copies of the DLLs in a cache to protect them from application installation corruption or user removal.

The Windows 2000 Server family caches all protected files (e.g., .sys, .dll, .exe, .ttf, .fon., .ocx) on the Win2K CD-ROM (until you have fewer than 300MB of free disk space). Win2K Professional will cache only 50MBs of DLLs. However, you can complete the following steps to change this amount:

  1. Start the registry editor (regedit.exe).

  2. Move to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwareMicrosoftWindows NTCurrentVersionWinlogon.

  3. Double-click SFCQuota.

  4. Set to 0xFFFFFFFF, and click OK.

  5. Close the registry editor.

  6. Start a command session (cmd.exe), and run

    C:> sfc /scannow

All system files should now be cached (until you reach 150 MB of free disk space, and then the SFC frees up DLL cache). The dllcache folder will reach about 250MB (the size on a server installation).

The sfc.exe program also has a /cachesize=x option that lets you set cache size from the command line.

The DLL cache is located at %systemroot%system32dllcache.

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