How to Disable Last Access Timestamp to Speed Up XP
Contributed by shamanstears 
August 2, 2006 
Tagged: Windows
Whenever XP reads a file, it stamps the file with the date and time of the access.
This feature has its place but is not required for normal use unless you rely on the date of last access for backup purposes, which is a rare requirement for most backups. Putting a timestamp on a file that has just been read means that a write access has to be made to disk, so every time a read is executed, a corresponding write is also executed.
At the command prompt, enter the following then reboot:
FSUTIL behavior set disablelastaccess 1
To turn timestamps back on, repeat the command but replace the 1 with 0.