Is it better to page your Memory to disk via the pagefile.sys or simply turn off the option alltogether and have no paging file. i run XP PRO SP2 dual P4 2.8Ghz intel MMX processer with 200Mhz clock speed 512 ram (495 physical) spec. 2 DIMM @ 256 each - RAM module is 1024MB L2 cache 512kb Intel system board D865GBF Intel gaphics controller CD-ROM dual CD-RW/DVD-RW dual HDD (both maxtor models) ACPI Multiprocessoer PC thank ya Post subject: There has been tons of info written about the page file or swap file and virtual memory. If you do a Google search on page file/swap file you'll get an idea of the volumes of info on the topic. From where I sit, having tried many various options, I would venture to say that setting the page file is pretty much a hit and miss option that you have to test out for yourself and see how your individual system and programs respond to your selection. Operating without a page file at all is risky business. Not only does your Windows OS need a space on the root drive or elsewhere to store stuff temporarily but most of your programs need some space outside of RAM to function smoothly. You might discover that computing pagefile-less will slow things down considerably and possibly cause some BSOD memory errors, particularly with 512RAM. I've experience this with 1GB RAM on my test system. So it would seem that a page file of some sorts is needed. Experts (I don't consider myself one by a long shot!) have varying opinions on the size and location of the page file. Best bet is to experiment to see what works best in your case. Do backup your system before you experiment though! I've just started operating without a pagefile (I've got 1 gB of RAM) and haven't had any problems. You might want to check BlackViper's site (www.blackviper.com) and see his explanation of the pagefile. How can I adjust the "Page File" or "Virtual Memory" settings? This is valid for Windows XP Home and Pro. Can you get rid of the page file? Yes and no. If you have a boat load of memory (greater than 512 MB) you may be able to function just fine..." Referencing above I would emphasize the "Yes and no." as well as the "...boat load of memory.." not to omit the "...may be able to function just fine..." As I tried to say in my prior post...it might work for you, then again, it might not. To each is own! With the size of today's hard drives are you really going to miss the small amount of space a pagefile needs? By "just started" I meant within the last 20 minutes or so. I'd previously experimented with reduced size swap files and found that there's a limit on how small you can make it before Windows stops you (arount 200 mB I think) Nope, we're not gonna miss the hard drive space for a swap file - but the swap file extorts a large performance hit when it's used (speed of the hard drive versus speed of the RAM) - so, if we force the paging into the RAM it'll go quicker (BTW I haven't noticed a huge difference after about 4 hours of no pagefile). I suspect the only ones who would notice a huge difference are the hard core gamers. If they were running a gig or more RAM, I could see where the the no pagefile route could have some merit. For the rest of us.... I don't believe it's going to make any real difference. Are you going to notice if you are running a pagefile or not checking e-mail and surfing the web? Not at all likely. Yo boys, girls and others! In addition to what you experts have already said, I'll just mention that a good option is to tweak your registry so that pagefile is 'purged' on Windows shutdown... A little cleaning here and there can't hurt, right...? HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management And a happiest camper you will be... PS: Keep an eye peeled out for a post in relation with Synaptics Touchpad problem; that would be my doing... Some programs require the existence of the page file in order to function. If you have lots of RAM memory you can make the page file very small, say 100MB or so. This will save some space on your hard drive, but it will not give you the best performance on all types of programs. To get the best performance: Right-click on My Computer and select Properties. Then click on Advanced tab/Performance Settings/Advanced tab/VirtualMemory Change button. Select "No paging file", Click on the "Set" button, then click OK/OK/etc. to exit. Click on "Yes" to restart computer, or restart computer yourself. After restarting computer, defragment the hard drive. Next, go back to the paging file settings window as directed above. This time select "Custom Size". The size of the paging file should be about 1.5 times the amount of RAM that your system has. Type this number amount in both the Initial Size space and the Maximum Size space. In other words, the Initial size and Maximum Size should be exactly the same . Click OK/OK/etc. to exit. Select "Yes" when prompted to restart the computer. Now you have an optimised, defragmented, fixed-size paging file. If anyone ever needs to edit or process a lot of photos, music, video, or use intensive graphics in games, then your computer should cope just fine. I regularly increase system performance by 100% or better on any XP machine. Don't futz with the page file....let Windows manage it. Windows has been doing this for the past ten years and its become pretty good at it. :lol: But DO adjust your memory manager to accomodate the installed RAM. This is something that Windows does NOT do. Apply the following memory Tweak from my tweak list on my website and watch your system performance improve. ************************************** Memory Performance Tweak These Settings will fine tune your systems memory management -at least 256MB of ram recommended, 512 preferred for first tweak. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SYSTEM \ CurrentControlSet \ Control \Session Manager \ Memory Management 1.DisablePagingExecutive -double click it and in the decimal put a 1 - this allows XP to keep data in memory now instead of paging sections of ram to harddrive. 2.LargeSystemCache- double click it and change the decimal to 1 -this allows XP Kernal to Run in memory improves system performance a lot. 3.Create a new dword and name it IOPageLockLimit - double click it and set the value in hex - 4000 if you have 128MB of ram; or set it to 10000 if you have 256MB; set it to 40000 if you have 512MB of ram, or more -this tweak will speed up your disk cache. Take this link to find your answer http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.htm Microsoft advocates this information on the Expert Zone site I've been working without a pagefile for 4 days now and have had no problems. Consulting the task manager, I'm have 495 mB of RAM available (so, I'm using greater than 512 mB) . I guess that it depends on what you've got running in the way of processes - I've currently got 38 processes running (including 6 svchost's). Another thing to consider would be the type of programs (38 simple programs take less RAM than 38 complex programs). While searching for memory tweaks I ran upon this page. So, let me update you on the no pagefile experiment. Everything was working fine - and, as usual, I was tweaking the dickens out of my system...and I started to get virtual memory errors (wondered about this 'cause I didn't have a page file). Then I installed a game and the errors increased - so I created a small page file and all was well for a while. Then I got more errors, so I increased it to the normal size and haven't had a problem since. So, it seems to depend on the program that you're using - does it require a pagefile? I don't know how to tell - but I'm monitoring my pagefile usage as I type! Performance Tweaks for Windows XP Set the Online Registration as Being Completed Set Windows-XP to assume the online registration has been completed. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \WindowsNT \ CurrentVersion Edit the String Value called RegDone and Give it a value of 1 Decrease Shutdown Time Cut the amount of time it takes your computer to shut down to only a few seconds. Click Start, click Run, and type regedit. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ System \ CurrentControlSet \ Control. Click the Control folder. Right click "WaitToKillServiceTimeout" and click Modify. Set the value to 1000 (One Second) Automatically Ending Non-Responsive Tasks HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Control Panel \ Desktop \ AutoEndTasks = Set the value to 1 HungAppTimeout = Set the value to 1000 WaitToKillAppTimeout = Set the value to 1000 (One Second) Create a Quick Shutdown Icon for your Desktop This method of shutting down your PC will be much quicker than starting the process with the START button. It also forces stubborn programs to close. Create a New Shortcut on your desktop and put this line in the path box. %windir%\System32\shutdown.exe -s -t 00 -f Save the shortcut and you now have yourself a quick way to shutdown Windows. On my own PC, using “Quick Shutdown”….Shutdown only takes five seconds. Memory Performance Tweak These Settings will fine tune your systems memory management -at least 256MB of ram recommended, 512 preferred for first tweak. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SYSTEM \ CurrentControlSet \ Control \ Session Manager \ Memory Management 1.DisablePagingExecutive -double click it and in the decimal put a 1 - this allows XP to keep data in memory now instead of paging sections of ram to harddrive. 2.LargeSystemCache- double click it and change the decimal to 1 -this allows XP Kernal to Run in memory improves system performance a lot. This tweak can actually slow down a system with less than 256 megs of ram. Hanging of Disk Cleanup Hanging of Disk Cleanup during compression is a known problem with Windows XP. To solve it, you must edit the Registry. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Explorer \ VolumeCaches Under VolumeCaches is "Compress Old Files". Click it once to highlight,then click the Del button. Close the Registry editor. Disk Cleanup should no longer hang. Temporary files can also cause Disk Cleanup to hang. If the previous change does not solve your problem, try this. Click Start>>Run. Enter "%temp%" (without the quotes) in the box. Click OK. The Temp folder will open. In the Edit menu, click Select All. Press the Del key and click Yes to confirm the deletions. That will send everything to the Recycle Bin. Next, click Start >> Control Panel. Double-click "Internet Options" On the General tab, click Delete Files. Select "Delete all offline content." Click OK. This could take a while. Disk cleanup gets rid of temporary files, old applications you no longer use and Internet cache files. It asks before any of these are deleted. Poweroff at Shutdown If your PC does not turn off the power when doing a shutdown, edit the registry HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Control Panel \ Desktop Edit the key PowerOffActive and give it a value of 1 Also: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows NT \ Current Version \ winlogon Edit the Key: PowerOffAfterShutdown Values: 0=Default, 1=Power Off Disabling Balloon Tips HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ Current Version \ Explorer \ Advanced Right click in the right hand pane,,,then select DWord from the menu. Create a Dword value of EnableBalloonTips and set value to "0" (it will be set to "0" by default) Disabling Error Reporting By default, Windows-XP will request to report application errors to Microsoft. To turn this off: Right click on the My Computer icon on the desktop Select Properties / Advanced Click on the Error Reporting tab Check Disable error reporting Increasing Graphics Performance By default, Windows-XP turns on a lot of shadows, fades, slides etc to menu items. Most simply slow down their display. To turn these off selectively: Right click on the My Computer icon Select Properties Click on the Advanced tab Under Performance, click on the Settings button To turn them all of, select Adjust for best performance Turn ON: Show window contents while dragging Apply the change and close the window. Controlling the Desktop Cleanup Wizard Added 7/24/02 By default, the Desktop Cleanup Wizard will pop up every 60 days to cleanup your desktop. To stop this: Right click on the desktop. Select Properties Click on the Desktop tab Click on the Customize Desktop button Uncheck Run Desktop Cleanup Wizard. Click Apply, and close the window. Restoring Access to CD ROMs If after you remove CD Burning software, you can no longer access your CD ROM's, the following registry keys need to be deleted: Locate and delete the UpperFilters and LowerFilters values under the following key in the registry: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINES \ SYSTEM \ Current Control Set \ Control \ Class \ {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318} Dell Computer Not Keeping Correct Time If a Dell PC is losing time while the PC is turned on, Run the following commands: Start / Run / CMD Net stop w32time w32tm /unregister w32tm /unregister w32tm /register Net start w32time Turning Off the Built-In CD Burner If you want to turn off the ability to use the built-in CD burner software that comes with Windows-XP: Open up the Explorer Right click on the drive that is your CD burner Select Properties Click on the Recording tab Uncheck Enable CD recording on this drive Re-Installing Windows-XP If you need to reinstall Windows-XP and want to keep all your current installed applications and settings: 1. Start Windows-XP 2. Find the location of your source files (a folder called "I386" , May Be on Your Install CD or a folder on your HD) You may find several i386 folders on your PC but you want the one that has the .cab files in it along with the command file "Winnt32.exe". 3. Run WINNT32 /unattend ,,, For example, D:\I386\winnt32.exe /unattend (type this command into the RUN box, then press ENTER).... Leave just one space where I've put three for emphasis, at the end of the command and before the switch (/unattend). I've often needed to do this to repair something that had gotten corrupted and I didn't want to do a clean install. Removing those Arrows from Desktop Icons A shortcut is a pointer to a file or application that is stored in another location. When you create a shortcut, you'll notice the icon has a small arrow in the corner. And, yes, you guessed it! This little arrow indicates to you that the icon is, indeed, a shortcut. So here is a tip that lets you remove the shortcut arrows and it works with all versions of Windows. A word of caution before you proceed since it does require making changes to the registry; do so carefully! To completely remove the shortcut arrow, open the registry and delete the IsShortcut from the following three keys: * HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT \ InternetShortcut * HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT \ lnkfile * HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT \ piffile Once you've made the change, Windows no longer considers shortcuts to be shortcuts anymore. Note: A security update for Windows 98 may prevent the steps outlined above from working. This tweak should work well on all versions of Windows. You can change the registered owner information by editing the registry. Always remember to back up the registry before making changes. Open your favorite registry editor In the left pane, navigate to the following registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion In the right details pane, double click the entry labeled RegisteredOwner. In the Value Data field, delete the name and type in the name you want. Click OK You can similarly change the company name (or make it blank) by double clicking the entry labeled RegisteredOrganization and editing the Value Data field.