what's pagefile.sys? it's a 384mb file!

[<[o_0]>]

what is pagefile and do i really need it? cause it's 384mbs!
it's located in the the c:\ root directory. it's a hidden file and i don't know where it came from.

do i need this or can i delete it?

thx in advance.

[Gutter Ball]

It's the Win2K swap file. If you have lotsa ram (like 512) then you probably won't ever use it. However, some programs won't run without that there (even if it never uses it).

[KenKun]

That is your Swap file or page file and "Yes" you do need it ..
Even with 1GB of ram you still need the page file ...
Like Gutter said , you might not use it but it should be always there incase an apps. needs to access it...

So dude just keep it hidden and forget about it ...

Regards

[<[o_0]>]

ok
i remember setting swapping for win98 manually.
can i set the maximum amount that the pagefile can be?
i have 512mb of ram so can i lower the size of the swapping?

[FreakyOCR]

right-click on my computer and click properties. Advanced -> Performance Options -> Change

[KenKun]

You ca do that,
1/On the desktop, right click "My Computer"
2/Select "Properties" from the provided selection list.
3/Click the Advanced Tab on the top right of the window
4/Click the "Performance Options..." button
5/Click the Change button, the "Virtual Memory" window will open.
At this point you can select the drive from the provided list and then type in the amount of memory you want dedicated to the swap file in the provided text boxes. A box is provided for the initial size and the maximum size. Simply enter the amount and don`t forget to click the Set button.
That should be it ..
Regards

[KenKun]

I have 512<B of ram and i let windows choose the right amount .. then i DisablePagingExecutive, so the swap usage will be minimum ...

Quote:

DisablePagingExecutive. Using this DWORD value, you can prevent pageable drivers & system code in the Windows NT Executive from being paged out to disk. Although this decreases the response time in systems with extremely large amounts of physical memory (RAM), it is critical that there is enough RAM installed. If you have enough RAM (128MB+ ideally) in your system then you can benefit from disabling Paging the NT Executive to the hard drive, with insufficient RAM performance may be adversely affected, so you may want to try this setting both enabled & disabled to see which is better. Right click on the entry & select Modify. A value of 1 disables Paging the NT Executive to the hard drive (faster), 0 enables Paging the NT Executive to the hard drive (slower).

to modify the above value, click on Start, Run. Type in regedit & hit Enter.Go to [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\SessionManager\Memory Management].

I recommend you take a look at the full article of how to tweak and get the best from your memory ...
http://www.3dspotlight.com/tweaks/me...2k/print.shtml

Regards

[alexspnk]

As a new member, I see that conversations around my topic went on in 2001. My querstion is, after understanding what pagefile.sys is, my pagefile.sys has 1240,000 KB. This seems v-e-r-y large and I would like to make it smaller. How to do it? And how to see what is in it before deleting?
Thanks for any help.

[John Prophet]

Welcome to the forum!

I dont think anything is really "in" it....the pagefile is really just a portion of the hard drive set aside for use as virtual memory.....I am pretty sure when you shut down the computer that the swap file empties. (or maybe not)

What OS are you using? how much RAM do you have?

JP

[alexspnk]

Thanks, JP,
My free physical RAM is 207M [41%]
Free paging file is 1132M [77%]
Memory Load index is [59%]

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