I have a somewhat old (3 1/2 years old) Windows XP SP 2 desktop. I recently added 2 GB of memory so the machine now has a total of 2.5 GB, which I thought would speed the old thing up a little. When I launch the Windows task manager, though, it shows that windows is using about 0.5 GB of pagefile, even though it still has almost 2 GB of unused available physical memory. Why does windows use the much slower pagefile when it has so much unused physical memory? Is there anything I can do to improve this? In the performance options, I have set the system so windows controls the pagefile size automatically. Should I maybe set the pagefile size manually to some low number? Will this help or hurt? Thanks.
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1 response so far ↓
1 Bomber // Jun 20, 2008
if you set the page file size you need to set it to at least one and a half times your physical memory size in your case that would be 4gb if windows whinges about not enough virtual memory you can increase it a little
setting a set page file has it's advantages first of all it speeds windows up a little
setting a set page file you should have your min and max size the same this reduces fragmentation of the page file
although you may set the page file to a set size it doesn't mean windows will use all of it my page file is set to 3gb (I have 2gb memory) it uses only about 100mb of page file at the most
what ever you do don't disable the page file I know it's tempting with so much memory but some programs are written to use the page file and will crash if it's not available
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