Which Memory Slot?

...... ...... ......

My thought was that someone might sit there waiting for something that would never happen and that the probability for that is pretty high.

I also gave the pagefile setting which could make it happen but not because the user installs more RAM.

Well, the very reason for Weathermen covering all bases is probably that Glider Pilots come down on them like a ton of bricks when a forecast doesn't prove to be reasonably correct ...... ...... !

At the latest World Gliding Championships in Poland, we were visited by two Weatherpeople from sweden, a married couple. I overheard the woman saying to her husband: Whatever You do, don't say anything about the weather or the official forecast - if You don't get it right they will hunt You down and skin You alive!

Christer

 

Martin,

I have installed XP-pro on a number of machines, either BOACs (Box Of Assembled Components) or OEMs (like HP, Packard Bell and others off the shelf computers). On each occasion, the pagefile has been set to 1.5-3.0 X RAM by the installer. My conclusion is that systems running a Windows Managed Pagefile have had the setting changed after the installation.

(I have never installed XP-home and that installer may handle the pagefile differently but I don't think so. I have checked several XP-home machines and they too had the semi-fixed variant.)

Exactly according to my forecast ...... ...... maybe I have made the wrong career choice ...... ...... should have opted for Weatherman!

Well, setting a Windows Managed Pagefile is about the worst thing that can be done. It scatters all over the place and it will be impossible to get it back in one contigous chunk.
The benefit of a semi-fixed size is that it will not shrink below the minimum. If the minimum is set high enough (the installer does that) for normal usage, then it will stay put. If the requirements should temporarily increase, then Windows will temporarily increase it. When requirements are down to normal, Windows will shrink it back to the minimum size and that chunk has not been moved.

Two possibilities:

1) I have never tried this but it may work.

If the harddisk has more than one partition, create a pagefile on D: and reboot. Go back and set it to "no pagefile" on C: and reboot. Check C: in Windows Explorer to not have a pagefile.sys. If it has, delete it. Defragment C:. Create a new pagefile on C: (1.5-3.0 X installed RAM) and reboot. Go back and set it back to "no pagefile" on D: and reboot. Check D: in Windows Explorer to not have a pagefile.sys. If it has, delete it.

2) Norton Ghost actually defragments and optimizes the location of the pagefile when an image is restored. (The actual pagefile is not included in the image but Ghost has a "place holder" that knows the size and when restoring the image, Ghost puts it in the first contigous space available.) So, if You are a Ghost user, then create and restore an image of the system partition (requires a D: to have somewhere to put the image).

Christer

 

I forgot to mention that if You go by anything I said in post #23, install the additional RAM first, deal with the pagefile after that.

Christer

 

Martin,

How did You do it when there is only one partition? Are there two harddisks? Did You temporarily add a second harddisk?

There have been a lot of discussions on this in the past and quite a few rules of thumb have been argued.

For XP, Microsoft has 1.5-3.0 X RAM as their rule of thumb (default setting during installation).
My guess is that it is reasonable for 512-1024 MB RAM. Less RAM could do with a larger pagefile but really should be addressed by installing more RAM to have at least 512 MB. More RAM could give a huge pagefile and getting more RAM should result in less pagefile usage.

(I have 512 MB RAM and a pagefile of 768-1536 MB. At this moment, Norton System Doctor reports Pagefile Usage as ~15 MB and RAM Usage as ~250 MB. When working in PowerPoint and simultaneously in a photo editing program, then it's a different story - PU and RU increase but the pagefile has never been increased from minimum.)

In another thread, Newt is discussing a problem where Windows gives an error message, telling him to increase the pagefile to at least the same size as RAM to enable it to perform a full memory dump. This indicates another requirement of the pagefile but that should be handled by it's ability to temporarily increase the size.

Matt,

Trimming is a good idea to boost performance but it will never avoid pagefile usage ...... ...... unless it is disabled completely.
If there is a pagefile, Windows will use it to handle excess memory requirements. When a program is started, it requires a certain amount of RAM, based on the maximum anticipation. Windows knows that it is not likely that all of it will be used and puts some of it in the pagefile instead of letting it occupy RAM.
(I currently have ~250 MB RAM free but Pagefile Usage is 15 MB which may prove my point.)

Even if empty, the pagefile is locked in use and can not be defragmented. It is only possible as a boot time defragmentation.

If You set the minimum high enough to cater for Your normal requirements, then it doesn't get fragmented. Should it need to increase its size, it will be temporarily and when the need is history, it will shrink back to its minimum size in one contigous chunk.

ssmith10pn,

That is true for some system and program files and is happening to increase startup performance. It is not true for user data.

Christer