Resolved Is pagefile.sys used even before RAM maxes out?

I have noticed that Firefox is sluggish occasionally, even after my recent RAM upgrade to 8 megs.

I recently also reduced the pagefile to 1 gig, isntead of the 8 that Windows itself had set.

Would windows be drawing on the pagefile space even before the 8 gigs are maxed out? I have made occasional checks of my RAM space, and I don't recall ever noticing anything less than 4 gigs Available (a lot less Free), so I'm thinking that there would be no reason to draw on pagefile at this point.

Is that a correct assumption? Or would I have to increase it back/let Windows manage the size, to know for sure?

 

OK, to maximize the performance I'll let Windows dedicate that much.

I've been unable to expand my C partition, so I'll let the pagefile expand now, and then remove the SP1 backup files like you recommended. If it creates a problem, well, my only other option was to reformat anyways, so that would allow me to create a much larger C partition.

 

The whole pagefile doesn't have to be necessarily on C: drive. If you have more partitions available, you can have a 2 GB pagefile on C: & 6 GB on another drive.

Windows requires some space on C: as pagefile to function correctly.

 

(1) OK, so I could set my C pagefile to 1 gig, and then create another one on D and then let Windows manage it?

(2) It would all be done through this one dialog, as seen in this page:

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsserver/en-US/19d96eb1-669c-4605-8d63-7337f1c09084/how-to-relocate-pagefilesys-to-another-drive-letter

Correct?

 

Correct on both the counts.

 

Thanks to you all for the info.

OK so now that is done: a gig on my c partition, but a windows-managed pagefile on my D partition, which has tons of free space.

 

You're welcome