Something i cant understand about Page File

[Oren]

Hello,
On my old macine i have xp pro and 2GB of ram.
I disables the PageFile when i installed the os and never enabled it since.
As far as i know the PF is a file on the HDD which windows uses as virtual ram when its out of real ram instead of saying "im out of ram".

Now, the odd thing is that although it is disabled, when i open the task manager i always see some PF usage, anywhere from non to 1.5 GB....

By the way, there is no file named Pagefile.sys in c drive.

Why does it uses PF when it is disabled and there is steal a lot of free Memory?

thanks in sdvance....

[RealBlackStuff]

Did you UNcheck the option to hide hidden and system files?
If not, you would not see a pagefile....

[Oren]

Did you UNcheck the option to hide hidden and system files?
If not, you would not see a pagefile....

Yes.
There is no such file cause i've disabled the PageFile.

The only thing im wondering about is why i see PageFile use when i open the teskbar.

I guess it say's PageFile use, but it is actually the RAM use, in Vista MS changed it from "PageFile" to "Memory use" so i guess it is just the wrong term.

Other opinions?

[bill bolton]

As far as i know the PF is a file on the HDD which windows uses as virtual ram when its out of real ram instead of saying "im out of ram".

You might want to do some more research on Windows page files, as its purpose is somewhat more farreaching than that.

Disabling the page file doesn't actually help overall Windows performance and can adversely impact it.

Cheers,

Bill B.

[davidspalding]

Actually disabling pagefile use sometimes leaves the file on the hard drive. I see this on secondary physical drives that have "pagefiling" along with the system volume. Setting it to specified initial size and max size 0 MB usually takes care of that for me.

BUT ... Bill is absolutely right. The use of the pagefile has evolved considerably since the days of Windows 3.1 when "virtual memory" was for "swapping out to." Strongly recommend that you set your C:\ pagefile to "Let Windows manage the size" and then leave it the heck alone. I've done tests with various apps, and shrinking or elminating the pagefile achieved minimal gains and sometimes achieved considerable headaches. Not worth it IMHO. Let the operating system operate itself as designed, and avoid outdated or dubious "tweak" tips you read online.

[Oren]

Strongly recommend that you set your C:\ pagefile to "Let Windows manage the size" and then leave it the heck alone. I've done tests with various apps, and shrinking or elminating the pagefile achieved minimal gains and sometimes achieved considerable headaches. Not worth it IMHO. Let the operating system operate itself as designed, and avoid outdated or dubious "tweak" tips you read online.

It has nothing to do with stuff i read online, I use xp since 2001 and always disables PageFile, never had problems with it.
It is not a "tweak", it is simply not letting windows use a file stored on the HDD as RAM, cause the HDD is much slower.
As long as you know you have more RAM installed than what you'r OS (and applications) needs you'l bee fine.

I now what PageFile is, and my question has nothing to do with should I disable it or not.

The only thing im asking is why i see PageFile use when i open the task manager, when i know (for sure) that i ahve no PageFile.

As i said, i think that it says "PF use" but actually means "RAM use", but im not 100% sure so i ask if someone knows...

Thanks,

[Zender]

The only thing I still don't understand is, why when I copy/move/backup a GB or two of data, all my applications are swapped out, just that Windows can stuff all the available memory with the files just read - which won't be read anytime soon. There used to be an option to put a hard limit on this file cache, but disappeared with W98... so that's still a good reason to disable swap these days, and my friend told me it's still an issue with Vista (especially when background indexing is going... this is the real culprit which hogs the computer so much, not the actual reading/indexing, the fact that everything you're using is being swapped out).

As for the original question, yes it basically means amount of memory allocated to applications/system, whether swapped out somehow or not.

[bill bolton]

I now what PageFile is...

I guess there is no accounting for strongly held beliefs then!

[davidspalding]

Check the MS KB.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555223
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/889654

When no page file exists, or the page file is insufficient, the system reserves some virtual memory in the physical memory for its paging needs.

[davidspalding]

Addendum:

Since I use some apps which won't work properly without some pagefile, and my system is maxed out on RAM, I sometimes set the initial and maximum size to 1/2 of my RAM (rather than 1.5x of my RAM), and that seems to work well as a compromise between "in Windows we trust" and "Nein, pagefile iss verboten."