My desktop came with 1 gb and I recently purchased an additional 2 gigs,
which gives me a total of 3 gigs of system memory. In my previous computer, I
used to manually configure the memory myself. I did that because I read an
article that said the Win XP Memory Swap file is constantly expanding and/or
contracting and that is not very efficient However, I also read articles
where people say it's better to allow Windows to manage system memory.

I'm open to suggestions.

Thanks,
Robert

On Fri, 21 Dec 2007 10:11:00 -0800, Robert T
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> My desktop came with 1 gb and I recently purchased an additional 2 gigs,
> which gives me a total of 3 gigs of system memory. In my previous computer, I
> used to manually configure the memory myself. I did that because I read an
> article that said the Win XP Memory Swap file is constantly expanding and/or
> contracting and that is not very efficient However, I also read articles
> where people say it's better to allow Windows to manage system memory.
>
> I'm open to suggestions.


Several points:

1. I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "configure the memory."
Memory doesn't need to be configured, and there really are no
configuration settings.

2. Are you talking about settings for the page file--virtual memory?
The expanding/contracting you are talking about is not any kind of
problem. You can sometimes save a little disk space by configuring
the swap file yourself (if you do it correctly; most of the advice you
see on how to do it is simply wrong), but in these days of large
inexpensive hard drives, that's nearly meaningless for most people.
Letting Windows handle it is fine.

3. Unless you run particularly memory-hungry applications, 3GB of RAM
is way overkill for almost everyone. In fact even your original 1GB is
more than most people can make effective use of. My guess is that
adding the 2GB made no performance difference to you at all. Despite
the many people who continually repeat "the more memory the better,"
that's true only up to a point. For most people that point is
somewhere between 256-512MB, and except for those doing something like
editing videos or large photographic images, is almost always no
greater than 1GB.

Since you probably have more RAM than you can use effectively, for you
in particular, page file settings hardly matter at all. You will
hardly ever use the page file.

4. The best information on the page file is "Virtual Memory in Windows
XP" by the late MVP Alex Nichol, at http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.htm I
recommend that you read there.

--
Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP Windows - Shell/User
Please Reply to the Newsgroup

"Robert T" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:03ED2514-8829-408A-A9D4-(E-Mail Removed)...
> My desktop came with 1 gb and I recently purchased an additional 2 gigs,
> which gives me a total of 3 gigs of system memory. In my previous
> computer, I
> used to manually configure the memory myself. I did that because I read an
> article that said the Win XP Memory Swap file is constantly expanding
> and/or
> contracting and that is not very efficient However, I also read articles
> where people say it's better to allow Windows to manage system memory.
>
> I'm open to suggestions.
>
> Thanks,
> Robert

Regardless of what your MoBo can handle and
what the BIOS recognises, XP won't see much
above 3.25gb
The swap file is all important and within XP it's efficient.
But there is no reason you can't manage the swap file
now with increased RAM. Have a read:
http://tinyurl.com/27oggs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_memory
http://www.aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.php

you might not
need virtual memory
anymore because of
all that ram.

--

db ·´¯`·.¸. , . .·´¯`·..><)))º>`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸.·´¯`·...¸><)))º>¸.
><)))º>·´¯`·.¸. , . .·´¯`·.. ><)))º>`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸.·´¯`·...¸><)))º>


..


"Robert T" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:03ED2514-8829-408A-A9D4-(E-Mail Removed)...
> My desktop came with 1 gb and I recently purchased an additional 2 gigs,
> which gives me a total of 3 gigs of system memory. In my previous computer, I
> used to manually configure the memory myself. I did that because I read an
> article that said the Win XP Memory Swap file is constantly expanding and/or
> contracting and that is not very efficient However, I also read articles
> where people say it's better to allow Windows to manage system memory.
>
> I'm open to suggestions.
>
> Thanks,
> Robert

Ken:

Thanks for your excellent response. And yes, I was talking about managing
Virtual Memory and I now realize that many of the recommendations from years
ago no longer apply.

Thanks,
Robert

"Ken Blake, MVP" wrote:

On Sun, 23 Dec 2007 04:34:01 -0800, Robert T
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> Ken:
>
> Thanks for your excellent response.


You're welcome, Robert. Glad to help.


> And yes, I was talking about managing
> Virtual Memory and I now realize that many of the recommendations from years
> ago no longer apply.


Actually, most of what I said was true even going back to the Windows
9X days. There has long been a lot of misinformation floating around
on this subject.

--
Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP Windows - Shell/User
Please Reply to the Newsgroup

On Fri, 21 Dec 2007 13:04:38 -0600, db ´¯`·.. ><)))º>` .. . <databaseben.public.newsgroup.microsoft.com> wrote:

> db ·´¯`·.¸. , . .·´¯`·..><)))º>`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸.·´¯`·...¸><)))º>¸.
>><)))º>·´¯`·.¸. , . .·´¯`·.. ><)))º>`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸.·´¯`·...¸><)))º>
>

DB,
Excellent art work and imagination!
--
Have a good day,
RScotti

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