I have several questions regard defragging the pagefile on a windowsxp
system.

1) Will this help system performance or stability?
2) Will using regedit to go to this key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session
Manager\Memory
Management

and setting the variable "ClearPageFileAtShutdown" to 1 from Zero

effectively defrag my pagefile every time I reboot my computer.

3) Will there be any side effects to doing this and if not why isn't
windowsxp set up this way by default?

Thanks

Michael

(E-Mail Removed) wrote:
> I have several questions regard defragging the pagefile on a windowsxp
> system.
>
> 1) Will this help system performance or stability?
> 2) Will using regedit to go to this key:
>
> HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session
> Manager\Memory
> Management
>
> and setting the variable "ClearPageFileAtShutdown" to 1 from Zero
>
> effectively defrag my pagefile every time I reboot my computer.
>
> 3) Will there be any side effects to doing this and if not why isn't
> windowsxp set up this way by default?
>
> Thanks
>
> Michael
>
1) Yes, defragging the page file will help performance. You need a
special application to do this, however, because a file that is in use
cannot be moved, therefore cannot be defragmented with Windows Defrag.
There is a free application called "Page Defrag" available which can be
set up to defrag those unmovable files at startup.
2) Clearing the page file at shutdown will not defragment it. In fact
it is likely to make the problem worse because the page file will have
to be re-created at boot up and will be placed in the first available
space, which is not usually large enough to hold the entire file.
The way in which I solved my problem with this was to move the page file
to the beginning of another partition on my hard drive, so that it could
not become fragmented.

(E-Mail Removed) wrote:
> I have several questions regard defragging the pagefile on a windowsxp
> system.
>
> 1) Will this help system performance

Only if your system's drive is fragmented to the point where lots of other
things would also improve performance.

> or stability?

Pagefile fragmentation affecting stability used to be an issue in Windows NT
(the grandfather of Windows XP) back in 1996. As much as Microsoft often
deserve criticism for letting old problems carry on, this has been fixed.

> 2) Will using regedit to go to this key:

[snipped reg stuff to keep things short and sweet]

> effectively defrag my pagefile every time I reboot my computer.

Only if your system drive is defragmented already, so that a large area of
contiguous space can be allocated for the page file on boot.

> 3) Will there be any side effects to doing this

Sure. It will make your shutdowns slower. Possibly much slower.

> and if not why isn't
> windowsxp set up this way by default?

Because if you compiled a list of 1000 things that had a profound effect on
Windows XP performance, 'normal' levels of pagefile fragmentation would rank
somewhere in the 800 range.

.... And turning off the setting would rank somewhere in the top 1 of 1000
things that caused slow shutdowns.

A well performing system is all about balance. Balanced sets of hardware,
balanced settings, etc. Anyone who tells you that a magic piece of hardware
or a magic registry hack will solve your problems is either an idiot or that
is what they think you are.

--
Robert Moir

www.robertmoir.com

> The way in which I solved my problem with this was to move the page file
> to the beginning of another partition on my hard drive, so that it could
> not become fragmented.
>

How do you do that??

effdee




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See: http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/PageDefrag.html

JS

<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>I have several questions regard defragging the pagefile on a windowsxp
> system.
>
> 1) Will this help system performance or stability?
> 2) Will using regedit to go to this key:
>
> HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session
> Manager\Memory
> Management
>
> and setting the variable "ClearPageFileAtShutdown" to 1 from Zero
>
> effectively defrag my pagefile every time I reboot my computer.
>
> 3) Will there be any side effects to doing this and if not why isn't
> windowsxp set up this way by default?
>
> Thanks
>
> Michael
>

"effdee" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>> The way in which I solved my problem with this was to move the page file
>> to the beginning of another partition on my hard drive, so that it could
>> not become fragmented.
>>
>
> How do you do that??
>
> effdee
>

One way is to move the pagefile to a newly created and formatted partition
as the first file on the new drive. Can't be fragmented that way.

-Frank

Those other responses were interesting but are wrong in what youre looking
to do...To defrag the page file is simple,open system properties,set C: drive
to "no page file" click set 2X,close out properties,restart pc.Back in
xp,go to
run,type:cmd In cmd type:CLEANMGR Run on C: Then typeefrag C: Once
thru,type:EXIT Reopen syatem,set page file to "let system manage" click set
2X,close out.The page file is defragged,sometimes you'll need to do this
every
few days to totally defrag all,however it does work.....

"(E-Mail Removed)" wrote:

> I have several questions regard defragging the pagefile on a windowsxp
> system.
>
> 1) Will this help system performance or stability?
> 2) Will using regedit to go to this key:
>
> HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session
> Manager\Memory
> Management
>
> and setting the variable "ClearPageFileAtShutdown" to 1 from Zero
>
> effectively defrag my pagefile every time I reboot my computer.
>
> 3) Will there be any side effects to doing this and if not why isn't
> windowsxp set up this way by default?
>
> Thanks
>
> Michael
>
>

"Andrew E." wrote:

> Those other responses were interesting but are wrong in what youre looking
> to do...To defrag the page file is simple,open system properties,set C: drive
> to "no page file" click set 2X,close out properties,restart pc.Back in
> xp,go to
> run,type:cmd In cmd type:CLEANMGR Run on C: Then typeefrag C: Once
> thru,type:EXIT Reopen syatem,set page file to "let system manage" click set
> 2X,close out.The page file is defragged,sometimes you'll need to do this
> every
> few days to totally defrag all,however it does work.....
>
> "(E-Mail Removed)" wrote:
>
> > I have several questions regard defragging the pagefile on a windowsxp
> > system.
> >
> > 1) Will this help system performance or stability?
> > 2) Will using regedit to go to this key:
> >
> > HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session
> > Manager\Memory
> > Management
> >
> > and setting the variable "ClearPageFileAtShutdown" to 1 from Zero
> >
> > effectively defrag my pagefile every time I reboot my computer.
> >
> > 3) Will there be any side effects to doing this and if not why isn't
> > windowsxp set up this way by default?
> >
> > Thanks
> >
> > Michael
> >
> >
That can be a problem. Don't attempt it. If you have low memory, your system
may crash forever. (Unless you go into Safe Mode.) Instead, buy PerfectDisk
from Raxco, and defrag the pagefile once every two weeks around using the
Offline Defrag option. (Remember to set the configuration menu correctly!) If
you need help with that, just Google search.

In article <#(E-Mail Removed)>,
Nevermind <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>(E-Mail Removed) wrote:
>> I have several questions regard defragging the pagefile on a windowsxp
>> system.
>>
>> 1) Will this help system performance or stability?
>> 2) Will using regedit to go to this key:
>>
>> HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session
>> Manager\Memory
>> Management
>>
>> and setting the variable "ClearPageFileAtShutdown" to 1 from Zero
>>
>> effectively defrag my pagefile every time I reboot my computer.
>>
>> 3) Will there be any side effects to doing this and if not why isn't
>> windowsxp set up this way by default?
>>
>> Thanks
>>
>> Michael
>>
>1) Yes, defragging the page file will help performance. You need a
>special application to do this, however, because a file that is in use
>cannot be moved, therefore cannot be defragmented with Windows Defrag.
>There is a free application called "Page Defrag" available which can be
>set up to defrag those unmovable files at startup.
>2) Clearing the page file at shutdown will not defragment it. In fact
>it is likely to make the problem worse because the page file will have
>to be re-created at boot up and will be placed in the first available
>space, which is not usually large enough to hold the entire file.
>The way in which I solved my problem with this was to move the page file
>to the beginning of another partition on my hard drive, so that it could
>not become fragmented.


All the commercial (i.e. $$$) defrag products will
defrag the page file. It is done during the boot process.


This great tool is still free, I think.
http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/PageDefrag.html

If you set page file size as a fixed min and max in control panel and
then run one of the above tools you will wind up with a page file that
never fragments. I know that XP is supposed to work best with a
variable size page file, but I did the above with NT and w2k systems
for years.

Never put a PF in a second partition. A second drive is OK
if it's on it's own channel

If XP is now a Real Operating System(tm) you should be able to put
pagefile space on all drives and the OS will always write to the drive
that has the shortest IO queue, but that may be asking to much for a
desktop system.

Actually, page file size and location are not as important as page IO
rate which TaskMan and Perfmon can measure. If your page rate is low
enough then it doesn't matter how fragmented your page file is.





--
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Harrison for Congress in NY 13CD www.harrison06.com
Don't blame me. I voted for Gore. A Proud signature since 2001

effdee wrote:
>> The way in which I solved my problem with this was to move the page file
>> to the beginning of another partition on my hard drive, so that it could
>> not become fragmented.
>>
>
> How do you do that??
>
> effdee
>
I first moved everything on that partition to a directory which I
created in another partition, then set the computer to put the page file
on Drive D, and remove it from Drive C. I rebooted the computer, then
checked it to make sure that the page file was the first thing on the
partition, then moved everything back to it. I have O&O Defrag, which
gives you a block map of the content of the drives, so I could use that
to check that the page file was at the beginning of the partition.