The size of the page file (virtual memory) can be user selected as follows
Open control panel
open system
open the advanced tab
in the virtual memory area click change
Select the drive you wish to adjust the page file for
select custom size
enter the size of the cache to be created (see note below)
Click set (most important or nothing changes)
click ok
restart the system
If you specify a size range and the system regularly exceeds the minimum specified, windows will resize the page file automatically.
However when doing this the system performance suffers as windows scours the drive for available space. Your best option is you
require large blocks of disk space for the system page file is to make the minimum and maximum numbers the same and about 25% larger
than you estimate you will need. This space is allocated to the page file as soon as windows loads and you shouldn't notice any
slow-downs caused by page file adjustments by windows.
You will note that the page file can be split among available drives or set to run from a drive other than the system drive so you
can pick a drive with tons of space on it and go from there. Windows requires a minimum page file in the system drive for dumping
crash reports (memory dumps) ... if you lower the system page file below this value windows will tell you what the minimum is. I
recommend you keep that space available on the system drive, the memory dumps can prove useful when troubleshooting problems.
The page file works best if you make space available in sequential sectors on the drive ... you might want to defragment the drive
first to maximize the space available for this before you make your page file changes.
--
Dale Beaudette
Associate Expert
The Expert Zone
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/default.asp
