Custom Pagefile always reverts to system default 3500MB[System RAM-4000MB, C-70GB]

[Uncle John]

My system RAM is 4000 GB DDR.
I have set a custom page file minimum 200 to maximum 4000.
After a reboot I find pagefile.sys is 200 MB. Later in the day when I check
it has reverted to 3500 MB. Always happens.

How can I fix it to use the custom settings all the time?

 

[Chas]

My system RAM is 4000 GB DDR.
I have set a custom page file minimum 200 to maximum 4000.
After a reboot I find pagefile.sys is 200 MB. Later in the day when I
check it has reverted to 3500 MB. Always happens.

How can I fix it to use the custom settings all the time?

Hi
I presume you mean 4Gb of ram.
With that much Ram why do you need a pagefile?
To me it's just a waste of hard drive space
Chas

 

[Uncle John]

Chas,

Even if I set it to no page file it resets itself to the system default.

However I do need the 200 MB for error logging. If there is no pagefile on
C:\ then the OS cannot make memory dump when there is an error.

 

[Ron Martell]

Hi
I presume you mean 4Gb of ram.
With that much Ram why do you need a pagefile?
To me it's just a waste of hard drive space
Chas

Actually having a pagefile makes the computer *more* efficient in
terms of RAM utilization.

This is because Windows must, by design, identify memory address space
for all memory requested by Windows components, application programs,
and device drivers. And all of these items will normally ask for
memory allocations that are larger, sometimes quite substantially
larger, than what they actually need under most circumstances.

If there is no pagefile then Windows must allocate RAM addresses to
all of these requests including the unused portions. However with the
pagefile in existence then Windows will only allocate locations in RAM
to those portions of the requests that are actually used and will map
the unused portions to locations in the pagefile. Note that mapping
of these unused portions to the pagefile does not require any actual
hard drive activity. All that is needed is to make entries in the
memory mapping tables maintained by the CPU.

So the mere fact that the pagefile exists will result in reduced usage
of RAM for Windows components, application programs, and device
drivers; allowing more of it to be used for disk cache, retention of
the code from recently closed applications (very often these
applications are relaunched), and so forth.

In addition to the memory management functions, Windows also uses the
pagefile for a number of other specialized purposes, such as:
- System Failure Memory Dumps. If this option has been selected (it
is on by default) then Windows will use the pagefile *on the boot
drive* to receive the memory dump, and then it will rename the file.
This is much faster than creating a new file to receive the dump, and
time is critical when these types of errors happen.
- Fast User Switching. If you have multiple users configured on a PC
and if you have the "fast user switching" option in effect then
Windows will use the pagefile to roll out the RAM content for the
previous user when the system is switched to a new user.

Hope this clarifies the situation.

Good luck

Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

In memory of a dear friend Alex Nichol MVP
http://aumha.org/alex.htm

 

[Ron Martell]

My system RAM is 4000 GB DDR.
I have set a custom page file minimum 200 to maximum 4000.
After a reboot I find pagefile.sys is 200 MB. Later in the day when I check
it has reverted to 3500 MB. Always happens.

How can I fix it to use the custom settings all the time?

See the article by the late Alex Nichol MVP at
http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.htm especially the section dealing with
problems.

Good luck

Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

In memory of a dear friend Alex Nichol MVP
http://aumha.org/alex.htm

 

[Uncle John]

Ron,
Thanks for your help.
I have studied Alex's article again, which I looked it some time ago.
Unfortunately it does not deal with the problem of Windows not implementing
the custom settings for the pagefile and instead reverting to the system
default.
I have traced the load sequence of processes loaded during Windows boot on
my system and found that ZoneAlarm Security Suite loads the AV component
before the Kernel loads the custom settings for the pagefile. Therefore for
the pagefile the system managed default is used instead.

Taking account of the need to minimize hassle the best solution in my case
may be to let the system manage the pagefile,as I have no critical shortage
of disk space which is not my case?

 

[Uncle John]

Ron,

Thanks for your help.
I have studied Alex's article again, which I looked it some time ago.
Unfortunately it does not deal with the problem of Windows not
implementing
the custom settings for the pagefile and instead reverting to the system
default.
I have traced the load sequence of processes loaded during Windows boot on
my system and found that ZoneAlarm Security Suite loads the AV component
before the Kernel loads the custom settings for the pagefile. Therefore
for
the pagefile the system managed default is used instead.

Taking account of the need to minimize hassle the best solution in my case
may be to let the system manage the pagefile,as I have no critical
shortage
of disk space which is not my case

 

[Uncle John]

Ron,

I have read Alex's article again but it does not throw any light on my
problem which is

1 If I set the page file to any size in C Windows just puts it at the
default size of 3.5 GB.
2 If I set in another drive on another disk, say E:\, it loads to the size
I have chosen of 1 GB.
3 If I then add a small page file in C for error reporting purposes - like
200 MB - it appears in Control Panel and in the Registry Current control
Set. BUT there is in fact no pagefile.sys in C while that 1 GB file is still
present in E.

So what I have done is to leave the settings in Control panel 2 -200 MB for
C and 1000 MB for E and in practice, as indicated above, I have no page file
in C and cannot get memory dumps which does not really matter.

It does seem that something in the load process causes this because if I do
the whole process above working in Safe Mode the two pagefiles are correctly
created. At one time in the past I traced this fault to Norton Antivirus
Autoprotect being on and interfering with the loading of the OS. do not
have any Symantec products any longer but possibly Zone Alarm Security
Suite, which has an autoprotect module has the same effect.

 

[Ron Martell]

Ron,

I have read Alex's article again but it does not throw any light on my
problem which is

1 If I set the page file to any size in C Windows just puts it at the
default size of 3.5 GB.
2 If I set in another drive on another disk, say E:\, it loads to the size
I have chosen of 1 GB.
3 If I then add a small page file in C for error reporting purposes - like
200 MB - it appears in Control Panel and in the Registry Current control
Set. BUT there is in fact no pagefile.sys in C while that 1 GB file is still
present in E.

So what I have done is to leave the settings in Control panel 2 -200 MB for
C and 1000 MB for E and in practice, as indicated above, I have no page file
in C and cannot get memory dumps which does not really matter.

It does seem that something in the load process causes this because if I do
the whole process above working in Safe Mode the two pagefiles are correctly
created. At one time in the past I traced this fault to Norton Antivirus
Autoprotect being on and interfering with the loading of the OS. do not
have any Symantec products any longer but possibly Zone Alarm Security
Suite, which has an autoprotect module has the same effect.

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you about this.

I have searched all the materials that I can find and cannot find
anything that would help to identify the underlying cause of this
behavior.

What version of Norton AV did you have installed? Did you run the
supplemental uninstaller from the Symantec web site to clean up the
residual crud and corruption left behind? The regular uninstaller
supplied by Symantec does not do a complete job.

Good luck

Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

In memory of a dear friend Alex Nichol MVP
http://aumha.org/alex.htm