irresponsible suggestion on a microsoft document

[perris]

concerning this page;
http://www.microsoft.com/WindowsXP/expertzone/columns/mcfed
ries/03june16.asp

the following paragraph is incorrect, irresponsible,
damaigng advice, and should be removed;

"The more RAM you have, the less likely it is that Windows
XP will use the page file. Therefore, the default initial
page file size is too large and the disk space reserved by
Windows XP is wasted. On systems with 512 MB of RAM or
more, you should set the initial page file size to half
the RAM size, "

incorrect...first, there is address translation for every
bit of memory put to use...next;

this page assumes that the user will never put their
memory under pressure, just becaused they have alot of
ram...why in earth did they get allot of ram uless they
are going to use allot of ram?...

a ridiculous assumption, as users never know how far their
memory needs will grow...more and more sophiticated
programs not at all withstanding, are they?

in addition, the idea that you are "wasting disc space" by
leaving the default size of the pf is an absurd statement.

the adage goes; "free ram is wated ram", and the addage
continues on to all of your resources...including of
course, available hardrive space.

taking your resources (unused disc space) out of use is
the waste...it's not a waste leaving resources in
use...how could anyhone in the high teck field make a
statement like this?

the only time this statement makes any sense at all is if
the user has very low hardrive space available, and even
then it still doesn't make much sense, as the OS will
downsize the pf when it is necessary.

further, the paper diesn't even address fast user
switching, and the implicdations this has on the pagefile
when it is invoked...it doesn't matter that a user doesn't
use fast switching, all that matters is that might not
forsee the time that he does use it.

so, the he only time at all it makes sense to lower the
initial minimum below the default is if your OS IS
downsizing the pf...then you might want to save the OS the
trouble of doing it automatically, and you might want to
do it yourself...but this is the only situation that
lowering the default will do anything beneficial at all

every other user, there is absolutely no gain in lowering
the initial minimum for any user, and there will be harm,
(obviously) in lowering it for some users...for instance
myself, with 2 gigs of ram, I can still put pressure on my
memory.

in addition, the OS already addresses the times when 1.5
ram is too much...for instance, a person with 3 gigs of
ram, the OS will only assign an initial minimum of 2 Gig's
page file.

now

please correct this page, as I have customers that are
using it as a reference, and lowering their initial
minimum when they should definitely not be lowering their
initial minimum.

thank you

perris

 

[Crusty \(-: Old B@stard :-\)]

You left off a very important part of the statement in your rant! This part
says

"while leaving the maximum size at three times RAM, just in case."

 

[perris]

no, I didn't leave that part out...that part is sewxactly
the point of not lowering the initial minimumn in the
fiorst place

there is a performance hit when the os has to expand the
pf...so, fi the user ever does put pressure on memory, he
will suffer perfromance, he might not erven realize the
performance hit, and he will suffer this poerformance hit
at the gain of nothing in return


if there was any reason whatsoever to lower the pagefile,
then you could weigh the trade

but there is no benefit to lowering the default
setting...no benefit whatsoever

so there is no trade whatsoever.

the suggestion to lower the default initial minimum for
any user that is not short on hardrive space is a
rediculoous suggestion, it is harmfull, and irresponsible.

at the very best, the exercise of lowering the initial
minimum does absolutely nothing

and at the worst, will cause a slow down

no user should be lowering the initial minimum, and this
article needs to be corrected

 

[JimW±]

I agree
With large HD sizes, there seems to be no good reason to skimp on pagefile size

Unless I see stats supporting: …

http://www.microsoft.com/WindowsXP/expertzone/columns/mcfedries/03june16.asp
"You might think that setting the initial size and the maximum size to the same (relatively large—say, two or three times RAM) value would improve performance since it would mean that Windows XP would never resize the page file. *In practice, however, it has been shown that this trick does not improve performance, and in some cases can actually decrease performance.*"

… I will continue to put a paging file on each drive:
Minimum recommended on OS drive (about 1.5 x RAM) & 3 times RAM (or more) on front of another physical disk -- & let Windows choose which disk to use each time it writes to the pagefile.

I have a single 100kB pdf graphics file that requires 1.4 GB of memory space to open. That is unusual, but as long as I have the disk space, it is no problem.

 

[JimW±]

Slight correction: my single page graphic PDF file is 378 kB & needs 1200 MB memory to open.
It leaves only 3MB of RAM available & only 7MB used for system cache