Making Windows Use All the Damn Memory I Bought It! ;-)

[Simon Harvey]

Hi all,

Can anyone tell me why even though I have 2 Gig of memory, Windows still
wants to use the page file?

When I have a lot of development programs open (I'm a Soft Eng) such as
SQL Server 2005, Visual Studio 2005, Photoshop, Dreamweaver and so on,
according to Task Manager I'm maybe using 1Gig in actual RAM, and then
another 1 gig worth of page file!

Is there any way I get it to use the lovely shiny memory I bought for it
instead of the crappy old harddisk that it always seems to want to talk to?

I always wanted to know that and its been bugging me recently?

Thanks all

Simon

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

Please review the following:

Virtual Memory in Windows XP
http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.php

RAM, Virtual Memory, Pagefile and all that stuff
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555223/en-us


--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows - Shell/User

Enjoy all the benefits of genuine Microsoft software:
http://www.microsoft.com/genuine/default.mspx

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Simon Harvey" wrote:

| Hi all,
|
| Can anyone tell me why even though I have 2 Gig of memory, Windows still
| wants to use the page file?
|
| When I have a lot of development programs open (I'm a Soft Eng) such as
| SQL Server 2005, Visual Studio 2005, Photoshop, Dreamweaver and so on,
| according to Task Manager I'm maybe using 1Gig in actual RAM, and then
| another 1 gig worth of page file!
|
| Is there any way I get it to use the lovely shiny memory I bought for it
| instead of the crappy old harddisk that it always seems to want to talk to?
|
| I always wanted to know that and its been bugging me recently?
|
| Thanks all
|
| Simon

 

[l]

Sure, go to My Computer>Advance tab>under Performance click on
settings>Advance tab>Virtual settings>change.
I have recently been following some threads about page file, whether it's
needed or not, how much space should be allocated, and if there really is a
noticeable performance increase with it disabled, or scaled way down.
Everyone seems to have a different opinion..if you want to read up on it,
here is a link to one interesting thread that may give you some insight.
http://www.experts-exchange.com/Operating_Systems/WinXP/Q_20903319.html

 

[R. McCarty]

Program's themselves have some control over memory management.
Most are written for use in memory footprints much smaller than 1-2
Gigabytes. Many do not know/utilize multiprocessor threading. Even
if you shut down the Pagefile - XP quietly creates a minimal temporary
pagefile to compensate. Remember XP is now a 5-year old OS and
the use of 1+ Gigabytes of physical RAM is only a recent occurrence.