Page File Problems

[Evan Patton]

I recently set my PF on drive C: to be 1024-2048 MB, but
Windows refuses to make it this large. The numbers show
up on the page file properties sheet but the file itself
is only ~400MB and my total memory in the Task Manager is
about 600,000 KB. I did notice that when I go into Safe
Mode Windows expands it to 1 GB but when I restart and
boot normally it is switched back to 400 MB. How can I
fix this?

Evan

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, Evan.

HOW are you managing your page file? You DO have enough room on C: for a
file that large, right?

Go to System Properties | Advanced | Performance Settings | Advanced, and
see the number alongside the Change button. This tells you how much space
you've allocated for page files on all your drives. Then click Change and
use the Virtual Memory screen to specify how much space should be used on
each drive. If you want to use only C:, then click each of the other
drives, click No paging file and then Set for that drive. For C:, set the
Custom size you want - or click System managed size - and click Set.

I've left mine at System managed size and it creates a 768 MB page file for
my 512 MB RAM computer. WinXP does a much better job of managing Virtual
Memory than prior versions of Windows.

RC