The Windows Page File Guide

Find out these questions and how to customize your paging file to get the most performance from your computer.

Every computer has physical temporary storage memory called ram, generally today the average computer currently has around 2gb of RAM, but what happens if you have more computer or files open that require more than 2gb of RAM or however much you have? Of course we could always upgrade and add extra RAM, but what if you find you need extra RAM while in the middle of something? Or upgrading may not be possible.

It used to be a case of the computer running out of RAM and giving an out of memory error, but today Windows comes with something called the Pagefile , the Paging File allows the computer to use hard drive space as RAM, meaning that if your computer has 2gb of physical RAM and your computer needs to have 3gb it will firstly use the 2gb of physical RAM and then anything else will be used from the hard drives Pagefile which is called virtual memory.



Now you may ask why don’t computers only run using the Paging File and virtual memory instead of physical RAM?

This is due to virtual memory being slower than physical RAM. You may notice that the more applications or files you have open the slower your computer seems to be; this is due to the computer using the paging file .

How can I make my computer faster?
The paging file is designed to allow your computer to open files and applications that it would otherwise not be able to open, it’s never going to be as fast as physical RAM.

Hard Drive Upgrading
Upgrading your hard drive to a faster model will help to increase  the speed of the paging file virtual memory .

RAM
The easiest way to increase the speed is to increase the amount of physical RAM in your computer, remember though Windows 32bit operating systems will only recognize 3.5gb or RAM, if you increase your computers RAM amount beyond this the extra will not be recognized.

By increasing the RAM it then means that your computer will not have to use as much virtual memory.

Static/Custom Pagefile
If you allow Windows to manage the size of your pagefile it changes the size as and when needed, but if you setup a custom pagefile as a fixed size then the size is fixed.

Generally Windows is estimated to create a pagefile at around 1.5 x the current amount of physical RAM so use this as a guide when setting up a custom paging file

Another tip when modifying a paging file is to change its location to another drive or partition if possible.

Read more here on Page File optimization – where we cover creating custom paging files and the ins and outs.

Free up disk space on your computer - low disk space disk space -  The operating system page file can be a hungry beast using hundreds of megabytes of space. If you're hard drive is partitioned and you have C and D drives using the D drive could speed things up.

What does message system has recovered from a serious error mean - Apart from clearing persistent errors it also removes a security risk as keeping the paging file after shutdown does mean a copy of any file is still available

Viewing computer configuration is easy with our guides - Page File location of the paging file read more on how to tune this. Other sub categories of the System Information interface include. Hardware Resources

Computer shutdown slow? Fix a slow pc shutdown with our slow pc tips -The biggest culprit of a pc being slow to power off is the paging or page file which is used to temporarily store data when the system is not using it.

kernel32 is used to handle memory management  - more on kernel32 errors, such as damaged page file – Delete and recreate the page file. Low disk space – Windows cleanup tools may help here. Disk file format errors – Check disk on reboot. ...

Disk partition management find out how to how and why to partition - Having a system with the operating system on one partition and the page file on the other increases system performance. System organization ...

Desktop Computer Memory Upgrade and Laptop Computer Memory Install - Once the memory is happily working it's worth configuring your computers Pagefile to make the most of it, checkout our computer optimizing guide. ...

Memory Ram Upgrade  - Increase your computer ram - Increase performance - It also makes a much bigger difference when using more applications or system resources as a smaller Pagefile will be used by the system. ...

Image hard drive / backup hard disk . Having a complete hard drive - cleaning hard drive hints and tips guide, remember to disable your Pagefile before you create the file. Remember to re-enable it once you have restored, more..

How much ram is enough? How does ram affect computer speed? - Less space is needed for the Pagefile so the more applications you use at once the more noticeable the extra memory will be. So how much RAM is enough?

Computer repair tools -did you know windows has many built in pc tools, use PFMon to trace the source and number of page faults in a process and display the data in the command window, write it to a log file, or both.

Find out about improving laptop battery life with our help and tips - The simple rule here is, the more you have open the more memory will be used and the more the page file will use the hard drive. More.

Export Firefox Bookmarks - find out how to back them up - export and even use them as your home page.

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