How to Alter The Page File

Page files are one or more areas of your hard disks that XP reserves for virtual memory. In simple words, these reserved areas are used to contain data that may spill over from main memory.

Virtual memory is accessed by Windows just like physical memory, but this virtual memory is many times slower because of the much slower speed of hard drive data transfer as compared to RAM.

 

XP actually uses the page files continuously, regardless of the amount of free memory on your system, so optimising these files can have a positive effect on your computer’s performance

 

To optimise the page file(s), the following are a few options you can consider:

Since page files require disk access to write and retrieve information, putting them on the same drive as the operating system can compromise the performance of both.

 

Since most systems contain only a single hard drive, this is not usually something that can be changed. But if your system has more than one hard disk, consider placing the page file on the non-OS disk and removing the one on the disk that has the OS.

 

To do this, right-click ‘My Computer’ and select ‘Properties’, then the ‘Advanced’ tab. In the

‘Performance’ section, click ‘Settings’, then select the ‘Advanced’ tab. In the ‘Virtual Memory’ section,

click ‘Change.’ From here, you can choose individual drives and customise the size of the page files you wish to create.

 

Set Priorities For Individual Programs

 

If you regularly multitask while working with some applications requiring more memory than others to work effectively (for example, using Photoshop along with Word or other less demanding programs), you may consider setting custom priorities for applications that use more memory.

 

Priority is how the OS determines how to share processor time among applications. Most applications default to normal priority, so by setting your high-demand applications to a higher priority, you can increase its performance when multitasking.

To do this, load the program you wish to change the priority for, and press [Ctrl] + [Alt] + [Del] to bring up the Task Manager. Select the ‘Applications’ tab and highlight your program. Right-click the program and select ‘Go to process.’

 

Now right-click on the highlighted process, and choose ‘Set priority’. The higher you set the priority above normal, the more CPU time the program will steal from other applications when you’re multitasking.

 

The Page File Size

By default, page files are created with a starting size and a maximum size. These values allow Windows to resize the paging file as the system’s need grows. It is more efficient to set an identical starting and max value so resources are not wasted by resizing a file.

 

To do this, choose ‘Custom Size’ for each page file, and set the initial and maximum sizes as identical.

 

As for what size to set them at, the best bet is to leave them at or slightly below the default ‘Maximum’ setting the system assigned, with a ceiling of 1 GB. This will be the amount of space reserved for the file, regardless of its current size. If you’re creating multiple page files, split the amount between them.