can't lower or disable PageFile

[vinifera]

so using XP SP3 Pro

tried to lower my PF to 2 MB, rebooted

OS only enlarged it

then ticked to disable it, rebooted

no effect

any help on why this happening ?

[allen2]

Check this reg entry:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management
PagingFiles=

Set it to nothing, if you want to completly disable page file.

[Ponch]

Do you click on "Set" before "OK" ?

[vinifera]

registry editing helped (thanks !)

and yes i always hit "set" before apply

but it seems OS leaves pagefile.sys to be there, had to remove it via unlocker...

only then i could re-enter new (small) values

i wonder, if i may ask another question

when i re-entered smaller values (min 2MB, max 4MB)

can be something be done so OS doesn't automaticly starts to resize PF ?

as i only wish to leave small PF for minidumps if BSOD happens

but nothing above 1 or 2 MB, so the RAM can take everything else isntead HDD ?

Edited April 13, 2010 by vinifera

[allen2]

Some applications doesn't work without a pagefile but if you aren't running those you could edit the same registry entry and set the value you need and the system shouldn't modify them.

[vinifera]

will try

tho last time i got that yellow "attention" icon in sys tray

and popup by windows saying "vm is to low bla bla bla, windows is resizing page file size"...

funny thing now, even if my PF is deleted and non existant

System Info and Everest still report it exists and is being used

while defragmenter i use (not by MS) and Task Manager don't see the PF :S

[MrJinje]

registry editing helped (thanks !)

and yes i always hit "set" before apply

but it seems OS leaves pagefile.sys to be there, had to remove it via unlocker...

only then i could re-enter new (small) values

i wonder, if i may ask another question

when i re-entered smaller values (min 2MB, max 4MB)

can be something be done so OS doesn't automaticly starts to resize PF ?

as i only wish to leave small PF for minidumps if BSOD happens

but nothing above 1 or 2 MB, so the RAM can take everything else isntead HDD ?

yeah, to resize pagefile in XP, you needed to first disable it entirely, reboot + delete, then re-create it with a smaller size. Otherwise, the larger, older file gets re-used like you discovered. That's fixed in Windows 7, and you can simply change size and reboot, but in XP you couldn't resize without jumping through these hoops.

[vinifera]

hah... that sucks for uninformed people...

thanks for clearing it up

[vinifera]

btw if pagefile is completely disabled & deleted

why does Taskmanager in process list under "VM size" shows any VM usage at all ?

same goes for Everest under Motherboard -> Memory

?

[cluberti]

Because Windows doesn't know anything about RAM or a paging file itself, the NT memory manager does all that translation. Windows deals in "Virtual Memory" (VM), and the memory manager maps it's pages to pages in RAM or the paging file (or both). It lists "VM" because that's all it understands.

[vinifera]

kinda weird...

this is how only 2000/XP works or any NT above too ?

[cluberti]

All versions of Windows use VA/VM, not RAM. The memory manager handles page translation - note that this has literally nothing to do with the paging file, so don't get Virtual Memory / Virtual Address Space confused with the paging file being "virtual memory". Might want to read up on Russinovich's Windows Internals if you want deeper details.

[vinifera]

ok, thanks