Is a static swap file better for my PC?

[M. B.]

I am running Windows XP Pro SP1 with 512MB of RAM.

It was suggested to me that I should create a static swap file in the amount
of 1 gigabyte (double my physical RAM) and it should save my system from
"endless hard disk thrashing and gnashing".

Is this true? Will it make my system run slower?

Would love to hear back from folks who know about this stuff...

[Nicholas]

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

(Courtesy of Alex Nichol, MS-MVP)


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Nicholas

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"M. B." > wrote in message:
...

| I am running Windows XP Pro SP1 with 512MB of RAM.
|=20
| It was suggested to me that I should create a static swap file in the =
amount
| of 1 gigabyte (double my physical RAM) and it should save my system =
from
| "endless hard disk thrashing and gnashing".
|=20
| Is this true? Will it make my system run slower?
|=20
| Would love to hear back from folks who know about this stuff...

[R. C. White]

Hi, M. B.

Why not just let WinXP manage the swap file? It's much smarter about this
than earlier Windows versions.

About the only thing that we can do to help is to select the location for
the swap file. If you have more than one physical drive - and therefore
more than one set of read/write heads - then put the swap file on a
different HD than WinXP itself. This way, one set of heads can be reading
the swap file while the other is accessing the OS, app and data files.
(Even better if the two HDs are on different IDE controllers or on SCSI.)

No matter where the swap file is on a single HD, the single set of heads
must be repositioned to read/write the swap file, then return to their other
duties. This is true whether the swap file is in a separate partition or
not.

Go to System Properties | Advanced | Performance Settings | Advanced |
Virtual Memory Change. (Whew!) Set all the "drives" to No paging file,
except for the one that you want to use. Set that one to System managed
size. And don't forget to click Set after each one. The bottom panel,
Total paging file size for all drives, should show about 768 MB (that's 1.5
x 512 MB) both Recommended and Currently allocated. Click OK all the way
out and let the computer reboot.

I'm not expert on this, but I've read hundreds of newsgroup messages from
experts - and not many of them agree on any aspect of this. My swap file
has been set this way ever since WinXP arrived and it has worked quite well.

One final point: WinXP does not bother to delete its prior page file(s), so
you can do that manually after you reboot to establish the new one. Easiest
way is probably to open a "DOS" window and type dir c:\pagefile.sys /a for
the Root of each volume. The /a will show the file, even though it is a
System and Hidden file. For all you find - except the current one, with
today's date and the time when you last started Windows - remove those
attributes and delete the file to recover the disk space (804 MB?) each one
uses.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX

Microsoft Windows MVP

"M. B." > wrote in message
...
> I am running Windows XP Pro SP1 with 512MB of RAM.
>
> It was suggested to me that I should create a static swap file in the
amount
> of 1 gigabyte (double my physical RAM) and it should save my system from
> "endless hard disk thrashing and gnashing".
>
> Is this true? Will it make my system run slower?
>
> Would love to hear back from folks who know about this stuff...