Mathieu wrote:

Hello!
I'm using Windows XP with 512MB of memory, but I have quite a large
paging file (nearly 200MB) whereas I've got 300MB of free RAM memory
short after booting.

That is not a large pagefile, in fact it's actually quite typical.

Mine is fixed at 1gig so XP doesn't have to manage it, and it gives me
plenty of breathing room when I open large data files.

And just because you have a pagefile, doesn't mean it's all being used.
All versions of Windows create pagefiles in anticipation of the need to
swap out data, whether it actually does it not.

What can I do to force XP to use as much RAM memory as possible instead
of using so much paging file memory?

Windows will use all of your RAM without you having to do anything. If
you're using Task Manager to view your performance, don't be fooled into
thinking that "available" RAM is unused. Any RAM not used to hold a
program or data, is being used for operations like data or disk caching.

In other words, leave it alone, everything is fine, and don't worry
about it.