mreaves

All these responses are true. But, as you have discovered if you only run a couple of apps at a time or run small apps then you don't need a paging file. I have a Dell laptop with 4 Gigs of memory that all it really does is cruise the net and run MS Money. It runs fine with no paging file. If you ever run an app that won't fit in memory you will get an out of memory error and you'll have to re-enable the paging file and reboot.

The problem I see with Vistas paging file is that it's deleted every time you shutdown. Then when you start up again it's recreated. Well, that's a great way to fragment the paging file (which will slow down the system). There is a way to fix it but then you can't have vista manage the paging file so I just turned it off.

32 bit apps can only use 2Gigs of memory. Paging doesn't come into the equation at all.