wwoods, I have it set up on a different physical disk too (seperate partition is no use). Still, the OP only has 500 to 1000 MB.... that is NOT a lot. I read somewhere that if you do not leave it at system managed, you should at least have it at the same amount as the amount of ram you have in your system.... double that amount is even preferred....
I suppose it depends on what you use your computer for. For the normal home user, you would be better off setting the processor usage for programs. Background services is usually only better for servers.
Usually it is best to leave the pagefile set to system managed so Vista can automatically increase or decrease the size if the pagefile as needed. Otherwise, you can risk getting a out of memory error if you did not set it large enough, or waste reserved hard drive space if you set it to large. Unlike previous older OS's, Vista does an excellant job of managing the pagefile.
I appreciate the help from everyone. I guess I should elaborate about the situation. I have 40G HD as the c drive which I kmow is small for an OS like Vista, but this was when I didn't any better. So anyway I can remember when I first Installed Vista that about half of it was free space. Over a period of 6 months or so it has grown to about 36-37 GB of occupied space. Thus the reason that I customized the pagefile and that has fluctuated between 1 to 3 or 4 gb of free space as I switch the state of the pagefile.
I think I will eventually switch to 100gb hd as I reinstall Vista. Also, I've been applying some of the performance enhancements for Vista and the best boot time has been 160s at one point. Plus I would like to somehow download all my windows mail emails into folder other than in the C drive. And the computer is for home use and any intense processing work like video work is done in other large HDs that I have. The only thing is that the are all a mix of IDEs and SATAs, if that ever becomes a problem I think? That's about all I can think of right now.
PS How do I delete my previous post?