Vista - Page file question

My page file is showing about 500-600mbs without any programs running. I
have 1GB. Would increaseing to 2GB improve this and lower the hard drive
access? Or is the page file set to a certain limit no matter what. And how
much of this could be blamed on it still being
in beta. Im running Beta 2 and the windows install is on a 40GB 10,000rpm
SCSI hard drive.

Windows will take advantage of the extra ram and hard drive access will
decrease. The size of the page file may not change or it may even grow, but
the system will not use it as often. You should not pay as much attention
to the page file size as the page file usage as shown in the Task
Manager/Performance tab.

"Drew" <nospam@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:8D4F7E71-13C7-4795-AA5F-FF2F26E72D73@microsoft.com...
> My page file is showing about 500-600mbs without any programs running. I
> have 1GB. Would increaseing to 2GB improve this and lower the hard drive
> access? Or is the page file set to a certain limit no matter what. And how
> much of this could be blamed on it still being
> in beta. Im running Beta 2 and the windows install is on a 40GB 10,000rpm
> SCSI hard drive.
>

I doubt you'll get any use out of tweaking the page file once you have
greater than 1GB or RAM and I would focus on defrag, spyware scans, cutting
processes you don't need and cutting services. Agreeing with Colin's point,
and his focus on page file usage, Google the services and processes you have
running or google for a good service and process reference. If I had one
for Vista, I'd have posted it and trim processes and services you don't
need. Defrag regularly with a quality defragger--that's not the one the
Vista has--use something like www.diskeeper.com which has Vista compatible
Diskeeper 10 for X85 for free 30 day trial and works above Diskeeper 8 or if
you're on a dual boot you can run Perfect Disk 6 and above to defrag your
Vista drive. There is also a means to modify www.raxco.com PD to work with
Vista using the SDK.

I enclose this for reference and not the least of the reasons is that it is
the only MSKB article with "all that stuff" in the title. Perhaps if there
were more, MSFT's stock price wouldn't be in free fall this week.

RAM, Virtual Memory, Pagefile and all that stuff
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555223/en-us


CH





"Drew" <nospam@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:8D4F7E71-13C7-4795-AA5F-FF2F26E72D73@microsoft.com...
> My page file is showing about 500-600mbs without any programs running. I
> have 1GB. Would increaseing to 2GB improve this and lower the hard drive
> access? Or is the page file set to a certain limit no matter what. And how
> much of this could be blamed on it still being
> in beta. Im running Beta 2 and the windows install is on a 40GB 10,000rpm
> SCSI hard drive.
>

Diskeeper 10 has been very effective for me on XP Pro x64 and I recommend
it.

"Chad Harris" <chad@nocongressionaloversite.net> wrote in message
news:eOtBqFxkGHA.3484@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
>I doubt you'll get any use out of tweaking the page file once you have
>greater than 1GB or RAM and I would focus on defrag, spyware scans, cutting
>processes you don't need and cutting services. Agreeing with Colin's
>point, and his focus on page file usage, Google the services and processes
>you have running or google for a good service and process reference. If I
>had one for Vista, I'd have posted it and trim processes and services you
>don't need. Defrag regularly with a quality defragger--that's not the one
>the Vista has--use something like www.diskeeper.com which has Vista
>compatible Diskeeper 10 for X85 for free 30 day trial and works above
>Diskeeper 8 or if you're on a dual boot you can run Perfect Disk 6 and
>above to defrag your Vista drive. There is also a means to modify
>www.raxco.com PD to work with Vista using the SDK.
>
> I enclose this for reference and not the least of the reasons is that it
> is the only MSKB article with "all that stuff" in the title. Perhaps if
> there were more, MSFT's stock price wouldn't be in free fall this week.
>
> RAM, Virtual Memory, Pagefile and all that stuff
> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555223/en-us
>
>
> CH
>
>
>
>
>
> "Drew" <nospam@nospam.com> wrote in message
> news:8D4F7E71-13C7-4795-AA5F-FF2F26E72D73@microsoft.com...
>> My page file is showing about 500-600mbs without any programs running. I
>> have 1GB. Would increaseing to 2GB improve this and lower the hard drive
>> access? Or is the page file set to a certain limit no matter what. And
>> how much of this could be blamed on it still being
>> in beta. Im running Beta 2 and the windows install is on a 40GB 10,000rpm
>> SCSI hard drive.
>>
>

Thanks Colin. That's good news for a bunch of people. When I last checked
the site, I thought they had the trial for X64 blanked out. I'm on X86 and
I loaded my Diskeeper 8+ fine onto Vista. I couldn't get Perfect Disk
installed though but there are two workarounds.

I have found that I can use Perfect Disk from XP www.raxco.com 6+ by running
it from an XP drive on a dual boot, and for Raxco's Perfect Disk you can do
this for Vista:

You can patch the installer with Orca from the platform SDK by installig
the MSI Orca.

I personally prefer Perfect Disk for every day use, but I like the setup for
boot time defrag better in Diskeeper. Diskeeper also has nice resources on
their site for thse interested in file systems, HD technology, ect. PD
claims to only need 5% of free space to do a competent defrag, but Diskeeper
and other defraggers optimally seem to require 15-30%.

CH


"Colin Barnhorst" <colinbarharst(remove)@msn.com> wrote in message
news:ufrfqMxkGHA.2304@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
> Diskeeper 10 has been very effective for me on XP Pro x64 and I recommend
> it.
>
> "Chad Harris" <chad@nocongressionaloversite.net> wrote in message
> news:eOtBqFxkGHA.3484@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
>>I doubt you'll get any use out of tweaking the page file once you have
>>greater than 1GB or RAM and I would focus on defrag, spyware scans,
>>cutting processes you don't need and cutting services. Agreeing with
>>Colin's point, and his focus on page file usage, Google the services and
>>processes you have running or google for a good service and process
>>reference. If I had one for Vista, I'd have posted it and trim processes
>>and services you don't need. Defrag regularly with a quality
>>defragger--that's not the one the Vista has--use something like
>>www.diskeeper.com which has Vista compatible Diskeeper 10 for X85 for free
>>30 day trial and works above Diskeeper 8 or if you're on a dual boot you
>>can run Perfect Disk 6 and above to defrag your Vista drive. There is
>>also a means to modify www.raxco.com PD to work with Vista using the SDK.
>>
>> I enclose this for reference and not the least of the reasons is that it
>> is the only MSKB article with "all that stuff" in the title. Perhaps if
>> there were more, MSFT's stock price wouldn't be in free fall this week.
>>
>> RAM, Virtual Memory, Pagefile and all that stuff
>> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555223/en-us
>>
>>
>> CH
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> "Drew" <nospam@nospam.com> wrote in message
>> news:8D4F7E71-13C7-4795-AA5F-FF2F26E72D73@microsoft.com...
>>> My page file is showing about 500-600mbs without any programs running. I
>>> have 1GB. Would increaseing to 2GB improve this and lower the hard drive
>>> access? Or is the page file set to a certain limit no matter what. And
>>> how much of this could be blamed on it still being
>>> in beta. Im running Beta 2 and the windows install is on a 40GB
>>> 10,000rpm SCSI hard drive.
>>>
>>
>
>