Virtual memory

It could be detrimental if your settings are incorrect.
I would set it at a minimum of 250mb and a maximum of 750mb this would be more than adequate assuming your HDD is large enough

This might have been detrimental in the days of small hard disks. If you have plenty of free disk space, it should not be an issue. I have 256mb of RAM on my PC, and I manually set my vm to 512.

One tip: set the min and max to the same number.If you set the virtual memory minimum to, say, 128, and the maximum to 256, then when Windows boots it will only allocate the 128. If an application needs more, performance can be affected because Windows then needs to find and allocate more space. If you set the min and max to the same number, it will allocate all of the space at startup, before any other applications load, and will always be available.

When setting virtual memory to be user-defined, you usually can only get into trouble in 2 instances:
1. Setting virtual memory size to be too low (this is usually only a problem if you are already pushing the limit of installed memory). Microsoft will show you a recommended minimum setting based on your installed memory. If you use this setting, you will be safe. Also, to alleviate fragmentation of your virtual memory file, give it a fixed size (minimum and maximum setting is the same).
2. Setting virtual memory size such that it exceeds the capacity of your hard drive.

There was a long discussion thread on the topic of virtual memory in the discussions section a while back.

Setting a fixed virtual memory of 2X real memory, and using Norton speed disk to optimize the location of the file on the drive is a good way to get great performance numbers on benchmark testss.

In the "real" world, it depends an how you use your PC.

If you routinely open large files, or open a number of program windows, then you want virtual memory to be as free to use disk space as possible.

I have seen graphics programs run out of resources with 10GB of virtual memory.

What I do, is set up a seperate partition for virtual memory, and let Windows do as it pleases.

While this is not the "optimum" per benchmark tests, I have found that this give the least amount of "real-world" PC problems.

Chas

You can alter these settings if you want to. But you need to consider three things first.
First: CPU speed. If it is low (< 500Mhz) keep the lower and upper limits for virtual memory the same. Otherwise performance takes a real beating.
Second: Installed RAM. You need to specify at least as much virtual memory as installed RAM.
Third: Available DEFRAGEMENTED hard disk space. Specify upto 2.5 times the installed RAM capacity as the upper limit for virtual memory. But restrict this to the available defragmented disk space. This also implies you need to defragment regularly to maintain the performance.
Good Luck!