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Running without Virtual Memory

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by fgiffone

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Recently Upgraded Win2K Pro workstation to Win XP Pro. Working within WinNT v4 Client/Server Domain Environment. Warning message appears EVERY time I log on to computer locally or domain. Paging File missing or set to 0MB. Go to Performance Optionsand set paging file, etc... I've tried this but it does not rectify the warning message at log on. What DOES prevent the warning message from appearing is actually SETTING the Paging File to 0MB OR running WITHOUT a Paging File! What are the Pro'sand Con's of running without a Paging File?

5 replies

by thechas

You may need to log in as administrator to make the paging file changes permanent.

As to your basic question, it depends on how much RAM you have, and how you use the system.

If you have 1GB or more RAM, there is little need for the paging file.

If you have 128MB of RAM or less, the paging file is critical.

Virtual memory takes over when you run out of real memory.

If you open a number of Windows or programs,
have a lot of back ground programs running,
work with large files (images, cadd)
you NEED virtual memory.

The 'old' rule-of-thumb (from Windows 3.1) was to size the paging file to 2X installed RAM.
For the newer versions of Windows, I recommend setting the paging file to the larger of 2X RAM, or the difference between 1GB and installed RAM.

Remember, if you run out of memory, (real or virtual) Windows WILL crash.

Chas

by mptechonline

Make sure that you are logged onto the PC as the Local Administrator when changing the page file. Depending on the size of your HD and Memory I would suggest a Page File size of 768M to 1024M and set your registry to what you can depending on the available size....maybe go with 30M to 64M if it allows and see if that setting takes that way. Virtual memory of now called the paging file, is really just a chunk of reserved hard drive space where data may be written and retrieved as needed. If you limit this, you'll test the limits of your RAM for sure....and lockups. Hope this helps in some way at least.

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