Can't move pagefile

I'm trying to move my pagefile to my ssd for improved performance, but it removes itself and returns to the boot drive upon restart. I know that windows requires a pagefile on the boot drive for memory dumps, but after trying various sizes from 16 mb to 8 gb, nothing seems to work. The pagefile.sys file is gone once I restart the computer. I've been trying to figure this out on and off for weeks now and have basically given up. I'm pretty certain I've tried everything... permissions, safe mode, etc. Extremely frustrating. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.

Welcome to the forum.

Be sure that the SYSTEM account has full control over the root of the SSD drive.

So the SSD drive isn't the boot drive?
It would be useful to see a screenshot of Disk Manager to see what is where.

Thanks for the replies.

Here's what it looks like before reboot. I suppose I could just never turn off my computer or set the pagefile each time, but obviously I'm looking for something a little more practical. Also I'm not entirely sure it even sets properly in the first place.

Note the 4096 MB currently allocated. There's also a pagefile.sys on each drive.



And here it is after a restart. Only 2048 MB total and no pagefile.sys on the B drive.



As I said, I've tested differing minimums and maximums and eventually settled on 2 gigs as it seems to provide the least amount of hitching and stuttering in certain games.

WRT permissions, it appears that SYSTEM does have full control of the B root. Everything is ticked except for special permissions. Is there maybe something else I might be overlooking there? I recall changing the owner of the drive to administrator at some point.

Here's disk management before and after reboot. Both are SSDs.





Thanks again.

Maybe it's because you are using B as the drive letter.
A and B drive letters are/were normally used for floppy drives.
Can you change the drive letter to D and see if that fixes the issue?
Changing the drive letter to D will break any links you have to B right now, but you can change it back to B if you want to.

Sounds like that's entirely possible though I'm a little hesitant to try it right away. I'm hoping there might be another solution offered but I'll definitely do it as a last resort. On more than one occasion Steam has inexplicably deleted entire games from my drive so it can be pretty fickle sometimes. I realize it's unlikely that anything will happen but I'd rather not risk it and have to re-download games, as my internet is limited and capped.

Understood.
If you have an external drive you could create periodic backup images of your B drive.
That way if something ever does go wrong you can restore the backup image.

joe233 said:

I know that windows requires a pagefile on the boot drive for memory dumps [..]

That's incorrect (?!??); Not sure whether it's covered in this article, but it looks like a nice resource, Pushing the Limits of Windows: Virtual Memory:

Code:

https://blogs.technet.com/b/markrussinovich/archive/2008/11/17/3155406.aspx

joe233 said:

Also I'm not entirely sure it even sets properly in the first place.

It does, if it's displayed (and not present on the drive, where you don't want it; which isn't your case - unfortunately :))

joe233 said:

I recall changing the owner of the drive to administrator at some point.

Meh (Crazy thing 2 do, mess w/teh permissions 4 no apparent reason)

P.S.

joe233 said:

On more than one occasion Steam has inexplicably deleted entire games from my drive so it can be pretty fickle sometimes.

That's insane!.. Anywho, IIRC the worst that can happen is that 'things will stop working', if the change in the drive letter affects it.. Should NOT be a problem; to try, anyways. ;-$

Edit: Oh & btw., setting the pagefile to 1.5x the RAM was/is the acceptable practice (in Windows 7, it's the value already presented in that dialog); not what doesn't seem to glitch for certain games, hehe; if you should have it as static. xD