Page File Registry Setting?

[BillS22]

I remember, years ago, doing a Win XP registry entry that stopped Page File usage until all available RAM was used first.

Is there such a setting for Win 7?
I have 8GB of RAM, but I want to keep a Page File.

 

[steve-pressman]

I remember, years ago, doing a Win XP registry entry that stopped Page File usage until all available RAM was used first.

Is there such a setting for Win 7?
I have 8GB of RAM, but I want to keep a Page File.

You can of course set the page file manually but in my experience it is best to let Win 7 do it automatically, and with the amount of ram you have installed I doubt very much that the page file is hardly ever used.

Also best not to play around with the registry unless you are competent and know what you are doing no offence to you.


Steve

 

[cluberti]

There was no registry entry for that, but there was/is an entry for the paging executive (DisablePagingExecutive) that keeps driver code and kernel system code (that would normally be in kernel paged pool) from being pageable to disk. This is an on or off setting, though, it doesn't then page these to disk later if the system is busy.

Steve's right though, you should probably let the OS handle paging activity. However, with 8GB of RAM, you might instead want to consider setting the paging file to something like 512MB, and then do some testing to see if you really need a paging file at all.

 

[Layback Bear]

I found that in XP letting windows handle page filing worked best. Windows 7 handles ram even better. With 8 gigs of ram and letting Windows 7 take care of it will keep you running fast and smooth.

 

[BillS22]

"disable paging executive"....that's it.....

I don't want to remove my Page File because I do Photo Editing and I've read that Photoshop wants to see a Page File.

I have two identical hard drives (not raid) and I have a PF on both. I've been that told Windows looks for the least active Hard Drive to Page too.
My second drive is my "file cabinet"....

++++++++
Still, I've monitored my system, and even with Photoshop open with 3 large photos, I'm only using 22% of my ram.

I'm running Win 7 64 and CS5 64, and 64bit computing certainly seems to be very efficient...

 

[stormy13]

You mean the one that didn't do anything for the most part?

This is from XP but the same still applies,

TweakHound's Super XP Tweaking Guide - Bad Tweaks

Disable Paging of Kernel
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management]
"DisablePagingExecutive"=dword:00000001

Under all but the most very extreme circumstances it does nothing. What this setting does is force XP to keep the kernel (the core of the operating system) in RAM. This means that the kernel will reside in the fastest storage area in your computer. Sounds great right? Guess what? XP does this anyway unless the system comes under such an extremely heavy load that it needs the space. The very millisecond that the system has free memory, it will put the kernel right back into RAM. If the system is in such dire straights that it needs to use the space that the kernel is using I would say you are on your way to a crash and you better let whatever wants the space have it. You also better add more memory ASAP.

Actually with the improvements in how 7 handles memory, probably does even less now.

 

[Digerati]

Windows knows best - leave it alone. Any improvement you think you see is just the placebo effect.