With the increase in the amount of RAM installed in computers one questions seems to come up often: should you disable the Windows pagefile? Many online are starting to talk about disabling the pagefile to improve performance of a Windows system. For years people have been talking about how to manage the Windows pagefile, and now the discussion changed to talking about if you should disable the Windows pagefile.
While your computer may have a lot of memory, and the pagefile may seem useless, but it is an important aspect in the operation of the Windows operating system. Disabling the pagefile may actually hurt you more than it helps you. Let’s take a closer look at this important aspect of Windows, and then talk about if you should really disable the Windows pagefile.
What is the Windows Pagefile?
The Windows pagefile (pagefile.sys) is a file that is stored on the hard drive in your computer. In most computers it is located on the C drive, but it can easily be moved to a several drive, or even multiple drives.
The main purpose of the pagefile is to hold the least used data from memory when memory becomes low. As more applications are loaded, each one will get loaded into memory, which reduces the amount of memory that can be used by other applications.
In order to avoid running out of memory for other applications, Windows will send the least used “pages” of memory to the pagefile. If the application that has information stored on the pagefile is used again, Windows will swap the information from the pagefile into memory.
What do I mean by least used data in memory? If an application has been minimized for some time, then the memory it is using could be a good candidate to be sent to the pagefile. This is one reason you may notice a slight delay when opening a minimized application on your computer.
I Have Enough Memory – Should I Disable the Windows Pagefile?
As I mentioned above, if available memory runs low, then some of the least used data stored in memory will be sent to the Windows pagefile. For those with a lot of memory, and don’t run many applications at a time, then disabling the Windows pagefile may sound like a great idea. I mean without the pagefile, everything will stay in the much faster RAM instead of being moved to the hard drive.
It may sound like a good idea, but in reality, it really isn’t. Windows also uses memory for caching and other system services in addition to the memory used by your applications. If you disable paging, then applications that are loaded but are needed all the time will remain in memory. This will use up memory that could be used by Windows or opened applications.
While you may think you have a lot of memory, you will need to realize that software such as games, image editors, and video authoring software can use a lot of memory. If you disable the Windows pagefile, other applications that are loaded, but aren’t being used at the time will be using up memory from the larger applications.
There Could Be Problems If You Disable the Windows Pagefile
In addition to the above idea of having applications that are loaded taking up memory from running applications, a problem could occur in such a situation. The problem being that you eventually run out of memory.
When a computer runs out of memory, and you disable the Windows pagefile, then applications will start to crash. When they crash, they crash hard. There is no chance to save data when this happens. If a pagefile was in use, then memory could be freed by Windows moving the least used data to the pagefile.
Another memory issue can occur if an application has a memory leak, which means that the longer the application is running, the more memory it will consume. Only until the application exits will the memory be released. You can imagine what happens once it consumes all the available memory. Not only can the offending application crash, but so can other applications that are also loaded.
How Big Should the Windows Pagefile Be?
The discussion on the size of the pagefile has been around since Windows started to use pagefiles. Everyone seems to have their own opinion, but the only problem is their opinion usually specifies a specific size compared to the amount of installed RAM.
In computers, one size doesn’t fit all. This also holds true with regards to the size of the Windows pagefile. The best way to determine the size is to load all the applications that you will typically run at any one time.
Once all the applications have been loaded, open up the Windows Task Manager and then click the “Performance” tab. In that tab you will see a peak commit charge value. This value tells you how much memory and pagefile is in use by the loaded applications.
Use this value as the minimum size for your pagefile. For the maximum size, I suggest that you double the minimum size. This will allow your pagefile to grow if you do require more memory for your applications.
As you can see, if you disable the Windows pagefile you can cause problems with your system. Disabling the pagefile really doesn’t affect an current running applications, and may have a detrimental affect instead. I recommend that you don’t disable the Windows pagefile to keep your system running smoothly.