page file question

My page file is showing about 500-600mbs without any programs running. I have 1GB. Would increaseing to 2GB improve this and lower the hard drive access? Or is the page file set to a certain limit no matter what. And how much of this could be blamed on it still being in beta. Im running Beta 2 and the windows install is on a 40GB 10,000rpm SCSI hard drive.

Windows will take advantage of the extra ram and hard drive access will decrease. The size of the page file may not change or it may even grow, but the system will not use it as often. You should not pay as much attention to the page file size as the page file usage as shown in the Task Manager/Performance tab.
"Drew" wrote in message

My page file is showing about 500-600mbs without any programs running. I have 1GB. Would increaseing to 2GB improve this and lower the hard drive access? Or is the page file set to a certain limit no matter what. And how much of this could be blamed on it still being in beta. Im running Beta 2 and the windows install is on a 40GB 10,000rpm SCSI hard drive.

I doubt you'll get any use out of tweaking the page file once you have greater than 1GB or RAM and I would focus on defrag, spyware scans, cutting processes you don't need and cutting services. Agreeing with Colin's point, and his focus on page file usage, Google the services and processes you have running or google for a good service and process reference. If I had one for Vista, I'd have posted it and trim processes and services you don't need. Defrag regularly with a quality defragger--that's not the one the Vista has--use something like www.diskeeper.com which has Vista compatible Diskeeper 10 for X85 for free 30 day trial and works above Diskeeper 8 or if you're on a dual boot you can run Perfect Disk 6 and above to defrag your Vista drive. There is also a means to modify www.raxco.com PD to work with Vista using the SDK.
I enclose this for reference and not the least of the reasons is that it is the only MSKB article with "all that stuff" in the title. Perhaps if there were more, MSFT's stock price wouldn't be in free fall this week.
RAM, Virtual Memory, Pagefile and all that stuff http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555223/en-us
CH


"Drew" wrote in message

My page file is showing about 500-600mbs without any programs running. I have 1GB. Would increaseing to 2GB improve this and lower the hard drive access? Or is the page file set to a certain limit no matter what. And how much of this could be blamed on it still being in beta. Im running Beta 2 and the windows install is on a 40GB 10,000rpm SCSI hard drive.

Diskeeper 10 has been very effective for me on XP Pro x64 and I recommend it.
"Chad Harris" wrote in message

I doubt you'll get any use out of tweaking the page file once you have greater than 1GB or RAM and I would focus on defrag, spyware scans, cutting processes you don't need and cutting services. Agreeing with Colin's point, and his focus on page file usage, Google the services and processes you have running or google for a good service and process reference. If I had one for Vista, I'd have posted it and trim processes and services you don't need. Defrag regularly with a quality defragger--that's not the one the Vista has--use something like www.diskeeper.com which has Vista compatible Diskeeper 10 for X85 for free 30 day trial and works above Diskeeper 8 or if you're on a dual boot you can run Perfect Disk 6 and above to defrag your Vista drive. There is also a means to modify www.raxco.com PD to work with Vista using the SDK.
I enclose this for reference and not the least of the reasons is that it is the only MSKB article with "all that stuff" in the title. Perhaps if there were more, MSFT's stock price wouldn't be in free fall this week.
RAM, Virtual Memory, Pagefile and all that stuff http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555223/en-us
CH


"Drew" wrote in message My page file is showing about 500-600mbs without any programs running. I have 1GB. Would increaseing to 2GB improve this and lower the hard drive access? Or is the page file set to a certain limit no matter what. And how much of this could be blamed on it still being in beta. Im running Beta 2 and the windows install is on a 40GB 10,000rpm SCSI hard drive.

Thanks Colin. That's good news for a bunch of people. When I last checked the site, I thought they had the trial for X64 blanked out. I'm on X86 and I loaded my Diskeeper 8+ fine onto Vista. I couldn't get Perfect Disk installed though but there are two workarounds.
I have found that I can use Perfect Disk from XP www.raxco.com 6+ by running it from an XP drive on a dual boot, and for Raxco's Perfect Disk you can do this for Vista:
You can patch the installer with Orca from the platform SDK by installig the MSI Orca.
I personally prefer Perfect Disk for every day use, but I like the setup for boot time defrag better in Diskeeper. Diskeeper also has nice resources on their site for thse interested in file systems, HD technology, ect. PD claims to only need 5% of free space to do a competent defrag, but Diskeeper and other defraggers optimally seem to require 15-30%.
CH
"Colin Barnhorst" wrote in message

Diskeeper 10 has been very effective for me on XP Pro x64 and I recommend it.
"Chad Harris" wrote in message I doubt you'll get any use out of tweaking the page file once you have greater than 1GB or RAM and I would focus on defrag, spyware scans, cutting processes you don't need and cutting services. Agreeing with Colin's point, and his focus on page file usage, Google the services and processes you have running or google for a good service and process reference. If I had one for Vista, I'd have posted it and trim processes and services you don't need. Defrag regularly with a quality defragger--that's not the one the Vista has--use something like www.diskeeper.com which has Vista compatible Diskeeper 10 for X85 for free 30 day trial and works above Diskeeper 8 or if you're on a dual boot you can run Perfect Disk 6 and above to defrag your Vista drive. There is also a means to modify www.raxco.com PD to work with Vista using the SDK.
I enclose this for reference and not the least of the reasons is that it is the only MSKB article with "all that stuff" in the title. Perhaps if there were more, MSFT's stock price wouldn't be in free fall this week.
RAM, Virtual Memory, Pagefile and all that stuff http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555223/en-us
CH


"Drew" wrote in message My page file is showing about 500-600mbs without any programs running. I have 1GB. Would increaseing to 2GB improve this and lower the hard drive access? Or is the page file set to a certain limit no matter what. And how much of this could be blamed on it still being in beta. Im running Beta 2 and the windows install is on a 40GB 10,000rpm SCSI hard drive.