Vista pagefile.sys defrag tip

[MilesAhead]

You can find some good freeware defraggers for your Vista system these days but not all them will optimize the swap file(pagefile.sys.)

If you have a drive other than C: available you can effectively optimize the page file using the technique shown in the comments for PageDefrag on this site: http://mindprod.com/jgloss/defragger.html

Before changing the Virtual Memory Settings in Vista though I'd make sure you can write to the drive you're going to use to hold your temporary pagefile.sys. In my case there's a Recovery NTFS partition as D: with about 800 MB of free space. This approach is a bit safer than just eliminating the pagefile entirely and hoping Vista will boot, then defragging.

To manage the swap file yourself in Vista do Start=>right click Computer,
then Properties, Advanced System Settings, Performance Settings button, then Advanced Tab, then in Virtual memory area click Change button.

Be confident the system can boot with whatever swap you set as the
temporary pagefile.sys!! The OS hanging on bootup is no fun!

The info I haven't been able to find though, is if there's a "magic number" when setting the pagefile minimum and maximum yourself to indicate "no maximum." Setting the minimum size with no limit on the maximum would seem to be the safest approach but I don't know if there's a number that will signify no limit in the maximum settings. If anyone has discovered it I'd be curious.

In my case Vista was setting the page file to around 2 GB so I figured a 3 GB minimum and 6 GB maximum should be effective to avoid fragmentation.

In any case once you defrag C: put the virtual memory settings back for normal operation and boot again. Unless you put really heavy loads on your system memory the page file should stay contiguous and you can just do the normal defrags for quite some time. Defragging pagefile.sys might be a once every 6 months maintanence chore.

[PCPete]

Defrag Pagefile and other system files

works every time........ google pagedefrag and go to the Microsoft link for sysinternals (or you can google sysinternals and review their utilities - check out PageDefrag).
This is a company of PC geeks that Microsoft bought years ago. Their Pagedefrag program works for W2k, XP, and Vista. Pagefile size should be set to 2-3x the size of real memory and set both min & max to the same size. If you set min to one size and max to another, the Windows OS will always be calculating the size it needs......if it's ALWAYS set to only 1 size, this calculation is not done and the pagefile.sys file is done.

Defrag-ing the pagefile.sys only provides minimal improvement in speed but then again, every little bit helps. In addition, it also defrags other system files which helps along the way.

Case closed............now go out and play.

[MilesAhead]

The post you replied to is over 2 years old and mentions PageDefrag with a link to an explaination. The last 2 systems I bought I don't even use pagefile.sys. The fastest swap is no swap at all. Although if you do want to use a page file and defrag it, I agree that setting min and max size the same is the way to go. Once defragged, it sits in one big chunk nearly forever, or until you toss the PC onto the curb, whichever comes first.