John Sacul

If the initial size is adequate, no expansion or fragmentation will ever occur, even after months of heavy continuous use. In most cases the system chosen value will accomplish this.

If the initial size should prove too small, then expansion will occur. But this is not normal operation, only a reaction to an exceptiopnal need. If this occurs during normal operatrion then the initial size should be adjusted upward. In any event this expansion is temporary, the pagefile will revert to it’s initial size during a reboot.

A fixed pagefile is fine, provided you have quessed right about it’s size. And you had better be right. If you guess wrong, you risk severe performance problems or an application failure. If you have allowed expansion this will be prevented. A system managed pagefile has all the advantages of a fixed pagefile, yet still retains the ability to expand to meet exceptional needs. This is a completely free safety net with no performance implications unless it is actually needed.

Windows designers have put a great deal of research into pagefile management and it has been tested more than most people can imagine. Many VERY experienced people use a system managed pagefile and are fully aware of all the arguments against it’s use. It is not just used by beginners who supposedly don’t know any better.

Larry Miller
Microsoft MCSA

Larry, I agree Windows is generally good with setting the pagefile at a reasonable size, however from what I understand, when Windows has the pagefile set to “System Managed Size”, Windows automatically increases and shrinks the pagefile based on the memory load. Isn’t this bad for fragmentation of the pagefile? Wouldn’t a better alternative to “System Managed Size” be to set the pagefile to a fixed size (setting the MIN/MAX to the same size)? This fixed size could be some value within the range of what “System Managed Size” would otherwise set the size to. With a fixed size, once the pagefile is defragmented, it will never be fragmented again because it will always remain on the same location on the harddisk. Larry, what are your thoughts on this?

Best advice: Set the pagefile to “System Managed Size”. Contrary to many uninformed sources, this configuration is NOT inefficient. The values chosen by Microsoft designers were not arbitary but the result of a great deal of research. The author has provided no reasons whatsoever why they should be changed.

If you receive warnings from Windows then manually set a higher initial value. There should be no need to change the maximum value. There is no need or benefit in setting the initial and maximum values the same.

Larry Miller
Microsoft MCSA

I did this change in Vista and i got a problem. My vista wont start, it wants to do a repair when i start it but when i select it, vista try to load it and it just becomes a black screen. I’ve tried to boot in safe mode but it hangs on crc.sys or something like that. Tried to boot from cd but nothing happens. please reply an answer.

Best regards Alex