Almost 100GBs installing windows 7?

[tweakboy]

Thanks! I disabled hibernate and set paging file to 2000-4000MBs... I have 32Gigs of ram so the paging file was like 47gigs! So it now says I have 462GB free of 476GBs! I guess 2000-4000 is ok for paging file?

LOL you have 32GB of ram ,,,,,,,,, turn PAGEFILE off ,,,,,,,,,, disable it ,,, its useless

go custom size, set both to 0 and 0 , if anything the system will be faster now cuz

The rule is if you have 4GB or more , disable paging file, Are you gonna run out of ram ? use all 32GB then rely on hard drive page file NOOOOOOOOOO! youll never use up all that RAM... now go turn off pagefile WHO Told you to do it,,,,,, yall are incorrect,, 4GB or more , disable page file,,,,,,, end of story!

 

[tweakboy]

Quit with the hibernation, one of these days it will botch your Rig....

 

[HeXen]

Because you are running simple programs that never try to directly address the pagefile?
Or maybe you misunderstood "program crash" as "windows crash". Windows will (probably) not crash when a program crashes doing that.

you didn't tell us how windows memory subsystem works.

 

[GotNoRice]

you didn't tell us how windows memory subsystem works.

Remind me again, which one of us thinks the know more than the engineers who actually built windows? Oh right, that would be you.

Tell us, if disabling the pagefile is such a smart thing to do, why isn't it done automatically?

 

[iluvdeal]

Remind me again, which one of us thinks the know more than the engineers who actually built windows? Oh right, that would be you.

Tell us, if disabling the pagefile is such a smart thing to do, why isn't it done automatically?

Windows doesn't always do the smart thing automatically? Or should he have left his pagefile alone at 47GB when he has 32GB of RAM?

 

[ShintaiDK]

Remind me again, which one of us thinks the know more than the engineers who actually built windows? Oh right, that would be you.

Tell us, if disabling the pagefile is such a smart thing to do, why isn't it done automatically?

When you disable it, does windows say death and destruction? Is it smart Windows automaticly reboot on BSOD? Is it smart to have superfetch/prefetch enabled with SSDs?

Alot of stuff is on in windows per default for the lowest determinator.

If disabling the pagefile was so bad. Why is it so easy to do in Windows? And why does the popup only say that Windows might not be able record errors on an OS crash as the only downside?

 

[Red Squirrel]

Why not?
The page file should go on the FASTEST drive you have. With an eye towards random performance.

On gen1 jmicron SSDs a HDD was 100x faster then the SSD in terms of random performance.
On current gen SSDs a HDD is 100x slower in random performance.

SSDs have limited writes, you don't want to produce tons of useless writes on a 30GB+ file, not to mention it's a huge waste of space on such expensive estate. Windows uses the page file regardless of if it's needed or not, it's best to remove it completely and force it to actually use ram. We have lot of ram these days, it's fast, may as well use it. It will also make it faster to reopen a program that has been minimize for a while.

 

[xj0hnx]

Remind me again, which one of us thinks the know more than the engineers who actually built windows? Oh right, that would be you.

Tell us, if disabling the pagefile is such a smart thing to do, why isn't it done automatically?

But, why is it so easy to do? I mean it's right there "No Page File". After reading some more, it really does seem that the page file is a relic from the days before every computer having several GB's of RAM, I've got 12GB and have never seen it even using half of that. I just opened nine programs, and a huge RAW file in Photoshop, and barely broke 2.2GB.

 

[taltamir]

SSDs have limited writes, you don't want to produce tons of useless writes on a 30GB+ file, not to mention it's a huge waste of space on such expensive estate. Windows uses the page file regardless of if it's needed or not, it's best to remove it completely and force it to actually use ram. We have lot of ram these days, it's fast, may as well use it. It will also make it faster to reopen a program that has been minimize for a while.

SSDs have very high amount of writes per drive lifespan and the pagefile generates minimal utilization.

But, why is it so easy to do? I mean it's right there "No Page File". After reading some more, it really does seem that the page file is a relic from the days before every computer having several GB's of RAM, I've got 12GB and have never seen it even using half of that. I just opened nine programs, and a huge RAW file in Photoshop, and barely broke 2.2GB.

It is a relic, but just because it is doesn't mean you should remove compatibility with programs that require.
Also, photoshop uses its own custom swap file.

 

[Elixer]

When you disable it, does windows say death and destruction? Is it smart Windows automaticly reboot on BSOD? Is it smart to have superfetch/prefetch enabled with SSDs?

Alot of stuff is on in windows per default for the lowest determinator.

If disabling the pagefile was so bad. Why is it so easy to do in Windows? And why does the popup only say that Windows might not be able record errors on an OS crash as the only downside?

Here is a writeup about why you shouldn't disable the pagefile...
http://lifehacker.com/5426041/understanding-the-windows-pagefile-and-why-you-shouldnt-disable-it

I just set mine to min/max=1GB, and forget about it.

 

[Zxian]

Windows defaults for pagefile sizes are enabled so that users can have proper full memory dumps in the event of a system crash. Want to install more RAM and still be able to parse crash dumps? You need a bigger pagefile.

Disabling it altogether is a terrible idea. Setting it to something relatively small is safe though.

@xj0hnx - Come back and talk to me when you actually start using all that RAM you have installed. Opening a single large RAW file isn't all that impressive. Opening a 400MB PSD file with about 50 layers is more so. Hell, I've hit 6GB of RAM usage with Excel alone at work.

People who disable the pagefile altogether are likely in the same batch that used BlackViper's guides back in XP to "speed up" the system. Then they complained that something was broken and blamed Microsoft for the issue.

 

[Arcanedeath]

The main reason you should not disable the page file is due to it being required to save crash dumps from bsod's. To some extent it's also useful for older and poorly writen programs that don't work right without one. If you have enough ram windows will use it and make minimal use of the pagefile but it's still not a good idea to completely disable it. I have a 1GB one and 24GB of ram and it works fine.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Crash dumps are usually useless anyway unless you are a MS software engineer. If you have an issue to troubleshoot and do happen to need it you can always go turn it back on.

 

[Zxian]

Is there really any difference that you'll notice by leaving a small pagefile for legacy support and underlying OS functionality? If you can't afford the 1-2GB that people are recomending, then don't buy that cup of coffee or chocolate bar and save up for a larger SSD. Storage is dirt cheap these days. 120GB SSD for under $100 is getting quite common.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Is there really any difference that you'll notice by leaving a small pagefile for legacy support and underlying OS functionality? If you can't afford the 1-2GB that people are recomending, then don't buy that cup of coffee or chocolate bar and save up for a larger SSD. Storage is dirt cheap these days. 120GB SSD for under $100 is getting quite common.

The point is you dont need it.

1-2GB used on nothing is 1-2GB wasted. Nomatter the cost of the storage device.

Not to mention Windows likes to page out minimized applications. Not exactly benefitting performance.

 

[ALIVE]

http://blogs.technet.com/b/askperf/archive/2007/12/14/what-is-the-page-file-for-anyway.aspx
http://www.tweakhound.com/2011/10/10/the-windows-7-pagefile-and-running-without-one/

As said, pagefile is for when you dont have enough memory, or when you run debugging of the OS.

So unless an application specificly ask for the pagefile, then just disable it. Running without a pagefile also gives you a tiny peformance increase.

6 years without pagefile, 0 errors.

10 years without pagefile and no problem either
well the only problem was that age of empires wanted pagefile!!!!!
so i made a pagefile 10mbyte or 1 mbyte lol and the program runed
it was so stupid it just wanted to have an active pagefile it was not going to use it.
when i got over 128mbyte in my win95 system i turned pagefile off
and never used it again except when i played age of empires lol
at least age of empries2 did not need a pagefile

 

[Aikouka]

I usually leave the page file on, but I typically reduce the size to 2-4GB. I tried disabling it on my server, which doesn't have high memory use (mostly a file server), and Windows didn't appear to like it much. To put it in simple terms, it was rather flaky with the pagefile's size set to 0. Setting it to some low value like 2-4GB was more than enough to get it to stop acting up.

 

[Zxian]

The point is you dont need it.

1-2GB used on nothing is 1-2GB wasted. Nomatter the cost of the storage device.

Not to mention Windows likes to page out minimized applications. Not exactly benefitting performance.

Just because you haven't noticed tangible evidence directly linking the pagefile to system stability and performance does not mean you don't need it. Note, when I say performance, I don't mean the 1ms you save when minimizing and maximizing windows - I mean performance when you're actually using your memory to its fullest. The pagefile is an integral part of the memory subsystem in Windows and removing it can cause all sorts of unexpected behaviour. Again, just because you think you don't need a pagefile does not mean it's unnecessary.

To quote Mark Russinovich (someone who actually knows what he's talking about):

Some feel having no paging file results in better performance, but in general, having a paging file means Windows can write pages on the modified list (which represent pages that aren’t being accessed actively but have not been saved to disk) out to the paging file, thus making that memory available for more useful purposes (processes or file cache). So while there may be some workloads that perform better with no paging file, in general having one will mean more usable memory being available to the system (never mind that Windows won’t be able to write kernel crash dumps without a paging file sized large enough to hold them).

Most Windows7 tweaks are things that break your system. Disable-the-pagefile tweak is one of them. You probably just haven't done anything that verifies that it's broken.


A lot of people view the necessity of the pagefile as an inconvience. Think about multiple simultaneous program requests for memory, and all of them should be completed. An out-of-memory error is a bad thing. Errors = bad. Bad. Error. Wrong. Failed.

If you have a pagefile, all of the memory requests are likely to be fulfilled, albeit a little slower than if you allocated and freed memory one process at a time (which is what most users do). If you disable the pagefile, one or more of the processes will not be able to allocate the memory and will throw an error. Again, errors = bad. Most people have simply never run into this scenario since the amount of actual heavy multi-tasking that people do is a fairly rare scenario. Playing music while having Skype open and gaming isn't heavy multi-tasking.

Also, Windows has not needlessly paged out minimized applications since Vista. Your data is based on the XP days, and so is the pagefile "tweak".

 

[ShintaiDK]

You do know that Mark basicly writes, that if you dont have enough main memory its beneficial to use the pagefile?

Tweaks that break your system? Thats something you make up.

Out of memory in the first place means you didnt have enough memory. And substituting whatever memory need from a pagefile is just bad. Basicly you should nag everyone that dont have a pagefile that can grow dynamic. And after that you can nag all people who´s pagefile aint on a drive with enough free space.

Vista and Windows 7 still likes to page out idle applications. Your quote from Mark even states so.

Again, the Windows page file only serves 2 purposes. Additional memory from storage space and OS crash debug.

 

[cantholdanymore]

There's an old thread linking to a video in the MS site were this guys explains the page-file. After going over that, I juts left the default option but moved it to my HDD. Darn! I couldn't find the link but the guy has written some pretty cool utilities for windows specially a more informative replacement for task manager.

Update:
This is the guy Mark Russinovich

 

[xj0hnx]

@xj0hnx - Come back and talk to me when you actually start using all that RAM you have installed. Opening a single large RAW file isn't all that impressive. Opening a 400MB PSD file with about 50 layers is more so. Hell, I've hit 6GB of RAM usage with Excel alone at work.

I did that to see how much it used at that moment, I routinely make my work computer cry for more RAM with Excel with a Page File. OP has 32GB so I seriously doubt he'll be taxing that any time soon.

 

[Zxian]

Tweaks that break your system? Thats something you make up.

It's less common now, but back in the XP days, there were so many "tweaks" available on the net that people would blindly apply without reading the fine print.

Out of memory in the first place means you didnt have enough memory. And substituting whatever memory need from a pagefile is just bad. Basicly you should nag everyone that dont have a pagefile that can grow dynamic. And after that you can nag all people who´s pagefile aint on a drive with enough free space.

There are enough examples of software and functionality that depend on the presence of a pagefile. If you are filling up your RAM and causing the system to page to disk, then it means you need more RAM if you want the application to perform faster. If you have a pagefile that supplies the necessary virtual memory space, the application will still be able to finish its operations - it might just take longer. If you don't have a pagefile, the application will throw an error. Better performance is the only reason why it is strictly necessary to have more RAM.

Vista and Windows 7 still likes to page out idle applications. Your quote from Mark even states so.

No. It said that it can do that if memory is needed for some other purpose (another process or file cache). I doesn't state that it will do that just because they are idle. If you have free physical memory, pages on the modified list stay in physical memory.

 

[Concillian]

The other thing that can eat a lot of space is the 'system restore' points. Windows will allocate a percentage of space for system restore. You probably don't need as many restore points as will fit in the space it allocates for 500 GB.

By the time you're done installing the OS and going through windows update, installing drivers and such, you usually have at least 2 or 3, if not more restore points, and these can eat up space.

Probably want to edit the system restore options to reduce the percentage, and you can probably delete several restore points from all the initial install / reboots.