Does a pagefile hold data when you shutdown a machine ?

[mzkhadir]

Does a pagefile hold data when you shutdown a machine ?

Windows XP
Domain environment

 

[Canterwood]

Yes it does.

There's a group policy option to clear pagefile at shutdown, or you can use tweakui to do the same thing.

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: mzkhadir
Does a pagefile hold data when you shutdown a machine ?

Windows XP
Domain environment

Can you be a bit more specific. Are you asking if the pagefile can be modified/deleted while the OS is shutdown (say if you are dual booting or slaving the drive). If so, yes, unless your hibernating (in which case the pagefile and hibernation file should not be modified).

If your asking if the pagefile could contain sensitive information an attacker could mine from the file, then yes, that is possible unless you (as Canterwood mentions) enable the clear pagefile at shutdown (be warned, this is a time consuming activity and will slow the shutdown quite a bit)

Bill

 

[mzkhadir]

Originally posted by: bsobel

Originally posted by: mzkhadir
Does a pagefile hold data when you shutdown a machine ?

Windows XP
Domain environment

Can you be a bit more specific. Are you asking if the pagefile can be modified/deleted while the OS is shutdown (say if you are dual booting or slaving the drive). If so, yes, unless your hibernating (in which case the pagefile and hibernation file should not be modified).

If your asking if the pagefile could contain sensitive information an attacker could mine from the file, then yes, that is possible unless you (as Canterwood mentions) enable the clear pagefile at shutdown (be warned, this is a time consuming activity and will slow the shutdown quite a bit)

Bill

My companies client does that on laptops, that is why the laptops are so slow.