How to Manage Page File Size?

        When using Windows XP or above, you might have noticed Windows showing a notification saying ‘Low Virtual Memory’. This is because, the RAM of the computer is full, and even the paging file that Windows automatically maintains and uses as the virtual RAM is out of space as well.

The paging file in Windows stores all the most inactive running applications and software. When both the physical and virtual memory are overloaded due to heavy applications running in the foreground and background, the system performance remarkably decreases, hence making the end users experience reduced speed.

Since Windows allows the minimum size of the paging file to be 1.5 times the physical memory (RAM). You can manually customize the default settings, and modify the paging file size as required.

For example, if a computer has 2 GB of RAM installed as its physical memory, the minimum size of the paging file can be 3 GB and can increase up to 8 GB if needed.

Although Microsoft Windows is configured to automatically manage the paging file size (the virtual memory) according to the consumption, setting the maximum page file size manually might sometimes increase the speed of the computer at the cost of additional consumption of the hard disk space that the increased paging file size would occupy.

To modify the virtual memory settings an administrator account is used. The process is given as below:

1. Log on to Windows computer with administrator account.

2. ClickStart

3. From theStart menu, right-click Computer and then click Properties from the menu that appears.

4. On the opened window, from the left pane, click Advanced system settings.

5. On theSystem Properties box, ensure that you are on the Advanced

6. ClickSettings under the Performance 

7. On thePerformance Options box, go to the Advanced

8. Under theVirtual memory section, click Change

9. On the openedVirtual Memory box, uncheck Automatically manage paging file size for all drives 

10. From the drive list, click to select the one on which Windows is installed (typically the C: drive).

11. Click to select theCustom size radio button.

12. In the enabled fields, specify the minimum and maximum values for the paging file size.

13. ClickSet button to save the settings.

14. Finally clickOK to save the changes.

15. Restart the computer to allow the changes to take effect.