How To Adjust Virtual Memory In Vista

If your computer does not have the required amount of RAM to run a program, Vista makes use of virtual memory (aka page file) to enable it run the program successfully. By default, Vista manages virtual memory automatically.
Please note that the more RAM you have installed in your computer, the faster your programs will run. This is because your computer can access data from RAM quicker than from a hard disk drive (HDD). Hence, if your computer is extremely slow, I would advice that you increase your RAM first. To achieve a 5 to 10% speed increment, place your page file on another hard drive. For best performance, this drive must be faster than the one on which Vista is installed. Remember another drive not a partition.


The steps below, will enable you change your page file size or the hard drive to use for page file:
1. Click Start, then open the Control Panel (make sure it’s in classic view)
2. Double click the System applet to open “System Properties”
3. On the LHS* under “Tasks”, click the Advanced System Settings
4. Click the Advanced tab and click Settings in the ‘Performance’ section
5. Click on the Advanced tab
6. Then click Change under the Virtual Memory section. Here you can select any drive partition and set either ‘Automatically manage paging file size for all drives’; ‘Custom’; ‘System Managed’ or ‘No page file’.
7. Finally, click Set before going on to the next partition. (always remember to click Set for changes to take effect)


To turn off the ‘Automatically manage paging file size for all drives’; uncheck the box to do so. Check the box to turn it on anytime you wish to make use of this feature. In both cases remember to click OK. Anytime you decrease the size of your paging file, you need to restart the computer before changes can be applied. On the other hand, you do not require a restart if you increased the page file size. As always if you are not sure of what do to select “System Managed”. To do this in XP, read my post on “How To Improve Your Computer’s Performance In Win XP”.



Well, thanks for reading and hope this has been helpful to you. I will be glad to hear from you in the form of emails and comments.