Skip to main content

Share virtual memory paging file on multi-boot Windows system to conserve disk space

You might have several gigabytes of physical memory on your computer, but Windows is always hungry for more. This is specially true with Windows Vista, and the upcoming Windows 7 too demands a fair share though significantly lower than what Vista demands. Soon multi-boot systems with Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows XP will be common. I’m sure many are already doing it. In such a setup, assigning disk space for virtual memory for each of these Windows version is such a waste, since only one Windows will be running and using virtual memory at a time.

In order to avoid this and conserve disk space, we can instruct Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008 to share a same single paging file among all installed instances of the operating system.

To do this, the user first has to decide on which partition the paging file will be located. This partition can be an existing system drive of an operating system or a newly created partition and must be accessible to all the operating systems installed.

Now all you have to do is, move the paging file to this partition and disable paging file for all other drives. Here is how to assign a paging file to a partition.

Go to Control Panel>System. Then click on Advanced system settings (in Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, go to Advanced tab). Click on the Settings button in the Performance section, then go to Advanced tab. Under the Virtual memory section, click on Change button. For all drives that you don’t want pagefile.sys to exist, select them and then set as No paging file to disable paging file on the drive. Select the drive that contains the shared pagefile.sys, set it as Custom size (and enter the value for initial size and maximum size), or simply set System managed size.

Repeat the process for each operating system installed. Remember that the drive letter for pagefile.sys may be different under different booted OS, especially when user installs each operating system on different partition.

Once done, Windows will automatically begin sharing the paging file.

(via My Digital Life)

Related: Disable Windows Page file, save your hard disk
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

69 alternatives to the default Facebook profile picture

If you have changed the default Facebook profile picture and uploaded your own, it’s fine. But if not, then why not replace that boring picture of the guy with a wisp of hair sticking out of his head with something different and funny?
332 comments
Read more

How to Record CPU and Memory Usage Over Time in Windows?

Whenever the computer is lagging or some application is taking too long to respond, we usually fire up task manager and look under the Performance tab or under Processes to check on processor utilization or the amount of free memory available. The task manager is ideal for real-time analysis of CPU and memory utilization. It even displays a short history of CPU utilization in the form of a graph. You get a small time-window, about 30 seconds or so, depending on how large the viewing area is.
17 comments
Read more

How to Schedule Changes to Your Facebook Page Cover Photo

Facebook’s current layout, the so called Timeline, features a prominent, large cover photo that some people are using in a lot of different creative ways. Timeline is also available for Facebook Pages that people can use to promote their website or business or event. Although you can change the cover photo as often as you like, it’s meant to be static – something which you design and leave it for at least a few weeks or months like a redesigned website. However, there are times when you may want to change the cover photo frequently and periodically to match event dates or some special promotion that you are running or plan to run. So, here is how you can do that.
1 comment
Read more