Defrag virtual memory

Hi

I saw an article in a magazine that recommended a simple way to defrag your virtual memory file, which apparently windowws disk defragementer apparently can't do.

This involved going to My computer>properties>advanced>settings in performance box>advanced>change (hope that made sense) and then checking the 'no paging file' option for the C: drive. Reboot, defrag and then set the paging file back to it's original settings.

My problem was that after the reboot the computer was useless, absolutely nothing responded as there was no virtual memory at all. I ended up having to reboot in safe mode to reset the paging file, do a system restore and reinstall my modem.

1. Is the general idea right and I've gone wrong somewhere (I've reread the instructions again and again and am sure I haven't)?

2. Is it worth doing in the first place, even if it can be done?

This is a well known magazine, so I'm sure they're not out to cause me grief, I should have just come here and asked the experts in the first place.

Thanks

 

Is that an oxymoron, defrag virtual memory?

I have never heard of that......the paging file is managed by the OS and set up in pages.....I would guess that the internal paging tables could get fragmented....and I guess that could lead to some overhead while paging...

I would be interested if any one else has experience with this.

Come to think of it.....wouldn't it get rebuilt on every boot?

 

Haven't heard about this and I would very careful about what you read in a mag. You can defrag the page filinf system if you need but I would be using "PageDefrag" which will defrag the page filing swap system and the registry hive:

http://majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=603

Made by sisinternals and there very solid imho.

 

And21ob, I have run across this and searches will show many results.

http://www.windowsdevcenter.com/pub/a/windows/2004/11/23/defrag_pagefile.html

However, when I was researching this a while back I ran across some posts that made some stipulations namely, that your system should have lots of physical memory ie >1Gb. In addition having altered the page file to 'no paging file' you should boot back immediately to safe mode.

I can't say that I have followed this proceedure, principly because the page file on my system is on a secondary HD situated in it's own partition and consequently I can defrag it, if required, without going through the process which you described. I am not wholly convinced that leads to any major improvements.

Good Luck

 

Thanks for this, what risk_reversal has linked to is pretty much what I did, except mine didn't mention going into safe mode. The supposed advantage of doing this is that it will save on boot up time.

Maybe I'm OK with the time it takes, as it is.

Cheers

 

Don't worry about Defragging the page file/swap.
You can (usually for security reasons) do a registry tweak for windows to
erase the page file on every restart or in apps like Eraser set it to wipe the
page file on every restart.
It's always fresh and doesn't cost much in time.

Bad out.