Disabling the page file doesn't really disable it. A bug?

  • Thread starter Thread starter nivtwig
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nivtwig

I tried disabling the pagefile using the "No paging file" option on
the advanced tab of "My computer" properties . I restarted the
computer, the file pagefile.sys is missing (as it should be), but I
still see that windows is paging a lot of memory to a pagefile when I
look at the "VM usage" column of most processes on Task Manager. The
"page faults" column also shows many page faults for certain
applications that I am using. The total memory of all my processes
never reaches 1GB, which is half the memory I have (2GB), so there is
no reason for windows to swap to a page file. Therefore I tried
disabling it, although I know several articles advised not to do so
( Giving not good enough or even wrong reasons in my opinion)

I have more than enough RAM (2GB) for all my applications memory
needs, but I still see that Windows by default swaps about 1/2 of the
application memory usage to the page file on the disk. This happens
with almost all applications.
For example the total memory usage of firefox with 60 tabs open is
~600MB, and windows swaps ~300MB to the page file on disk according
to the Task manager (the "VM usage" column)

I am using Windows XP SP3.
 
I tried disabling the pagefile using the "No paging file" option on
the advanced tab of "My computer" properties . I restarted the
computer, the file pagefile.sys is missing (as it should be), but I
still see that windows is paging a lot of memory to a pagefile when
I look at the "VM usage" column of most processes on Task Manager.
The "page faults" column also shows many page faults for certain
applications that I am using. The total memory of all my processes
never reaches 1GB, which is half the memory I have (2GB), so there
is no reason for windows to swap to a page file. Therefore I tried
disabling it, although I know several articles advised not to do so
( Giving not good enough or even wrong reasons in my opinion)

I have more than enough RAM (2GB) for all my applications memory
needs, but I still see that Windows by default swaps about 1/2 of
the application memory usage to the page file on the disk. This
happens with almost all applications.
For example the total memory usage of firefox with 60 tabs open is
~600MB, and windows swaps ~300MB to the page file on disk according
to the Task manager (the "VM usage" column)

I am using Windows XP SP3.
Click to expand...

In my opinion - one should not turn off the usage of the pagefile. It
doesn't make sense. Most things that get put in the pagefile are put there
because they are currently unused. Realistically - given your own example -
with 60 tabs open in firefox, how many can you see at once (the answer is
one. ;-) )
 
nivtwig said:
I tried disabling the pagefile using the "No paging file" option on
the advanced tab of "My computer" properties . I restarted the
computer, the file pagefile.sys is missing (as it should be), but I
still see that windows is paging a lot of memory to a pagefile when
I look at the "VM usage" column of most processes on Task Manager.
The "page faults" column also shows many page faults for certain
applications that I am using. The total memory of all my processes
never reaches 1GB, which is half the memory I have (2GB), so there
is no reason for windows to swap to a page file. Therefore I tried
disabling it, although I know several articles advised not to do so
( Giving not good enough or even wrong reasons in my opinion)

I have more than enough RAM (2GB) for all my applications memory
needs, but I still see that Windows by default swaps about 1/2 of
the application memory usage to the page file on the disk. This
happens with almost all applications.
For example the total memory usage of firefox with 60 tabs open is
~600MB, and windows swaps ~300MB to the page file on disk according
to the Task manager (the "VM usage" column)

I am using Windows XP SP3.
Click to expand...

Shenan said:
In my opinion - one should not turn off the usage of the pagefile. It
doesn't make sense. Most things that get put in the pagefile
are put there because they are currently unused. Realistically -
given your own example - with 60 tabs open in firefox, how many can
you see at once (the answer is one. ;-) )
Click to expand...

Search using Google!
http://www.google.com/
(How-to: http://www.google.com/intl/en/help/basics.html )

Example, if you searched for "optimize pagefile usage in Windows XP" you
might come across:
http://www.petri.co.il/pagefile_optimization.htm

Enjoy!
 
In my opinion - one should not turn off the usage of the pagefile.  It
doesn't make sense.  Most things that get put in the pagefile are put there
because they are currently unused.  Realistically - given your own example -
with 60 tabs open in firefox, how many can you see at once (the answer is
one.  ;-) )
Click to expand...


You wrote : "Most things that get put in the pagefile are put there
because they are currently unused. "

That is not true !!!.
At first impression, and to the unsuspecting user, this answer of
Microsoft and others I have seen (on my searches on the internet)
sounds logical and right, but it isn't. Here's why: In theory and
according to what you said, pages that haven't been used for some time
(or are not currently used in your words) should be swapped to disk.
But : That is not what is happening in reality !!!!.
In practice, what happens in Windows XP is: When I launch Firefox (or
launch any other application with high mem usage) at the first time
with 60 tabs (Firefox restores them automatically), I see on Task
Manager that the process total memory usage grows slowly to 600MB, and
as it grows, about half of the memory is swapped to disk (Growing
slowly to 300MB), although it was only seconds since I launched it.
How can windows determine that it is a "currently unused memory" if
only seconds have passed since it was last read/used ? and on top of
that it has a lot of other free available memory, so why should it
swap it ?
It seems that windows always swaps about half of the process total
memory size to disk on relatively large processes, regardless of how
much time the memory was unused. Always half, no matter what.

This is WRONG, the behavior of Windows XP on this issue is wrong, and
that is why I want to disable the page file. I can prove that it
causes unnecessary slowness :It causes many page faults that I can see
in the task manager, and are unnecessary since I know I have enough
memory for all my applications together.

As I said, before I asked the question, I searched a lot on this
newsgroup and on the internet. I have seen many answers and articles
from Microsoft MVPs, with the same answer as you gave, suggesting that
I should not turn it off for several reasons that sound logical, but
when you look at the practice and what really happens, the answers of
Microsoft MVPs on this issue in my opinion are wrong, it seems you are
all citing each other old answers as reference without really checking
the issue.

To summarize: Your answer didn't answer the question. It suggested why
I shouldn't turn off the page file, but didn't answer why it doesn't
get turned off.
I want to disable it because it is unneeded in my system according to
my usage patterns, and it slows down the system (The page faults I see
means it has to go and bring it from the disk back to memory, slowing
down the computer)
 
You wrote : "Most things that get put in the pagefile are put there
because they are currently unused. "

That is not true !!!.
At first impression, and to the unsuspecting user, this answer of
Microsoft and others I have seen (on my searches on the internet)
sounds logical and right, but it isn't. Here's why: In theory and
according to what you said, pages that haven't been used for some
time
(or are not currently used in your words) should be swapped to disk.
But : That is not what is happening in reality !!!!.
In practice, what happens in Windows XP is: When I launch Firefox
(or
launch any other application with high mem usage) at the first time
with 60 tabs (Firefox restores them automatically), I see on Task
Manager that the process total memory usage grows slowly to 600MB,
and
as it grows, about half of the memory is swapped to disk (Growing
slowly to 300MB), although it was only seconds since I launched it.
How can windows determine that it is a "currently unused memory" if
only seconds have passed since it was last read/used ? and on top of
that it has a lot of other free available memory, so why should it
swap it ?
It seems that windows always swaps about half of the process total
memory size to disk on relatively large processes, regardless of how
much time the memory was unused. Always half, no matter what.

This is WRONG, the behavior of Windows XP on this issue is wrong,
and
that is why I want to disable the page file. I can prove that it
causes unnecessary slowness :It causes many page faults that I can
see
in the task manager, and are unnecessary since I know I have enough
memory for all my applications together.

As I said, before I asked the question, I searched a lot on this
newsgroup and on the internet. I have seen many answers and articles
from Microsoft MVPs, with the same answer as you gave, suggesting
that
I should not turn it off for several reasons that sound logical, but
when you look at the practice and what really happens, the answers
of
Microsoft MVPs on this issue in my opinion are wrong, it seems you
are
all citing each other old answers as reference without really
checking
the issue.

To summarize: Your answer didn't answer the question. It suggested
why
I shouldn't turn off the page file, but didn't answer why it doesn't
get turned off.
I want to disable it because it is unneeded in my system according
to
my usage patterns, and it slows down the system (The page faults I
see
means it has to go and bring it from the disk back to memory,
slowing
down the computer)
Click to expand...

Read the link I gave in response to my response.
 
Read the link I gave in response to my response.
Click to expand...

I read it. It doesn't answer my question!.
It tells you why you shouldn't turn off the page file (giving not good
enough reasons, in my opinion), but it doesn't tell you how to
effectively turn off the page file: Why didn't windows XP really
disable the paging, although I did everything to make Windows XP to do
so?

Again, please don't give me reasons why I should not disable the page
file, I already read them (and think they are wrong for my situation)
in several articles that I searched on the internet before I asked my
question here. Please answer my question: How to make windows
effectively disable the paging, without ignoring my settings to
disable the page file.
 
To put it bluntly - you really do not understand pagefile function. The only
relationship between RAM and the pagefile is that Windows will use the
amount of RAM installed as a "default" guide to set the pagefile size.

Note - Windows will always create and utilize VM (aka pagefile) regardless
of the amount of RAM installed - and whether or not you have "disabled" the
pagefile.

Comparing RAM usage versus VM(pagefile) is the orange/apple stuff.
Basically RAM is utilized by "current" running program threads - VM stores
"recently" used threads on the theory they will be recalled shortly -
thereby having them more accessible (faster memory access).
 
Shenan

The germane part of your post:

Can the Virtual Memory be turned off on a really large machine?

Strictly speaking Virtual Memory is always in operation and cannot be
“turned off.” What is meant by such wording is “set the system to use no
page file space at all.” Doing this would waste a lot of the RAM. The
reason is that when programs ask for an allocation of Virtual memory
space, they may ask for a great deal more than they ever actually bring
into use — the total may easily run to hundreds of megabytes. These
addresses have to be assigned to somewhere by the system. If there is a
page file available, the system can assign them to it — if there is not,
they have to be assigned to RAM, locking it out from any actual use.
Source: Alex Nicholl

--
Regards.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
Shenan

The germane part of your post:

Can the Virtual Memory be turned off on a really large machine?

Strictly speaking Virtual Memory is always in operation and cannot be
“turned off.” What is meant by such wording is “set the system to use no
page file space at all.” Doing this would waste a lot of the RAM. The
reason is that when programs ask for an allocation of Virtual memory
space, they may ask for a great deal more than they ever actually bring
into use — the total may easily run to hundreds of megabytes. These
addresses have to be assigned to somewhere by the system. If there is a
page file available, the system can assign them to it — if there is not,
they have to be assigned to RAM, locking it out from any actual use.
Source: Alex Nicholl

--
Regards.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Click to expand...

Gerry, the "germane" part that you cited, just shows what I said:
It doesn't answer how to effectively disable the paging to disk!

He asks: "Can the Virtual Memory be turned off on a really large
machine? "
But then doesn't really answer the question he gave in the heading.

it just tells you why not to disable the page file, giving wrong
reasons (These reasons may be true in some circumstances, when you
have programs that allocate memory more than necessary. Ok, but if you
know that the programs you run are not like that, do not leak too much
memory, and use memory just enough to be contained in the available
RAM, there is no reason for paging to disk). Don't tell me what may
happen to the page file with badly behaving programs, tell me how to
disable it !
 
To put it bluntly - you really do not understand pagefile function. The only
relationship between RAM and the pagefile is that Windows will use the
amount of RAM installed as a "default" guide to set the pagefile size.

Note - Windows will always create and utilize VM (aka pagefile) regardless
of the amount of RAM installed - and whether or not you have "disabled" the
pagefile.

Comparing RAM usage versus VM(pagefile) is the orange/apple stuff.
Basically RAM is utilized by "current" running program threads - VM stores
"recently" used threads on the theory they will be recalled shortly -
thereby having them more accessible (faster memory access).
Click to expand...

Well, to put it not bluntly: I think you are the one who doesn't
understand page file and VM.
But instead of arguing on definitions, just explain me the following:

Why do I see on the task manager the following info for the process of
Firefox, and what is the meaning of of it (after I disabled the Page
file on Windows XP):

Image Name | Mem Usage | VM Size | Page faults

Firefox.exe | 344,840K | 334,716K | 437,513

Notice the "VM Size" column shows a smaller number than Mem size. As I
understand it, In the task manager the "VM size" is the part of the
file that is swapped to the page file. It is not the total Virtual
Memory that is used by the process as usually defined by the articles
you read.

The total memory consumed by the process (which is the "Virtual
Memory" according to the usual defition used in several articles, but
not in Task Manager terminology) is the resident set (344M) plus the
"VM Size" (334M) = ~678M

Why isn't the "VM Size" in Task Manager (which is the the part of the
process Virtual Memory that is swapped to disk) equal to 0 ? That is
what I expected to see.
Why are there so many Page faults?
 
The Article was written by an acknowledged expert on virtual memory.
Alex Nicholl unfortunately died in 2004 but those that know far more
about computers than you or I, were and still are those who rank his
advice on this topic as the best there is. If you know more than an
acknowledged expert why are you seeking advice?

There are also some processes where a small pagefile is needed.

NOTE: If you are debugging crashes and wish the error reporting to make
a kernel or full dump, then you will need an initial size set on C: of
either 200 MB (for a kernel dump) or the size of RAM (for a full memory
dump). If you are not doing so, it is best to make the setting to no
more than a ‘Small Dump’, at Control Panel | System | Advanced, click
Settings in the ‘Startup and Recovery’ section, and select in the ‘Write
Debug information to’ panel
Source: Alex Nicholl

"I have more than enough RAM (2GB) for all my applications memory needs,
but I still see that Windows by default swaps about 1/2 of the
application memory usage to the page file on the disk."

What utility are you using to measure pagefile usage?

Do you check all the memory requirements of every application you
install?

Do you believe all you are told by the provider of the application? Many
providers do not own up when their applications create memory management
issues!

Do you not have applications that have memory leaks? Google Fire Fox
coupled with memory leak. Do you leave your computer on 24/7?

Do you not encounter applications from time to time that need a
pagefile? Do you not use graphics programmes with an Undo facility?

--



Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
Task Manager measures allocation of virtual memory to programs not
usage!

You can do a better check on pagefile usage using pagefilemon.

Use page file monitor to observe what is the peak usage. Start it to run
immediately after start-up and look at the log. Pagefilemon takes
snapshots. You need to run it at the beginning of the session at then
run it again at intervals throughout the sessions. The log is Pagefile
log.txt. If you right click on the file in Windows Explorer and select
Send to, Desktop (Create Shortcut). The same applies to
XP_PageFileMon.exe.

A small utility to monitor pagefile usage:
http://www.dougknox.com/xp/utils/xp_pagefilemon.htm

Note that programs using undo features, particularly those associated
with graphics and photo editing, require large amounts of memory so if
you use this type of programme check these first observing how the page
usage increases when they start and whether the usage decreases when you
close the programme.

--



Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
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