The Swap File and your privacy.

  • Thread starter Thread starter John Corliss
  • Start date Start date
|This requires a right click on C: in Explorer, check "wipe swap file"
|and a click to engage. In less than 2 minutes the file can be wiped
|multiple times.
Click to expand...
When I right click on my C: the only option I have is to "wipe free
space" BCWipe pops up a box with options. One of the options is to
wipe the swap file. But it sure takes a lot longer than 2 minutes.
It's like 4 hours on my 20gb HD if I have the file slack option
checked, and 2 hours if I just have the swap file checked. I think it
takes 2 or 4 hours to wipe the free space on the drive. If I abort
BCWipe after it says it is done with the swap file and before it
starts on the to wipe the free space will the swap file still be
wiped?
Click to expand...

Aye, file slacks and free space on a 20 gig drive is going to take
hours.

It's been quite awhile since I've done it. It does wipe free space and
the swap file. I just have small enough partitions that are nearly
full and didn't notice it. You might consider applying a partition if
file wiping is something that you do often in this case.

John quoted another program that states the real swap file isn't
wiped. These programs just throw up a bunch of data and it is assumed
that it is swapped out to disk, in effect overwriting the swap space.
I dunno. If this is the case a 16 bit wiper ran from real dos is the
way to go.
 
I'm running Win ME with 128 meg RAM on a 900 mhz PIII and it's smooth
as silk :) For years I used Win 98 original with only 64 meg RAM and
it was perfectly fine. Of course, I'm not interested in games. I'm
drowning in h.d. space now with 43 gig and only using 2 gig. It all
depends on the kind of stuff you use the PC for.
Click to expand...
Ain't that the truth!
I often have to work with digital pics, so what with a Photoshop
handling 20Mbs of images, a client database running in the
background, plus a whole slew of those ever so handy freewares in the
task bar I find that a quarter gig is just about right to keep things
ticking along without too much swap file business going down.

Then again, I have a server with only 64Mb of ram, and it runs just
fine doing nothing but serving data.

Horses fer courses!

Regards,
 
John Corliss said:
bassbag,
I downloaded and installed that program, then ran it. It almost
gets all the way through opening a view and then generates several
Kernal32.dll errors. At least it does on my system. I removed the
program as a result.
Click to expand...
I used it sucessfully on Win95, and for a few times on Win98SE before
getting errors. It must be one of those tempermental programs.
 
I found a couple of sites where people had claimed to have set up
virtual swap files - and it seems to work, though whether it makes
Click to expand...

A RAMDISK swap file doesn't just make sense as a swap file. Swap files are
made to compensate for too little RAM. Well, if you have enough RAM, you
shouldn't even need a swap file.

IIRC, you can choose to make no swap file in Win9X.

Bob
 
Steve said:
[...] "- Swap file wiping. [...] There's some pertinent info here, on
Eraser's FAQ page: http://www.tolvanen.com/eraser/faq.shtml
Click to expand...

Off topic but similar question:
Now as I have problems with a newer XP tower I realized that the swap file on
my older pc with windows ME is set to 150 MB - but the C:\_RESTORE (hidden)
file is more than 1,02 GB big! 98 % alone is a big TEMP file. [ME with all
updates, only 160 MB memory, Pentium MMX 200 MHz]

Question: Is it possble to reduce the size or to delete the file, when the
machine runs fantastic for a while?

For answer thanks in advance & a happy Christmas Season!
 
Steve said:
[...] "- Swap file wiping. [...] There's some pertinent info here, on
Eraser's FAQ page: http://www.tolvanen.com/eraser/faq.shtml
Click to expand...

Off topic but similar question:
Now as I have problems with a newer XP tower I realized that the swap file on
my older pc with windows ME is set to 150 MB - but the C:\_RESTORE (hidden)
file is more than 1,02 GB big! 98 % alone is a big TEMP file. [ME with all
updates, only 160 MB memory, Pentium MMX 200 MHz]

Question: Is it possble to reduce the size or to delete the file, when the
machine runs fantastic for a while?

For answer thanks in advance & a happy Christmas Season!
Click to expand...

Yes

turn off system restore will save you all that space, or turn it off,
delete the hidden file, then go to programs, accessories, system.
system restore and reduce the amount of drive space you allow the
system to use - then turn it back on again

HTH
 
On Sat, 13 Dec 2003 15:16:06 +0000, (e-mail address removed) ( Steve H) wrote:

None specifically John, but in passing I've seen a few sites that
refer to W9x as handling rather small amounts of ram.
Click to expand...

Define "small" ? :-)

I found that I couldn't get '98SE working with more than 765MB RAM.
Though things work okay with that amount.

Regards, John.

--
****************************************************
,-._|\ (A.C.F FAQ) http://clients.net2000.com.au/~johnf/faq.html
/ Oz \ John Fitzsimons - Melbourne, Australia.
\_,--.x/ http://www.aspects.org.au/index.htm
v http://clients.net2000.com.au/~johnf/
 
Wrongo, Art. I definitely see the value of that. Don't know where I
read that bit about the help files, so I may be wrong about that. I'm
about to do a reformat and reinstall in the near future, so I may give
it a try before that happens.
Click to expand...
I don't think you understand the extent of your paranoia. Yes,
there's a massive conspiracy between MS & the US govt., whereby they
are uploading everyone's swap file on a daily basis & 20 zillion
people are pouring over said files looking for who knows what.
Not only that, but Santa Claus is real as well.
 
Alastair said:
Steve H wrote:

[...] "- Swap file wiping. [...] There's some pertinent info here, on
Eraser's FAQ page: http://www.tolvanen.com/eraser/faq.shtml
Click to expand...

Off topic but similar question:
Now as I have problems with a newer XP tower I realized that the swap file on
my older pc with windows ME is set to 150 MB - but the C:\_RESTORE (hidden)
file is more than 1,02 GB big! 98 % alone is a big TEMP file. [ME with all
updates, only 160 MB memory, Pentium MMX 200 MHz]

Question: Is it possble to reduce the size or to delete the file, when the
machine runs fantastic for a while?

For answer thanks in advance & a happy Christmas Season!
Click to expand...


Yes

turn off system restore will save you all that space, or turn it off,
delete the hidden file, then go to programs, accessories, system.
system restore and reduce the amount of drive space you allow the
system to use - then turn it back on again
Click to expand...

Turning it off and then back on again will reset the value to the
maximum. At least it does on my system. However, turning off System
Restore, then rebooting deletes the archive files in the _RESTORE. If
you like System Restore (I depend on it to some extent when testing
freeware), you should turn it back on and then reboot.
 
Mel said:
John said:
Now here's a little jewel for you:
I actually just a little while ago rebooted using an emergency disk,
then deleted the swap file. I even verified that the file had been
deleted. When I rebooted into Windows, there the damned swap file was
*again* and at the *exact same size it was before I deleted it!*
Click to expand...

Have you checked the [386Enh] section in System.ini for a
"MinPagingFileSize=" entry?
Click to expand...

All it says is "Paging=on". I let Windows manage the swap file size.
While setting a min-max swap file size would limit the amount of
personal data that winds up in the swap file, it would not eliminate
it. My minimum swap file size seems to be 104,857,000 bytes.

I've created the following batch file:

dir C:\WINDOWS\WIN386.SWP

named it "view swap.bat" and put a shortcut to it on the desktop. I
check the swap file size every time I reboot.
 
EA said:
John,

I cannot test the following suggestion because I have swapfile
completely disabled for the same reasons you are concerned about (I
have enough RAM and never run into problems). However, have you tried
renaming the file with the batch file before deleting it? Since
deleted files are on disk, maybe windows detects the deleted file's
name and just restores it (undeletes it).... Just one more thing to
try....
Click to expand...

I don't think your scenario is likely since there is a good chance
that the system would overwrite at least a portion of the deleted swap
file when it creates the new one.
 
john said:
John, have you (or anyone else) simply tried adding this key to the
Win98 registry to see if it would work? Naturally all the caveats
apply about backing up your registry first and being sure you could
boot into DOS or something that would allow you to rename the registry
using the backed-up version in case your system implodes on boot.
Click to expand...

Well, I considered that but I doubt that it would work since
apparently it's an addition to the registry that came about with XP.

Just tried it out and rebooted. Didn't work (as I expected.)
 
John, there is something you can try;

Open a blank Notepad and save it to the root folder as: win386.bak

Then place the following in a .bat file;

@echooff

deltree /y c:\windows\win386.swp
copy c:\win386.bak c:\windows\win386.swp

Then call the .bat file from the Run key in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE using the
following;

String Name: DelSwap
Value: "path_to_your_bat_file" (with the quotes)

--
Regards

Steven Burn
Ur I.T. Mate Group
www.it-mate.co.uk

Keeping it FREE!

Disclaimer:
I know I'm probably wrong, I just like taking part ;o)
 
bassbag said:
yes ive just tried it ..(used to use it before, but lost it after a
windows reinstallation)I too am recieveing the kernell32.dll error (using
w98se as i was when i originally had it).Im not sure why its not working
anymore other than perhaps a windows update has altered something.Sorry
about that John.
Click to expand...

No need to apologize for something that's most likely MS's fault. My
immediate guess was exactly the same as yours. In fact, this occurance
furthers my suspicions that Microsoft is hiding something in the swap
file and that they don't want you to know:

a. what it is
b. that they are doing it
 
jason said:
I used it sucessfully on Win95, and for a few times on Win98SE before
getting errors. It must be one of those tempermental programs.
Click to expand...

See my reply to bassbag. However, remember that the swap file can
still be read using the method I describe in another post (copying it
in a dos session, then rebooting to Windows, splitting the copy into
manageable chunks and then opening them in Wordpad.)
 
jimpgh2002 said:
(snip)
I don't think you understand the extent of your paranoia. Yes,
there's a massive conspiracy between MS & the US govt., whereby they
are uploading everyone's swap file on a daily basis & 20 zillion
people are pouring over said files looking for who knows what.
Not only that, but Santa Claus is real as well.
Click to expand...

No, they're not "pouring over said files" and uploading *everyone's*
swap files. What does exist, however, is the definite capability of
doing that with any specific individual. If you don't believe that,
then you are being foolishly naieve.
The existance of such programs as EnCase:

http://www.worldnet-news.com/encase.htm

verifies to a certain extent that this is indeed the situation.

You remind me of my friends who laugh at privacy concerns, shop online
with their credit cards, and then complain to me about being ripped
of, having their identity stolen and getting flooded with tons of spam.

If you don't like this discussion, ignore it rather than jumping in
here and pissing people off.
 
I use Win ME and have no problem with the system altering my special
autoexec.bat file.
Click to expand...

Don't know how to explain this. Perhaps it was a system update that I
foolishly downloaded.
Have you disabled System Restore and eradicated PC
Heath?
Click to expand...

Nope. They're still both active. Anyway, it seems to me that disabling
PC Health would accomplish the opposite. That is, make it so the
system doesn't protect the autoexec.bat file.
 
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