Moving pagefile.sys in Windows XP

[narpet]

Hello all...

I'm having a problem moving my swap file to a drive other than my primary drive. Right now I have a 3+ gig pagefile.sys that resides on my C drive. When I try to reconfigure (through the advanced options) it doesn't change.

Here's the weird part... it shows that it is configured to have the page file on the other hard drive, but the actual file still resides on C and I can't delete it (all of this is after a reboot). I even tried making the change using regedit and the same thing happens... it shows that the page file should be residing on the other drive, but it's not.

I've even tried setting the page file to 0 (or something small like 10mb) and it won't even change the size.

I've never seen this happen before... does anyone have any ideas?

Thanks,
narpet

[Chrisjc]

Hello all...

I'm having a problem moving my swap file to a drive other than my primary drive. Right now I have a 3+ gig pagefile.sys that resides on my C drive. When I try to reconfigure (through the advanced options) it doesn't change.

Here's the weird part... it shows that it is configured to have the page file on the other hard drive, but the actual file still resides on C and I can't delete it (all of this is after a reboot). I even tried making the change using regedit and the same thing happens... it shows that the page file should be residing on the other drive, but it's not.

I've even tried setting the page file to 0 (or something small like 10mb) and it won't even change the size.

I've never seen this happen before... does anyone have any ideas?

Thanks,
narpet

I never played with the paging file befor so I am not 100% sure however... when messing with a file like that you could try safe mode with CMD prompt... and move it that way...

[narpet]

I never played with the paging file befor so I am not 100% sure however... when messing with a file like that you could try safe mode with CMD prompt... and move it that way...

I'll try that today when I get home... hope it works.

Thanks.

[Chrisjc]

Yeah let us know.

This should make it so Windows isnt using the file.. because CMD doesnt use to many services... in fact it doesnt use more then 3 in safemode if any at all..

This should allow you to move the file.

[narpet]

Booting into safe mode with command prompt didn't work. I was able to see the pagefile.sys file but when I tried to delete it I got a message that said it was in use. So the page file is even in use when XP is in safe mode...

Does anybody know how to fix this???

Thanks

[bartonc]

Booting into safe mode with command prompt didn't work. I was able to see the pagefile.sys file but when I tried to delete it I got a message that said it was in use. So the page file is even in use when XP is in safe mode...

Does anybody know how to fix this???

Thanks

I found a couple of things:

See who the owner of the file is. In Windows Explorer, in Details mode, you can right-click the column header and enable the Owners column. If it's a user besides you and you're not explicitly a member of the Administrators group (dunno how this works vis a vis Single User Mode), you won't be able to delete it.

If you're a member of the Administrators group, you may need to take ownership of the file. Search on how to do that, but basically, you need to uncheck Simple File Sharing in Windows Explorer's options and then bumble around under the Security tab of the file's Properties. From file properties → Advanced → Owner, you can assign yourself ownership if you're an admin. Also check out your effective permissions to verify that you have permission to delete.

And:

Someone suggested I go to the Group Policy and have it dump the pagefile on shutdown. I did that and it regenerated on the C drive on boot with a time stamp of the boot time. So I realized I wasn't dealing with an inert file that was being stubborn but a file that Windows was putting there for some reason even though I had first set it to 2 - 50 and then completely disabled it. Windows was actually using it - which made the 'currently in use'� part of the error box significant.

My E drive where the pagefile was supposed to be stored is NTFS and my boot drive is FAT32. I moved the page file to the G drive which is also FAT32, and although the file stayed on the C drive it didn't regenerate at boot. Since Windows wasn't using it I could finally delete it. I'm guessing it has something to do with FAT/NTFS but I know it is happy over on the other FAT drive.

The setting to dump the pagefile before shutdown was slowing the shutdown considerably, so I disabled it again. The pagefile has maintained its good deportment so I don't think that did anything but alert me that it was regenerating.

I never established the ownership as you suggested as I had already gotten rid of the file by the time I read the post. I'll store that away for the next file I can't get rid of.

As for the pagefile on the boot drive it is back to 2 - 50. I have a Gig of RAM and it wants to take 1.5 Gigs of my boot drive. You lose the debugging if you don't have a pagefile on the boot drive equal to your RAM, but that is OK. I have seen this advice in several places and it makes sense to me - especially since I want to keep my boot drive small for defrag and ghosting:

[monkeymiles]

I wanted to move my pagefile.sys (virtual memory) from C to partion on E drive for better performance (and to stop defragging). Even though in Virtual memory it was shown as moved it wasn't and I couldn't delete the one on the C drive, it was in use. Tried the security thing, but no owner and even after turning off simple file sharing no security tab (it was available for other files). After much messing about the clue came in the comment about NTFS and FAT32, both of my drives at NTFS but C is basic and E was dynamic. I delete the partion, converted to basic and reformated and then the pagefile moved with no problem.

Summary
Can't transfer virtual memory from basic boot drive to dynamic second drive. Windows says it has but if you check your hard drives it hasn't.

[AmberJain]

Hello,

Well, Wikipedia says:

Windows can be configured to use free space on any available drives for pagefiles.
"It is required, however, for the boot partition (i.e. the drive containing the Windows directory) to have a pagefile on it if the system is configured to write either kernel or full memory dumps after a crash".

Now I dont know much about "pagefiles" in Windows (I never messed with them), but in a few days I will try playing with them (as I am going to get a week or two as holidays soon :)

I will post here if I find something....

HOPE THIS HELPS.......
AmbrNewlearner