Pagefile confusion. Windows 10.

[Bill_Bright]

yes bill.. sorry i misunderstood you i thought you were saying it is essential.. now you claim you never said that.. he he

my mistake.. he he

"he he?"
Now I "claim"? You are welcome to show where I have ever said, or claimed it is "essential" - if you can.

For the record, just because something is not essential, that in no way suggests disabling it is optimal, better, desirable or right.

Windows will run without page file. I have never, as in NEVER EVER said, "claimed", implied or suggested it wouldn't run. I have only said and suggested there is no evidence anywhere stating or claiming it is "better" to disable it, or that running with it makes Windows run like a sick pig.

So you are also welcomed to show any study showing it is better to disable it too - if you can.

 

[lexluthermiester]

yes bill.. sorry i misunderstood you i thought you were saying it is essential.. now you claim you never said that.. he he my mistake.. he he trog

He was like this in one of the other threads. Ignore him.
If you have had no ill effects from running without a pagefile, then turn it off. My recommendation, based on extensive and ongoing deployment practices, is that if you're going to turn it on, lock it down by setting the minimum and maximum to the same size.

 

[trog100]

bill i never said it it was better to disable it.. all i have ever said is that it isnt essential and windows will run perfectly fine without it and if it dosnt the system need more ram..

most people seem to wrongly think a page file is essential.. it isnt and i try and put people right on this widely held misconception..

the bottom line is pagfile on off or limited it dosnt matter a jot.. assuming the system has enough ram.. if it dosnt have enough ram the answer to that is easy..

trog

 

[Bill_Bright]

He was like this in one of the other threads. Ignore him.

And he was pretending to be an expert in that other thread too.

He does not have the expertise, experience or years of empirical evidence or scientific data Microsoft has. Nor has he analyzed your system so he cannot recommend what is best for you.

bill i never said it it was better to disable it.. all i have ever said is that it isnt essential and windows will run perfectly fine without it and if it dosnt the system need more ram..

And I am saying "perfectly fine without it" is not the point. The point/question every one considering disabling their PF should be asking is, "is it better to run without it?"

If there is no legitimate "exception to the norm" reason to disable it, don't! Especially if you don't know what commit levels, pool usage, and memory mapping is all about, or how to use them to determine the optimal size for your system.

And don't set your minimum and maximums the same size. That is just poor advice as its a needless waste of disk space. The only exception to that would be if you moved your primary PF to a secondary disk. Then setting a small fixed size PF for memory dumps on the boot drive makes sense.

 

[lexluthermiester]

And he was pretending to be an expert in that other thread too.

He does not have the arrogance, agenda or years of assumptive, profit focused data Microsoft has.

Fixed that for you. Microsoft does what it feels will make money. My job is to make systems run smooth and stable, long term.

 

[erocker]

Leave it system managed and forget about it. There’s very little reason to mess with a page file in Windows 10.

 

[Bill_Bright]

Fixed that for you.

That's not fixing. That's intentionally misquoting another, and totally inappropriate.

Arrogance is expecting others to take what you say simply because you said it. Arrogance is telling readers to ignore others. Arrogance is refusing to show any supporting evidence when asked then claiming you

Don't need to

. Arrogance is hiding behind an anonymous username while claiming the widely recognized, world renown real expert, Mark Russinovich is wrong and then claiming

I am an expert

and telling others to make critical adjustments to their systems without even analyzing it first.

Microsoft does what it feels will make money.

Oh, you mean like developing an operating system designed to optimize the capabilities of the hardware it is running on?

That comment, and the disdain for Microsoft you showed (and admitted to) in that other thread just illustrates YOUR biased motives, not Microsoft's. Microsoft is not a charity. They are a company. Of course they are in the business of making money. But to imply Microsoft's motive to code Windows to manage virtual memory was done to make more money is just asinine.

Please, @erocker, shut this thread down.

 

[sneekypeet]

What I see here is a bunch of members spouting off with no data on either side of the discussion!

If you cannot provide information, move along and stop arguing. Pretty simple!

 

[natr0n]

Some programs need pagefile. It wont matter how much ram you have. Many paint.net/photoshop programs utilize page files. If a game needs more than you set it will overide whatever you type in.

You can set your pagefile on another drive if using an ssd to like 8-16gb and never worry about it.

 

[Bill_Bright]

What I see here is a bunch of members spouting off with no data on either side of the discussion!

I hear you, but note Jetster provided a link in post #15. John Naylor provided two links in post 17. I provided a link to Mark Russinovich's tutorial in post #19 which was dismissed as just someone's opinion (indicating it clearly was not read).

And several others included links in that other thread here that either say to leave the PF alone and let Windows manage it, or explained in detail how to properly set it manually.

Not one link to any source has been provided that says it is "better" to disable the PF! Not one.

Instead, we are told to be ignored and to just accept the opposing view because they claim they are the expert here.

You can set your pagefile on another drive if using an ssd to like 8-16gb and never worry about it.

Yes you can but not sure what you mean by "if using an SSD". Did you mean a small SSD?

Note that SSDs are ideally suited for page files. As I noted in that other thread,

To see why SSDs are ideally suited for Page Files, see Support and Q&A for Solid-State Drives and scroll down to, "Frequently Asked Questions, Should the pagefile be placed on SSDs?" While the article is getting old, it applies even more so today since wear problems of early generation SSDs are no longer a problem and each new generation of SSD just keeps getting better and better.

 

[eidairaman1]

With the modern operating systems, most of this isn't true anymore. Windows 10 is actually pretty smart about using the page file. On systems with plenty of RAM, like you and I with 32GB of RAM in your systems, disabling the page file has no real negative affect***.

However, Windows 10 likes to keep about 1/4 of the system memory in use idle when possible, and offload the non-essential crap, things that aren't going to slow down the user experience but still need to be running, to the page file. This is why if you ever really looked, an 8GB system will have about 2GB of RAM in use when the computer is basically idle, a 16GB system will have about 4GB in use, but a 32GB+ system will only have about 5-6 because at that point it has put everything in RAM and doesn't need anymore space.

At the same time, with SSDs, the virtual memory is not nearly as slow as it used to be. So needing to use a page file is not as agonizing as before. When the system used to have to constantly swap out to the hard drive, it was painful for sure. But then again, if you reached the point of being out of RAM and had no page file, worse things definitely start to happen. For example, I use Kodi(at the time this happened XBMC) a lot to stream media from my home server to HTPCs on my TVs. It buffers all the content, there is a setting that lets you adjust the amount of buffering it does that you change by editing a text file, and it buffers directly to RAM. On one of my PCs that only had 4GB of RAM, Kodi was crashing constantly and I couldn't figure out why. Turns out, by default, it was buffering too much data, and when it filled up the RAM it would just crash because I had turned the page file off.

Finally, while most of the time you can get away without a page file, there are occasions where some programs(I've even encountered a few games over the years) that will not work without a system page file. They just give some kind of error and either won't run, or will load to a point then crash. It is for this reason that I always set a small constant page file on all my systems. On my 16GB systems I make it 4GB, and on my 32GB systems I make it 2GB. On my 8GB systems I make it 8GB, and I won't have 4GB systems anymore... Really, I don't see a reason to not have a small constant sized page file. And if you have more than one drive in your system, you don't even have to have it on your system drive, just set it to use the secondary drive in the system. And 2-8GB really isn't a huge amount of space to be loosing.



I've encountered far more problems with having it off than having it on, I've never really run into any time when the page file crashed the system. And please don't say "what about page_fault_in_non_paged_area", because that isn't caused by having the page file turned on.

As for the hindering performance, no it doesn't do that either. Anyone that thinks it does has no clue how modern OSes(meaning anything Vista and newer) handle the page file. It isn't a indiscriminate shared memory space that the system has no clue is there and will just use like normal RAM. Modern OSes are incredibly smart, and will only use the page file if it absolutely needs to(AKA system RAM it totally full) or if the process it is putting in the page file is a background process that doesn't affect the user experience. And they have gotten particularly good about the background process management in Windows 8 and 10.



Sorry for the long post, but this is exactly what I came here intending to say. MSI Afterburner's pagefile reading is misleading.

Yup on mine i set 8192 and leave it at minimum and maximum, no ill effect. I still adjust services too

 

[sneekypeet]

I hear you, but note Jetster provided a link in post #15. John Naylor provided two links in post 17. I provided a link to Mark Russinovich's tutorial in post #19 which was dismissed as just someone's opinion (indicating it clearly was not read).

Post #15 says what it is, it does not state any data as to being better or worse outside of losing features by not having it active. Post #17 describes how to manually set a page file in link one, link two is more of the same in more detail. No data on if it has to run or not. Even in your own link, there is no comparison to running with or without. Semantics man. Provide data of which is better with results showing why, not tutorials on how and why to have a page file.

I'm not for or against it, what I am for is proof of why you say what you do, with actual results on either side of the fence. Otherwise it is all just opinion on what you prefer to do.

 

[NdMk2o1o]

If saving space on your SSD is really the only factor for turning it off just go into the options and put it on your HDD as I do, that way I have a pagefile "just in case/Windows recommends one" but it's not using space and constant writes on my SSD OS drive.

On a side note, I really feckin hate the way Windows 10 hides a lot of advanced user options like this when it was so easy to find with the old style (Windows 7 etc) control panel, becoming more like Apple everyday with their fancy looking icons and making everything "oh so easy" for users when it just makes it a pain in the ass for more advanced users, and don't even get me started on the quick access view when you open explorer, everyone knows it should open "this pc" as default.... I just reset my Windows a day or 2 ago so still kinda pissed I'm having to change all these things again just to get it to run like it should

Yup on mine i set 8192 and leave it at minimum and maximum, no ill effect. I still adjust services too

Ha see the rest of my post, just popped mine back on my hdd 5 mins ago and set fixed 8192

 

[Bill_Bright]

Post #15 says what it is, it does not state any data as to being better or worse outside of losing features by not having it active.

So how is losing features better? That's what I am asking folks to justify.

You think people telling others to change default settings don't need to show cause or why that is "better", but those recommending leaving the defaults as is do have to prove why leaving defaults is better? ???

Post #17 describes how to manually set a page file in link one, link two is more of the same in more detail. No data on if it has to run or not. Even in your own link, there is no comparison to running with or without. Semantics man. Provide data of which is better with results showing why, not tutorials on how and why to have a page file.

My own link goes into detail about commit levels, paging pools and memory mapping - critical information needed to properly set the PF size manually. Are you really suggesting it is just fine to disable the PF even if you know nothing about those details?

I provided other links to other notable sites advising people to just let Windows manage it. Nobody has shown where changing the defaults is "better" yet you want me to prove leaving the defaults in place is better? Really?

Pretty sure unicorns don't exist, but sorry. I cannot prove it because there is no documented evidence they do or don't.

But it has been shown if you disable the PF, you don't get memory dumps to aid in troubleshooting. That's better???
If you disable the PF, routines that speed up programs loads are disabled. That's better???

https://lifehacker.com/5426041/understanding-the-windows-pagefile-and-why-you-shouldnt-disable-it
https://www.howtogeek.com/126430/ht...-windows-page-file-and-should-you-disable-it/

If you or others don't like those experts, can you please show us any documentation that shows disabling the page file is better for the normal, home computer users? Or are we just supposed to go by others saying, they didn't see any difference therefore disabling it must be better?

 

[sneekypeet]

So how is losing features better? That's what I am asking folks to justify.

You think people telling others to change default settings don't need to show cause or why that is "better", but those recommending leaving the defaults as is do have to prove why leaving defaults is better? ???



My own link goes into detail about commit levels, paging pools and memory mapping - critical information needed to properly set the PF size manually. Are you really suggesting it is just fine to disable the PF even if you know nothing about those details?

I provided other links to other notable sites advising people to just let Windows manage it. Nobody has shown where changing the defaults is "better" yet you want me to prove leaving the defaults in place is better? Really?

Pretty sure unicorns don't exist, but sorry. I cannot prove it because there is no documented evidence they do or don't.

But it has been shown if you disable the PF, you don't get memory dumps to aid in troubleshooting. That's better???
If you disable the PF, routines that speed up programs loads are disabled. That's better???

https://lifehacker.com/5426041/understanding-the-windows-pagefile-and-why-you-shouldnt-disable-it
https://www.howtogeek.com/126430/ht...-windows-page-file-and-should-you-disable-it/

If you or others don't like those experts, can you please show us any documentation that shows disabling the page file is better for the normal, home computer users? Or are we just supposed to go by others saying, they didn't see any difference therefore disabling it must be better?

You completely blew right past my point. On either camp, all you can do is say what it is for, nobody has yet to come in with any proof as to one working better than the other. (Sorry, but to me links you just posted which is tested in 2011 may not still ring true today)
For someone who is always poking at others about twisting words and comments you sure have a knack for it yourself. I am not one to argue with experts or those who write programs. There likely is a solid reason to keep it, but nobody has shown proof as to why, other than showing what you may lose by shutting it off. If you never use such features, is more features better than unused ones? Also I take what everyone says with a grain of salt. Realize man, there are people who swear the earth is flat, and at one time we were the center of the universe. All I am saying is stop bitching at each other, and rather than showing what the page file does, show charts/results/data in both cases where one is "better" than the other.

 

[Bill_Bright]

On a side note, I really feckin hate the way Windows 10 hides a lot of advanced user options like this when it was so easy to find with the old style (Windows 7 etc)

Hidden? Okay, the Control Panel itself may not be readily seen but its not really hard to find. And once you find the control panel, the steps to manage the PF settings are exactly the same as W7.

I do hear you however. The problem is, too many users dink with settings they really know nothing about - including the PF. Many do it because they did it with XP and therefore think it needs to be done with W10. Then Windows breaks and who gets blamed? Microsoft.

Part of these decisions were pushed on Microsoft by the big builders too. Because Dell, HP, and the other big makes must provide 1 year of Windows tech support with all OEM/System builder's license, they too were getting flustered by having to spend so many resources (time, money and manpower) fixing users self-induced problems.

The fact is, if users leave their W10 systems in the default settings, W10s is more likely to keep chugging along just fine.

nobody has yet to come in with any proof as to one working better than the other.

I just showed you and there is lots of documentation showing that disabling the PF disables valuable features, can lead to stability issues and other problems. So how is disabling the PF better? Why is there a double standard here?

There is no documentation showing a Windows managed page file breaks Windows or any features.
There is lots of documentation showing disabling the page file breaks features and can lead to stability issues.

Also I take what everyone says with a grain of salt.

So do I! Which is exactly why I include links to sources and why I ask others to do the same.

So what are TPU readers supposed to do? Look for the experts, that's what. And we cited several who recommend to just let Windows manage it. Not one souce was presented that recommends disabling it. Why is that not good enough for you?

 

[sneekypeet]

For one, it appears you want to argue for the sake of arguing, and picking only the bits from my post that fit your agenda.

A) The first bit you quoted, which is better. Showing me a link to some random guy doing testing in 2011 is not exactly relevant to today's systems, just saying as a doubting Thomas.
Secondly, you glossed over the bit where I said, why are features I do not use or want better? This is by your own rationale!

B) Yes "looking" to the experts is fine. Blindly following them is something else.

As I said in my original comment, stop the moaning and prove what is better or move on. All I have seen is you relying on links to show why "you" use it. Not a single link has shown me in any recent testing, why I should go wither way.

 

[Bill_Bright]

B) Yes "looking" to the experts is fine. Blindly following them is something else.

Oh wow.

So blindly following the developer and multiple published and recognized experts is "something else". Yet following the advice of some anonymous forum poster who's only justification is that they didn't notice any different is fine to follow?

All I have seen is you relying on links to show why "you" use it.

Sorry, but that's not true at all!

I really don't want to argue - I am just trying to get people, including you, to accept the known facts that are already established.

I have my computers set to "windows managed" page files because nobody has shown me (this is that grain of salt thing) any supporting documentation that changing from the defaults is better. Why is that alone, not good enough?

Not a single link has shown me in any recent testing, why I should go wither way.

Excellent point! I accept that. Then why change the page file settings then? Why should you (you being the crowd) think disabling the page file is better? Why do you, as a respected member of this site feel it is okay to have others tell readers to change/disable the page file when they have not presented any evidence whatsoever that it is better to make those changes, like you expect me to do?

What is best for the normal user? The user and TPU reader who does not know (and should not be expected to know) about commit levels, pool usage and memory mapping? Should they blindly follow the advice of an anonymous poster who offers no substantiating evidence but his own claims of being an expert? Or the advice of the program developer and multiple experts?

What is best for the normal user and reader of TPU? What is best for the OP? Because that is all that I want here. For the readers to get the best advice possible.

Again, I am not here to argue in spite of what you may want to believe. I am here to make sure users have the facts, all the facts they need to make an informed decision. That's it.

 

[sneekypeet]

The reality is, if I do not use PF, I feel no pain as long as I do not need the features it offers. Two points to follow though. I do need enough RAM, and there are some applications which require a PF to run, more server/VM than not, but the issue is still there. Fact of the matter is, neither is faster or better, but without it you do get more free disc space.

Simply put, those experts are onto something if I am low on memory like in the olden days, but for most enthusiasts, which includes much of this site, the page file is not "needed!"

 

[lexluthermiester]

That's not fixing. That's intentionally misquoting another, and totally inappropriate.

It was a joke. Lighten up.

Arrogance is expecting others to take what you say simply because you said it.

But that's not what happened. I expressed a methodology and logic behind it and qualified that the suggestions were based on a lot of first-hand professional, and personal, experience. That's not arrogance.

Arrogance is telling readers to ignore others.

It was a suggestion based on observed behavior.

Arrogance is refusing to show any supporting evidence when asked then claiming you don't need to.

I did, but it wasn't in response to you. And you effectively went on a rant about how wrong everything I said was. But I don't need to offer proof. It's easy to find. And it's arrogant of you to demand such. You see, there are search engines called google.com, bing.com, yahoo.com and so on that are extremely useful for finding more information. People ask questions of us techies, we respond and they then have more insight as to what to look up.

telling others to make critical adjustments to their systems without even analyzing it first

The whole point of this thread was a request for advice and insight. I'm here to offer such.

Please, @erocker, shut this thread down.

What was that about arrogance? You are trying to force your perspective on everyone and when we don't agree, you ask a mod to close the thread?

The reality is, there are a variety of methods for managing a swap/page file. And each method has differing results. When people ask for advice about them, the perspectives offered will help them decide for themselves what will meet their needs.

EDIT; And to clarify; @m6tzg6r I advocate locking the size of the swap/page file by setting the min and max to the same size. On standard hard drives, not an SSD, this will limit fragmentation of the drive over long-term use. If you are doing anything on a regular basis that requires more memory than you have in physical ram, setting that size to 1.5x or 2x your ram will give a ton of virtual memory space, but at the cost of using up space on the drive. If you have a multi-TB drive this will not be a problem. With SSD's the fragmentation concern is not a problem. However, locking the size on an SSD still has a benefit as Windows will not be adjusting it constantly and thus leaving sectors all over the drive to be cleaned up by the TRIM functions of the SSD controller. This has the effect of limiting sector wear over the long term.

More details were explained in post #8 here;
https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/...disk-space-notification-in-windows-10.241267/

 

[Athlonite]

There are two different virtual memory files one is called Pagefile.sys and the other is call Swapfile.sys you may find MSI Afterburner is looking at them as one and the same when they are not

 

[DRDNA]

What was that about arrogance? You are trying to force your perspective on everyone and when we don't agree, you ask a mod to close the thread?

For one, it appears you want to argue for the sake of arguing, and picking only the bits from my post that fit your agenda.

I agree that Bill has been VERY ABRASIVE in general and this is sad very sad! This is also a community of advanced users with many many IT Technicians, Managers, Coordinators and IT Procurement Specialist and some ordinary users too but this is TPU and we are advanced! Telling us to slow our roll is unwise in and of its self. I have now prepared my self for a response that is a wall of text going on about a lot of NOTHING!

 

[m6tzg6r]

Seems the discussion about Pagefile has poeple on different sides of the fence, i say do as you wish, everyone knows how their computer operates and what they do on it, if a certain thing works for you then enjoy.

 

[newtekie1]

On a side note, I really feckin hate the way Windows 10 hides a lot of advanced user options like this when it was so easy to find with the old style (Windows 7 etc) control panel, becoming more like Apple everyday with their fancy looking icons and making everything "oh so easy" for users when it just makes it a pain in the ass for more advanced users, and don't even get me started on the quick access view when you open explorer, everyone knows it should open "this pc" as default.... I just reset my Windows a day or 2 ago so still kinda pissed I'm having to change all these things again just to get it to run like it should

The page file setting is literally in the exact same place in Windows 7 and 10, accessed the same way through Control Panel -> System -> Advanced System Settings

It takes me about 5 minutes to get a fresh install of Windows 10 to the way I like it and almost running the same as Windows 7.

 

[Bill_Bright]

I apologize to all and especially to those who felt I've been too abrasive.

Please hear me out then I'll step out.

This is also a community of advanced users with many many IT Technicians, Managers, Coordinators and IT Procurement Specialist and some ordinary users too but this is TPU and we are advanced!

everyone knows how their computer operates and what they do on it

I do agree there are many here who clearly are advanced users. And that is exactly why many come here seeking answers. But those who come seeking answers are NOT advanced users in that area of discussion - or else why would they be asking? And most who come seeking answers do not know how their computers work or again, there would be no need to seek help and ask the questions.

TPU is one of the top "technical" computer forums on the web with many users with advanced experiences from many areas within IT. That's why I come here! To help yes, but also to learn. I really don't care what other experts do their own system. They do (or should) know what is going on with their own computers and they already should understand commit levels, page pools, etc. in order to correctly set PF sizes, or whether or not disabling the PF is fine for them. And I am okay with that.

But again, TPU is a "technical" forum. So I care about what less experienced readers who come seeking advice about their computers are being told.

I ask that you (speaking to everyone) do your own homework. If you are an advanced user, you should be an expert with Bing Google. Start by going back and look at the reasons given in the two threads people provided to justify disabling their page files.

You will find reasons similar to:

I disabled the Page File and noticed no difference.​

I have lots of RAM so I don't need a Page File.​

I don't want to wear out my SSD so I disabled the Page File.​

I've been disabling the Page File for many years and never had a problem.​

I don't want Microsoft telling me what to do.​

Does Bing Google support those reasons?

Now personally, I don't feel any of those reasons meet the criteria for being "technical" justifications. Do you? Do you see any "technical" reason for disabling the PF posted in either of these two threads?

I am not talking about personal "opinions". I am talking about technical "facts". Shouldn't facts outweigh opinions on "technical" issues? Where are the technical "facts" that say disabling the PF is better? Or what are the technical "facts" that say letting Windows manage the PF is detrimental your computer's performance?

I don't want you to take my word for it! Look at all the links provided in these threads. Look at your own Bing Google search results. Do any recommend disabling the PF? Even with those that show how to properly set a manual size, do any recommend disabling it completely? Can you find one authoritative article (not just another forum poster) that recommends disabling the PF?

If you can, and it refers to a modern version of Windows - especially W10, please post it. If you can't, ask yourself why?

And if you can't, is telling readers to disable the PF "technically" the right thing we, as advisers, should be telling readers?

Again, I am sorry for my abrasiveness. I can only tell you it is not personal but totally out of passion to ensure readers have the correct, and all the information they need to make informed decisions. Please do NOT use your personal feelings towards me to cloud your judgement over the technical facts your own research reveals, or the advise you give to TPU's posters.

Have a good day.