Windows Performance Increase - Virtual Memory

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This tweak applies to Windows Vista or XP. If you are running many applications, especially large resource hogs that eat huge amount of memory, your system may become unstable or even crash.
You can increase the total amount of memory in your system with a simple virtual memory adjustment of the paging file on your system.

The paging file (Pagefile.sys) is a hidden file on your computer's hard disk that Windows XP uses as if it were random access memory (RAM). The paging file and physical memory make up virtual memory.

According to Microsoft Help and Support "By default, Windows stores the paging file on the boot partition (the partition that contains the operating system and its support files)"

The rule of thumb is to set the virtual memory page file to be 1.5x (times) the physical memory installed roughly. The intent here is to have enough virtual memory so you can multitask and handle opening more programs at once.

For example, if you have a PC with 2 Gigs of Ram, the the paging file size would be aprox 3 Gigs, giving you a total of roughly 5 Gigs.

Although your system my not use it all the key here is to set an adequate amount and limit the page file from growing further than it needs to be. This video tutorial takes you through the steps of quickly setting up this scenario.

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