Set Xp To Auto Clear Pagefile - Registry

Your Pagefile is your "virtual memory" or "swap file", a reseved section of your hard drive to use as RAM (random access memory). The advantages of pagefile is that you can read a large chunk of data from a single area rather then from different locations on your hard drive. It also takes fewer I/O (input/output) operations so a file can be read or writen faser. This can contain sometimes sensitve data like passwords that can sometimes be vulnerable without proper protection. Follow the next steps to set windsows to autmatically clear it upon shut down.

1. Go to start menue
2. Click "run"
3. Enter "regedit.exe" hit "enter" or hit "ok"
4. Open "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE"
5. Open "system"
6. Open "currentcontrolset"
7. Open "control"
8. Open "Session Manager"
9. Open "Memory management"
10. On the right hand side right click on the value "ClearPageFileAtShutDown"
- if there is no value there right click in the open section and add a DWORD
value and name it "ClearPageFileAtShutdown"
11. Change value to "1"
12. Reboot


Your all set!
--note, shutdown may be higher for slower computers

 

 

 

Comment/Reply (w/o sign-up)

Note.

Editing your registry could be dangerous and kill your computer.

A better option is to use xp-antispy that can do that for you

get it from http://xp-antispy.org

Comment/Reply (w/o sign-up)

True... and although deleting the registry file will make it slightly harder to find passwords in the swap, its not impossable. (their exist many *un-delete* tools)

the best option would be to use an encrypted swap file that is encrypted using a random key dureing each bootup. But i dont know if this is possable under windows. (for you linux-ers, http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-27947...pted+swap.html)

Comment/Reply (w/o sign-up)

Hehe.... Well... howabout using NO swap? with the great amount of RAM people have nowadays i've heard that people with 1 GB RAM sometimes don't need to use page file.

Comment/Reply (w/o sign-up)

GRrr.... I forgot to add something again...

Using encrypted swaps I think you're system boot time will go quite up and your pc's performance goes down.

ps. any mod's please add these 2 posts

Comment/Reply (w/o sign-up)

Have you dissabled your pagefile Jipman, if so what was your experience like, ever cause problems like running out of ram while converting video and trying to use computer at same time. I have 512, and 768 in pagefile, I know thats alot but im constantly doing demeanding operations with this 2.4 p4. I let windows manage it, any recomendations?

Comment/Reply (w/o sign-up)

- on a side not Jipp, guess i can just monitor peak ussage in task manager more closely. Is the peak ussage for this session only? Or Maybe just the past hr, not sure. I nosed around a bit didnt see much. Thnx for the replies!

Comment/Reply (w/o sign-up)

maybe if you have less than 64megs of ram encrypted swap would slow down booting a little.

but with modern computers, the time taken to encrypt a megabyte of data is nothing compared to the time it takes a disk to write a megabyte.

i use an encrypted home partiton, and the performance hit isnt even measureable.

at the moment, my kernel is set to 60% swappyness, and my swap partiton very rarely goes below 99.5% free.

Comment/Reply (w/o sign-up)

The authors descrption of the pagefile and virtual memory is confused and best ignored. The pagefile is most certainly NOT virtual memory. Virtual memory is a system in which the pagefile is a component. It is used to store infrequently accessed data, thus leaving more RAM for more important uses.

The pagefile can indeed contain passwords and other sensitive data. But accessing this data through the pagefile is not easily done and is likely to take considerable time, even for a well equipped hacker. In most systems accessing such data can be done by other means and with far less effort. Unless you are willing to take the time to guard your system from these other threats as well, cearing the pagefile will do virtually nothing for security.

Clearing the pagefile overwrites every byte of the pagefile with zero's. It does not delete the file. Doing this will most certainly increase shutdown times, particularly for laptops. The are absolutely NO performance benefits from clearing the pagefile.

The pagefile was designed to improve performance, disabling it will almost always be a bad idea. Leave it on system managed, Windows designers know more about memory management than you do. 

Larry Miller, Microsoft MCSA

 

 

 

Comment/Reply (w/o sign-up)

Xp Auto Pagefile Registry
Set Xp To Auto Clear Pagefile

"The pagefile was designed to improve performance, disabling it will Almost always be a bad idea. Leave it on system managed, Windows Designers know more about memory management than you do. "

 They know systems that were avilable for the general public around the time the OS were developed. That means they not count that average user would have 4 GB memory and dual Xenon Dell 670. As such XP may not handle such case.

The memory management designed around that memory is not available as plenty. Using a file to dump unimportant part looks a good idea in that case.

 When there is a plenty of memory dumping part of it to file - just in case - cause more slowdown than performance advantage. It would be far more efficient that a video coder and other algorithm is written such way that is not memory hungry. Same with the background applications such as virus scanners.

-reply by A Denever

Comment/Reply (w/o sign-up)