Pagefile disabling at runtime possible?

Question

For a security project I need to get rid of paging in Windows.

I have found a possibility of deleting and disabling the pagefile however, for this a restart is required.

My question is: is there any possibility of disabling it during runtime aside from virtualloc's?

Answer 1

Windows does not and cannot permit disabling the pagefile without a reboot. And for good reason.

The pagefile contains application and operating system data that has not been recently accessed. This leaves more RAM available for more important purposes. But not recently accessed does not mean unimportant. If this data were later required the result would almost certainly result in an application or OS failure. To prevent this Windows does not permit the situation to arise. If the pagefile was disabled and the system not rebooted the pagefile would be used as normal until after the reboot.

Note that paging is not exclusive to the pagefile. The majority of hard page faults involve files other than the pagefile. Soft page faults (the majority) do not involve files at all. Paging is a critical function in Windows and cannot be disabled.