Why Windows XP SP3 still uses the pagefile, even if it's disabled?

I've an old computer which is running Windows XP. Some days ago I formatted it and reinstalled Windows XP with SP3 (the previous one was SP1 I think), and i noticed that in the performance tab of the system monitor, the "Total used RAM" field was named as "Total paging size", so it was using the paging file.

I went into the control panel and disabled the paging but windows still uses it, why?

The PC is a old laptop with 1GB RAM, the first thing I thought was that XP has not enaugh free RAM, but why after formatting there is that problem? I never had that problem before, does the SP3 require more RAM than the SP1?

How can I solve it?

Harlandraka

Posted 2013-10-18T23:23:01.087

Reputation: 375

It could be that the field uses 'paging' to mean the general scheme of memory management (keeping track of memory in fixed-size "pages"), not the on-disk storage specifically. – user1686 – 2013-10-18T23:30:51.337

@grawity I thought the same, then i saw that the "paging" max size on the System Monitor is 4GB, while the RAM is 1GB only, so it is effectively using the pagefile... – Harlandraka – 2013-10-18T23:32:18.113

Answers

I don't know much about Windows internals, but I do know that disabling the paging file, especially on a system with 1GB of RAM, is generally a bad idea.

The paging file is used as an "overflow" for RAM. Without it, your computer will just freeze and crash if you run out of RAM. While the paging file is much slower than RAM, a slight decrease in performance when your system is running out of memory is definitely better then your system just crashing whenever you open Firefox.

The paging file is also a good place for your system to stick stuff that needs to be loaded, but isn't actively being used, making more room for more important stuff to be loaded in memory.

MetaNova

Posted 2013-10-18T23:23:01.087

Reputation: 501

1As I wrote in the question, I never had this problem before, it happened once the PC was formatted and the system reinstalled. 1GB of RAM was used without any paging file until the formatting, and that pc never crashed, so this is not the problem here. – Harlandraka – 2013-10-18T23:36:38.617

To see if you have some odd program consuming memory at boot, I would definitely check the task manager. It should have an option to short processes by the amount of memory they are currently using. – MetaNova – 2013-10-18T23:42:16.087

The only one was the svchost.exe, but once I disabled the windows updater it disappeared, so there aren't processes using too much memory now – Harlandraka – 2013-10-18T23:44:28.027

"Page File Usage" in Windows XP Task Manager is not page file usage.

It really means the system committed memory or "Commit Charge" (basically the total allocated memory).

x22

Posted 2013-10-18T23:23:01.087

Reputation: 421

You must reboot so Windows can see the change in the OS configuration.

However, you're likely going to have a slow and unstable system, as Windows is expecting that swapfile, and 1GB of RAM is not enough to allow you to do witho

K7AAY

Posted 2013-10-18T23:23:01.087

Reputation: 6 962

1Well, I used the pc without the paging for almost 8 years and it was very fast, now after formatting and reinstalling it isn't, so i think it's not a paging issue. And 1GB of RAM is enaugh, as Win XP requires at least 64MB. – Harlandraka – 2013-10-18T23:33:51.903

Don't doubt you. Curious as to which apps you use, though. – K7AAY – 2013-10-22T17:55:26.593