Why does Windows 7 intentionally make itself slow?

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I've encountered this oddity with 5 different machines, running different versions of Windows 7. I've seen the same issue in Home Premium, Professional and Ultimate.

The System Allocates Less Virtual Memory Than It Recommends

  1. Right Click on Computer and select Properties.
  2. When the window containing your system details opens, choose Advanced system settings from the list on the left.
  3. When the System Properties window opens, select the Advanced tab, and click on the Settings button underneath the Performance heading.
  4. When the Performance Options window opens, select the Advanced tab, and click on the Change... button underneath the Virtual Memory heading.

→→→

System Managed Page File Size

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So, Windows recommends that virtual memory should be 1.5x the amount of RAM you have. But despite that recommendation, when the system manages the size of virtual memory, it usually only allocates virtual memory equal to the amount of RAM available.

When I've changed this setting on each machine, after restarting there is an immediate improvement. I set the minimum as the recommended amount, and the maximum as twice the recommended amount. I think this is a good change to make for most machines.

Some of the machines just got a little bit faster, whilst one of them transformed from almost unusable, to highly effective.

Why is the default amount of virtual memory allocated by Windows 7 less than the amount it recommends?

Dom

Posted 2015-02-13T18:58:09.943

Reputation: 171

I know it seems quite similar to Why does Windows always use as much Virtual Memory as there is RAM installed? but I think that one is asking something different.

– Dom – 2015-02-13T19:00:18.790

Nowadays you should just get enough ram not to need swap (paging file). Windows 7 needs 2GB to boot and browse the internet and 4GB to actually work something (8GB if you're into graphics processing). Swapping to a file is a huge performance penalty and ram is not that expensive. The 1.5x or 2x rule was indeed good 15 years ago. – Dan – 2015-02-13T19:22:57.223

@Dan As I stated, it turned a virtually unusable (brand new 3.1GHz i5*, 6GB) into the machine it's supposed to be. By virtually unusable, I mean in the context that it could take 20-30 mins to become fully functional after logging on, when the person I recommended it to just wanted it for quick tasks. – Dom – 2015-02-13T19:27:08.720

If you have a (brand new) computer and it's taking 20-30 minutes to be usable after logon, then the page file is NOT your problem. – Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 – 2015-02-13T19:36:26.870

@Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 and yet it solved the problem immediately after months of consistently slow behaviour. – Dom – 2015-02-13T19:37:31.567

Still, it's not your problem, at least not unless something other than Windows is depending on it in some weird way (which it shouldn't be). I've built and worked on 100's of Windows machines over the years and changing the page file like you suggest should make little to NO difference (especially when talking about a clean boot). Format one of these computers and install Windows fresh and see if it behaves the same way. Also keep in mind, that unless you're preforming specific benchmarks, "a little faster" could be all in your head. ;) – Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 – 2015-02-13T19:41:33.083

@Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 That particular machine behaved slowly from the moment I'd finished installing W7 Pro. It was designed for W8 with the option to downgrade. This has been successful on every machine I've done it on. I haven't done it on machines that were functioning well already though. Please give it a try on a slightly/very slow machine bought within the last 6 years. – Dom – 2015-02-13T19:53:34.043

Just get a ssd and disable superfetch. I agree with Techie007 that memory is not your problem. – Dan – 2015-02-13T20:23:06.030

If you can, please test the same configuration with ssd instead of hdd. Nowadays the hdd is the biggest problem when it comes to make a windows machine boot fast. – Dan – 2015-02-13T21:12:23.530

@Dan It shouldn't* be necessary to purchase additional hardware for a machine that comes ready made to work. I was on the verge of purchasing more RAM, for about 20% of the price of the machine. I finally managed to regain full credibility for my purchase recommendations by avoiding the egg-on-face situation of needing to spend more of someone elses money, when they came to me to make an informed purchase. Most general users should not need to upgrade their hardware for it to work decently, and this change of settings should help many cases. – Dom – 2015-02-13T21:12:54.000

@Dan Also, I don't want/need to invest in an SSD at the moment. I would like to have one, but it's an unnecessary expenditure right now. – Dom – 2015-02-13T21:15:03.407

I have w7 workstations that take minutes to get ready with hdd's and under 40 seconds with ssd's. After start windows update will do a lot of work to check for new updates. If you are in a corporate environment and use for example system center, it's agent will do aditional work to make the hw and sw inventory. All of this means grinding the hdd. Just make a test with a ssd. – Dan – 2015-02-13T21:16:24.483

Answers

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The recommended size is what Windows recommends as a fixed size. A fixed size has to be larger than what is needed because needs can change. If you let Windows manage the size, it will increase it as needed until it reaches the recommended size. Windows will never reduce the size.

If storage space isn't an issue, I recommend setting the size to the recommended size. This way, Windows will never need to increase the size and the paging file will not become fragmented. In addition, you'll avoid the possibility of the disk becoming full due to the page file growing.

David Schwartz

Posted 2015-02-13T18:58:09.943

Reputation: 58 310

The problem is Windows does not increase the size when necessary in my experience, it only does it when it's low. I did set the minimum to the recommended size - and max to twice that, and saw improvements on all machines I tried it on. 3 out of 5 were general users with no need for hi-specs or intensive use of their hardware, yet they were experiencing slowness while just browsing the internet etc. – Dom – 2015-02-13T21:11:06.850

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Allocating more virtual memory (and using that) tends to make the computer slower rather then faster. This is because virtual memory is in reality a file stored on a long term storage device, typically a hard drive which is quite a bit slower then RAM.

The recommended virtual memory size is an estimate which quite usually doesn't match real life usage. Therefor the computer won't allocate all that space before you actually need it. Otherwise you would more often then not just end up with less hard drive space.

As for the performance increase you mention it's highly likely this is due to freeing up memory when rebooting. Try looking at memory usage before and after reboot.

If you don't have a lot of RAM in the computer, buy more, its relatively cheap.
If you have what should be sufficient RAM and still run low, find the problem software and replace it.

Christian Isaksson

Posted 2015-02-13T18:58:09.943

Reputation: 569

I have to disagree. It has improved performance every single time. As you can also see, I use fairly intensive programs such as Photoshop, yet the system does not increase its virtual memory. My computer is much less effective with system managed virtual memory. – Dom – 2015-02-13T19:24:52.140

You do clear the RAM every single time you reboot, don't you? That's why also get the improved performance every single time. The increase of virtual memory will only be done when virtual memory usage nears the allocation limit. – Christian Isaksson – 2015-02-13T19:28:44.443

In many cases, there would've been practically nothing in the virtual memory or RAM anyway because I tested by rebooting each machine a few times. They all booted and became responsive faster consistently after increasing the virtual memory. Try it on a standard Windows 7 computer. – Dom – 2015-02-13T19:35:29.337

"Allocating more virtual memory (and using that) tends to make the computer slower rather then faster. This is because virtual memory is in reality a file stored on a long term storage device, typically a hard drive which is quite a bit slower then RAM." Your second sentence is correct but the first sentence is not. Increasing your pagefile size doesn't mean that that much more stuff will be moved out of RAM to the pagefile. It just makes more virtual address space available to be allocated, in case your workload needs it. – Jamie Hanrahan – 2018-11-02T23:20:17.493

Asked: 2015-02-13T18:58:09.943

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Active: 2015-03-28T14:59:55.873