Location of Pagefile and Hibernation file

MrPinK

I've got an XP Pro installation on a small HD, and am trying to move pagefile.sys and Hiberfil.sys to a larger secondary HD to free up space. Does anyone know the relevant registery keys or some other way to change the paths that XP uses to create these files?

seamus

You can change the pagefile through the system properties.

Right-Click on my Computer, go to Properties > Advanced > Performance > Settings > Advanced > Virtual Memory > Change
Set no pagefile for the smaller harddrive and a system managed pagefile for the larger hard drive. Keep hitting OK and it'll prompt you to reboot. Presto.

I'm not sure about moving the hibernation file.

moridin

I don't think that you can move it off the partition where your windows install is (the hibernation file, that is)

Talliesin

With two physical drives (not just partitions) there is a performance advantage in splitting the page file, since windows adjusts its I/O strategy to take advantage of the fact that it can write to and read from both at the same time.

hostyle

moridin wrote:

I don't think that you can move it off the partition where your windows install is (the hibernation file, that is)

IIRC, you can't move it off C: - even if Windows is installed on or whatever, hibernate.sys (or whatever its called) wants to live on the C: drive.

This was with Win2k ... quite a while ago.

Capt'n Midnight

Talliesin wrote:

With two physical drives (not just partitions) there is a performance advantage in splitting the page file, since windows adjusts its I/O strategy to take advantage of the fact that it can write to and read from both at the same time.

I like to put a fixed size swap file on one partition and a variable sized one on the other. You can defrag the fixed one using pagedfrg so it's nice and fast and the other can grow as big as needed.

If Pagefile.sys is on FAT
How to get Linux to use it - http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/archive/23/2004/11/3/109511

How to get Windows 3.1 / 95 to use it - edit System.ini
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;105882
http://www.americatoday.com/hanar/performb.htm

Name and size of Windows 2000 PagingFile (XP / NT)
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/Windows/2000/server/reskit/en-us/Default.asp?url=/resources/documentation/Windows/2000/server/reskit/en-us/regentry/46699.asp
OT - http://www.jsifaq.com/SUBS/tip9100/rh9153.htm - script to mess up page file

FAT Swapfile names
Windows 3.x C:\WINDOWS\386PART.PAR
Windows 95 / 98 / ME C:\WIN386.SWP
Windows NT / 2000 / XP C:\PAGEFILE.SYS
Knoppix C:\Knoppix.swp

MrPinK

Got the page file moved at least, thanks.

Talliesin

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

I like to put a fixed size swap file on one partition and a variable sized one on the other. You can defrag the fixed one using pagedfrg so it's nice and fast and the other can grow as big as needed.

Yep. And if the minimum size of the variable sized one is larger than it's normal size (i.e. it doesn't have to grow often) then that will be covered in a nicely defragged file which will acquire new fragments as needed, but lose them again (hence becoming defragged) on reboot.

There's no advantage in splitting it over partitions on the same disk though.