Windows creating temporary page file

Bantu

Bantu

Bantu

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21 Jan 2010
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Hi guys,

I've recently rebuilt a PC and installed Windows 7 in it. As part of the usual tweaks, one of the things I do (like most here probably) is create a fixed size page file on a mechanical drive (so not letting windows manage the size or location). This was mainly due to my (outdated it seems) belief that having a page file on an SSD will rapidly degrade the thing and lead to lower space + performance + lifespan.

The problem is whenever i start my PC i am greeted with an obnoxious message from windows that there was a problem with my page file and it has created a temporary page file.

The setup:
8GB Ram
Sandisk 480GB SSD (partitioned into 2 drives; one system 180GB, one gaming 300GB)
WD Blue 3TB HDD (partitioned into 2 drives: one for software/games 1TB, one for file storage 2TB)

16GB Page file only on the 1TB mech partition.

But it just doesn't like it.
 
Possible solution:

I found the answer for my situation. Surprisingly easy, and not mentioned in the forum discussions.
I would imagine this would apply to a lot if not all of these recent common cases.
If you have ever used bitlocker (or "tried it), it makes sense that the pagefile.sys has to reside on the OS drive/partition with restrictions.
The kicker is, if you stop using bitlocker (decrypt the drive) - the restricting registry keys protecting or ensuring the pagefile.sys resides only the OS drive are kept in the "on fashion" (1).
There are two keys: PageFileOnOsVolume, and TempPageFile
Search for either of the terms within the registry and change their values to zero. (Multiple locations - in my instance, 3).
For me that fixed the problem. Makes sense. Microsoft needs to update the "Decrypt" function for the OS drive to include the key values being made zero automatically. (After decryption there is no need to have the pagefile.sys protected/kept on the OS drive).
Click to expand...

source:
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...e/da9775d0-b2bc-42c4-9471-5b12933093f4?auth=1


also worth a try - although I would guess you maybe already have tried deleting/recreating:
http://notely.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/solution-for-persisting-windows-created.html
 
Last edited:
It probably can't write to the HDD quick enough so window creates a temporary one to boot.. I'm just guessing here..

Not sure why 1. you would want to set the page file size and 2 why you would split the page file over to a mechanical HDD when your OS is on an SSD because that will create a latency bottleneck. Remember Hard drives are considerably slower than RAM and RAM in considerably slower than the CPU.. So when your CPU tries to dump memory to the page file, can you see what's happening here?

The only advantage of splitting the page file is when you had two physical HDDs because it meant two heads where working simultaneously but that's not an issue with SSDs.

You could think about upgrading and adding more RAM.. With 16GB you can turn off paging altogether.
 
If you are going to put the pagefile on another drive, I think it should be installed at least the same performance as your OS to avoid latency issues. So if your OS resides on a SSD, then the pagefile should also reside on a different SSD (preferably both on the same interface - so SATA to SATA, M.2. PCI to M.2 PCI etc). If your OS is in a HDD, then you put the pagefile on a different HDD or SSD.
 
Just stick the pagefile on the SSD. It'll be decades before you need to worry about writing too much data to it.

When I had 8GB of ram I set it to be 512MB to 8192MB in size.
 
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