pagefile.sys

[thebaldeagle]

I think I had a memory dump to my pagefile.sys file. It is takking up 1.5 gigs of my disck space. How do I clear this out to recover disck space.

[glc]

1.5 gigs sounds about right for a pagefile - if you have 512 megs to 1 gig physical ram installed. Anything in the pagefile is deleted when you reboot anyway.

[thebaldeagle]

I was changing permissions on a folder when it disappeared. On reboot it was there, but my i had about a gig of hard drive space before then it disappeared. This is why I thought maybe the gig of memory dumped somewhere. Can I find this out?

[glc]

The dump file should only take up about 64k. Check your settings in CP, system, advanced, startup and recovery options.

[glc]

I was mistaken, I apologize - the pagefile does not clear itself on restart/shutdown by default, but it should dynamically resize within the parameters that are set in Windows (control panel, system, advanced, performance options, virtual memory), which by default are 1.5 to 3x your physical ram.

http://www.ntcompatible.com/faq-60.html

Note that this will seriously slow down the shutdown process.