Tech Tip of the Day: How to change the amount of Virtual Memory in Windows 7

Description: Virtual Memory is space on your hard drive that the system can use as an extension of your memory if it is full. This can help systems that have lower amounts of physical memory to run more efficiently. Virtual memory is slower than physical memory but can help performance.

1. Click Start and select Control Panel.
   
   
   
   
2. When the control panel opens click System and Security.
   
   
   
   
3. On the next screen click on System.
   
   
   
   
4. On the panel to the left click Advanced System Settings.
   
   
   
   
5. From the tabs along the top select Advanced.
   
   
   
   
6. Then select Settings under performance.
   
   
   
   
7. In the window that comes up select Advanced again.
   
   
   
   
8. The computer will display how much virtual memory it currently has.
   
   
   
   
9. If you want to increase this amount you can do so by clicking Change.
   
   
   
   
10. The bottom of the screen will display the current settings and what Windows recommends.
    
    
    
    
11. If you would like to change this amount deselect the checkbox by Automatically manage paging file size and select custom size.
    
    
    
    
12. You can then input the amount you would like into the initial and maximum size boxes.
    
    
    
    
13. Once you have changed the size to the desired amount click Set.
    
    
    
    
14. Then click OK.
    
    
    
    
15. Then close any windows that are still open and restart the computer, This reboot may take longer than normal as it makes the changes.
16. The changes are now in effect.

For more assistance contact Technical Support click here.

5 ways to save space on your Solid State Drive

1. Run Disk Cleanup: Disk Cleanup can be found in your program list or by right clicking on the drive in Computer. To access the tool from the menu, click Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disk Cleanup and select the drive.

 

Run Disk Cleanup from the Accessories group under your start menu or by right-clicking on the drive under "Computer".
Select the types of items to delete and click OK to start the process.

 

Windows 7 hides some of the cleanup options unless you click the "Clean up system files" button (requires administrator access). This will add several additional categories of files that can be removed, and a tab called "More Options". Under the more options are two options: a button to launch add/remove programs and a button to delete all system restore points except the most recent.

2. Download and Run WinDirStat (http://windirstat.info/) to help identify and remove unneeded files:

WinDirStat can show you what type of files are using all the space on your drive. Use this to identify files that could be moved to another drive or deleted. More than half of the space on this 250GB SSD drive was taken up with a batch of video files!

3. On a dual drive system, Install your applications to a hard drive. Watch for a prompt for where to install the program. If you don't see a destination choice, you may need to choose to do a Custom Install to have the option.

4. Disable virtual memory - set the swap file to zero. If this is a dual drive system with a hard drive as the second drive, move your paging file to a different drive. To do this under Windows 7:
   1. Press Windows-Pause to open System window (or right click on "Computer" and select "Properties")
   2. Click Advanced System Settings
   3. Select the "Advanced" tab, and under Performance, click "Settings"
   4. Select the "Advanced" tab, and under Virtual Memory, click Change
   5. Remove the check next to "Automatically manage paging file size for all drives"
   6. Select the SSD drive letter and change the option from "System managed size" to "No paging file"
   7. Optional: if you have a hard disk drive, you can select it and still have virtual memory available by changing the option from "No paging file" to "System managed size" or "Custom size" if you want to limit how much space to use.
   8. Click OK to save changes...

Press the "Windows" key and the "Pause" key together to immediately open the system properties window. You can also click on "System" in the control panel, or right-click on "Computer" and select properties from the context menu to see this same screen. Click on "Advanced System Settings" from the task list on the left side of the window..In the System Properties window, select the "Advanced" tab and then click on the "Settings" button in the "Performance section.

In the Performance Options window, click on the "Change" button under the Virtual Memory section. The default is for Windows to manage the swapfile, and to create the paging file on your system drive. To set virtual memory to "none", to change its size, or to change the drive Windows uses, remove the check from the box at the top. Select the drive you want to change, and then either set your custom size or set it to "No paging file" to free up space on smaller SSD drives.

Windows will use your SSD or Hard Disk Drive as virtual memory unless you change this setting. A swapfile allows Windows to load more programs or larger data files than you could fit in your existing RAM. However it is much slower, even on a Solid State Drive, and it takes up space (reserved as a hidden system "swapfile"). With your Paging file size set to "none", you must have enough available RAM to open your program or data file, otherwise you could get errors or a "not enough memory" message. If you have a two-drive system (SSD and HDD), change the location of the swapfile to your HDD to free up SSD space and still have the virtual memory support.

5. Disable hibernate: You can set the idle-time delay before the system enters a sleep or hibernate state under the power settings. While sleep does not use storage space, hibernate does. The hybrid sleep of Vista and Windows 7 will automatically hibernate after a given time in low power sleep mode, unless the timeout is set to never or hibernate is disabled. To disable hibernate in Windows 7, you must have administrator privileges and do the following:
   1. Open an Administrator Command Prompt window
      (Start, All Programs, Accessories, right click on Command Prompt and select "Run as Administrator")
   2. At the C: prompt, enter the command "powercfg -h off"

To enable Hibernation again, repeat the process but enter "powercfg -h on". If you receive an error: "You do not have permission to enable or disable the Hibernate feature.", then you did not run the command prompt as an administrator!

To prevent system hibernation from the power settings, do the following:

1. Open Power Options from the control panel
2. Click on the task to "Change when the computer sleeps"
3. Click on the option to "Change advanced power settings"
4. Expand the "Sleep" category, and then expand the "Hibernate after" line.
5. Change all hibernate settings to "Never". Click OK to save changes...

To change the hibernate timeout in Windows, open Power Options in the Control Panel. Click on "Change when the computer sleeps" in the task list on the left.

Hibernate is part of the Advanced power settings. Click on the line "Change advanced power settings" to open the list. In the Power Options list, expand the section called "Sleep", and then expand the "Hibernate after" section. To prevent the computer from entering a hibernate state, and creating a large "hiberfile" on your drive, set all options in this category to "never" (how many you have depends if this is a notebook or a desktop system).

Note: changing the hibernate delay through the Power Options only applies to the current power plan, and only applies to the current user. Disabling the hibernate feature using the powercfg command disables it for the computer.

For more assistance contact Technical Support here.