How to delete or reset the pagefile.sys file??

I had the same problem with my OS, Windows 10. After reading some comments below, I just conclude this is the solution to reduce pagefile.sys

Restart for change takes effect.

Hi Jake104E

I am Dave, I will help you with this.

The size of the page file is managed by Windows and its size depends on the amount of RAM you have installed on your PC.

How much RAM do you have, and why are you deleting the Page File are you short of space on your drive?

Well yes - the title of the question is different - but the thread ends out about the pagefile.sys

I know what the pagefile does - but please address the substance of my question: How do I reset it for good?

I have somehow at some point done something, that made the pagefile.sys grow to this excessive size. Now I want to reduce it.

I want to start out "on a fresh".

How is that done?

Hi Jake104E,

Because Community is just a consumer forum, due to the scope of your question the best option may be to post this question to our sister forum on Microsoft Q&A (The System Admins and IT Pro Forum)

Over there you will have access to a host of System Admins and IT Pro experts and will get a knowledgeable and quick answer to this question

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/index....

Hi DaveM121.

I develop and maintain an industrial application. It runs on an industrial PC with 8 GB RAM and a 128 GB SSD.

The PC is "always the same" and for convenience I create an image of the last installation and use that on the next. Here I then only activate the Windows based on the Product Key for that PC.

On the recent installations I discovered significantly smaller free space. After some investigation I found that the pagefile.sys was > 10 GB - where it typically is only around 2 GB.

I have now discovered that the big pagefile.sys was on the image - i.e. when I put the image on the new PC, I introduced this big file. I cant say how I at some point made this file grow in the installation that was used as an image. But the next installation will not be based on an image - it will be created from scratch to avoid this big file from being "carried over".

But I have a few installations with this big pagefile.sys - and it would be nice to reduce it to the "normal" size, as it takes up about 20-30% of the otherwise free disk space. Over time some data is logged on the disk, but it is at a rate of 4 GB/ 10 years. The remaining space is used for a backup of the application - and general reserve. I had wondered that the recent installation had less free space than normal - but did not see it as a problem before I started monitoring the free disk space - and saw it decreasing. The application runs in a VM (Virtual Machine) - and such a VM grows to a certain "stable" size over time - but I would like to have as much free space in reserve. I saw the pagefile.sys grow and that concerned me. I just recently discovered that the image had introduced it at 14,83 GB - so in fact the pagefile.sys had shrunk since installation. But still it was very big - and varied over time around 8-10 GB. Some variation is expected - but I would like it to be around the previously "normal" size of 2-4 GB.

Therefore I would like to reset the pagefile.sys on the installations that were "born" with this big pagefile.sys"

The PC uses about 6 GB of RAM when it is running. With 8 GB RAM installed I have found that the pagefile.sys should be up to 2 x 6 - 8 = 4 GB.

I would prefer it to be administered by Windows once it has been reset - but somehow it gets back to the big size (after I disabled use of a pagefile - an then enabled it). It starts at the big size - it does not start low and then grows. It has the big size right away. Like it was just "detached" but then just re-attached again.

Long story. But I hope you can help me with this.

Jake