Reset the size of pagefile.sys

Question

I develop and maintain an industrial application. It runs on an industrial PC with 8 GB RAM and a 128 GB SSD, Windows 10.

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 can't 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. As 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.

Answer 1

Instead of allowing Windows to manage the pagefile, you can manually set the value to something appropriate for your needs.

Open Control Panel (click your Start Button, then just type 'control' and hit Enter)

Go to System

Then click 'Advanced System Settings'

Choose the 'Advanced' tab and click 'Settings' in the 'Performance' section

On the next dialog, choose the 'Advanced' Tab and click Change

From there you can change the size of your pagefile