Quite often you will have lots of processes going on and your RAM (Random Access Memory) will have trouble keeping up.

When this happens the computer looks to the Page File on your computers Hard Disk Drive to take some of the burden.

It is generally recommended that the Page File should be 150% of the size of your RAM.

Say you have 512MB of RAM. Then your Page File should be 768MB.

To find out how much RAM you have go to;

• Start > Right-Click on ‘My Computer’
• The ‘General’ tab will display the amount of RAM as shown in the image below

finding out the computers RAM properties

• Now, to set the Page File size go to;
• Start > Right-Click on ‘My Computer’
• Select the ‘Advanced’ tab
• Under the ‘Performance’ section click on ‘Settings’
• Select the ‘Advanced’ tab
• Under the ‘Virtual Memory’ section click on ‘Change’
• You then can set the Initial Size to whatever you like and then set the Maximum Size to the same amount. As mentioned previously we recommend 150% of the amount of RAM you have installed.

Set your Page File to 150% the size of your RAM

• Then click on the ‘Set’ button and select ‘Ok’

Microsoft Product Screen Shot(s) reprinted with permission from Microsoft Corporation