Virtual memory, as the name implies, is what Windows uses at times when your computer does not have enough physical memory to run a program or operation.
It’s not as necessary to have enabled if you have say, 16GB or 32GB of RAM.
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And do the usual stuff on your PC — not intensive work, that is.
However, for those with older computers, or lower amounts of RAM, the operating system will temporarily move some data from the memory to a paging file on their hard drive. The paging file takes up space, but if you want to limit how much space it takes, there are options to change it.
First open the Control Panel, from either the taskbar or the Start menu.
Now, click System and Security, and then System.
Four links will be listed in the left menu. Click Advanced system settings here.
Go to the Advanced tab, and click the Settings button under the Performance section of this panel.
Again, go to Advanced, and then click of tap the Change… button in the Virtual memory section.
Uncheck the box next to Automatically manage paging size for all drives, and operating system will now allow you to set up a custom size option. You can enter the initial and maximum size in megabytes, for how large you want the file to grow to.
Hit Set, and then OK to finish.
Of course, you can also alternatively select the No paging file option, or let the system automatically manage the file size. But it is, obviously, recommended, for performance reasons, that you have a paging file on your PC.
Then again, the steps above can save you a few gigabytes of storage space on your hard drive, and those that do not have the luxury of large capacities on their devices might want to turn paging off altogether.
