Delete pagefile.sys when Windows shuts down

Posted by

LiNTEK (Who am I?)

Jul 22

The pagefile.sys file is the Virtual Memory file used by your Windows computer. If you have limited RAM, your windows machine to run programs and store data. It swaps out some of the RAM data to the page file and then reuses the freed up RAM.

You can improve the security of a computer running Windows if you delete pagefile.sys everytime you shut down your Windows machine.

How to do this?

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management

Add the following registry keys:

Value Name: ClearPageFileAtShutdown
Value Type: REG_DWORD
Value: 1

You need to restart your computer for the changes to take effect.

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Filed under: Microsoft, Tech Tips

7 Responses to “ Delete pagefile.sys when Windows shuts down ”

Atniz (Who am I?) on July 22nd, 2008 1:11 am
I got 4gb RAM on Win XP x64. Do I need to do this?
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LiNTEK (Who am I?) on July 22nd, 2008 7:18 am
Nope, you don’t really have to do this if your PC has more than 1GB of RAM.
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Benson (Who am I?) on July 24th, 2008 8:07 pm
I actually disabled paging in my PC, but when I run Adobe Photoshop, it requires it.

Nice tip!
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LiNTEK (Who am I?) on July 25th, 2008 12:14 am
Benson, I’m glad that this little tweak was able to help you.

LiNTEK!
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raxso (Who am I?) on July 27th, 2008 5:22 pm
Thanks for this nice tip….
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Nihar (Who am I?) on July 27th, 2008 9:32 pm
LiNTEK,

I guess removing pagefile.sys for every shutdown will slow down the boot process next time. Am i right? let me know.
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LiNTEK (Who am I?) on July 27th, 2008 9:42 pm
Nihar,

Yes it will, however, it is very tolerable.

LiNTEK
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