Problem :
I have been having some concerns about how my Windows XP tablet performs and I got worried. It would sometimes react very slowly to input and sometimes it would seem to take much too long to log off or do a restart. Often, I would need to hit End Now on several programs like a mouse controller or my password program, that run in the background, so that it would log me off or shutdown. I was getting tired of this, so I wanted to try to fix it. Let me tell you what condition my system is in:
I have just recently reinstalled Windows XP on this tablet due to a problem with the Microsoft Security Essentials. Microsoft support staff talked me into going thru all of the work that is needed to do a reinstallation. I had to update all the drivers and bring XP up to service pack 3. I had to reinstall all of my programs and update all of them. I had to import a backup copy of My Docs from a USB hard drive using Acronis True Image Home. I had to set up all of the home network junk to make it connect to the internet and print to printers through a router. Lots of stuff! Pretty overwhelming!
So to fix this slowness issue, I went to Start > Control Panel > System > Advanced tab, and I clicked Settings in the Performance section, and then hit the Advanced tab on that and clicked Change under Virtual Memory. It was set to System Managed Size. I have lots of space to spare, since I only use 35 GB of the 55 GB C: drive, so I wanted to try to add some more for use as RAM to try to speed things up. I clicked Custom Size and chose 6000 MB initial size and 10000 MB maximum size.
This seems to have sped up my tablet for logoff and restarts. So my question is .... is there any concern about this setting? And why should it seem faster with this Custom Size than with System Managed Size?
Solution :
Unless you know more about managing memory that Windows XP, System Managed size is usually the best setting.
If you start seeing messages that XP is increasing the size of your paging file, you may want to revisit the settings and determine if an adjustment is needed (or if there is some other issue).
We cannot (or I will not) recommend any adjustment until you tell us how much RAM your system has, so who knows if the adjustments you made were a good idea, a bad idea or a waste of time.
If you want another set of eyeballs of your current setupt, do this:
Click Start, Run and in the box enter:
msinfo32
Click OK, and when the System Summary info appears, click Edit, Select All, Copy and then paste the information back here.
There will be some personal information (like System Name and User Name), and whatever appears to be private information to you, just delete it from the pasted information.
"Seems to have sped up my tablet" sounds like an emotional reaction after making performance adjustments without really being quite sure of what is going on (but you can learn more about it). I can just tell somebody I made an adjustment to their system and it should be faster now... and they will usually agree with me that things seem a lot faster, even if I have really done nothing at all. Without a little measuring, can you really be sure if the adjustments helped or not and what will you do after you get used to the new performance and then that starts to become too slow. Increase your paging file some more?
Instead of just seeing if things seem faster, you can measure your startup time exactly to the fraction of a second, make an adjustment(s) and measure it again. Then you will know exactly how things are going and in what direction.
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