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Windows NT, 2000, 2003, 2008, 2012 Problem solving for the NT, Windows 2000, 2003, 2008 and 2012 Operating Systems

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  #1  
Old January 19th, 2004, 10:56 PM
USMC_devildog USMC_devildog is offline
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Swap File

Oorah everyone!

Question for ya. I am going to slick my drive and dual boot 2 instances of 2Kpro. One for normal operations, the other will be a bare bones, stripped down, only-what-i-need-to-run version used for gaming. This will be to conserve resources and memory for my games. Now my question is:
I have a second hardrive that i usually use for the Swap File. How would this work w/ 2 operating systems? Will both instances of the OS use the Same Swap File or will they use different sets of swap files. The "Normal" one using the one in the center, the "Gaming" one useing the swap after that? If that isn't clear, let me know and i'll try to clear it up. Thansk for any help.

Semper Fi
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  #2  
Old January 19th, 2004, 11:38 PM
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MaDef MaDef is offline
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as far as I know the os's will share the same pagefile, as long as you are using the fat32 file system for both instances.
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  #3  
Old January 20th, 2004, 12:07 AM
USMC_devildog USMC_devildog is offline
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Originally Posted by MaDef
as far as I know the os's will share the same pagefile, as long as you are using the fat32 file system for both instances.
the swap partition has to be formatted FAT32? Not NTFS?
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Old January 20th, 2004, 12:08 AM
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Murf Murf is offline
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Welcome to the Forum

Jarhead, won't hold that against ya. As MaDef indicates.

It is possible to share a paging file on a dual boot installation of Windows 2000, unless you have installed Windows 2000 using the NTFS File System. The Windows 2000 paging file is called pagefile.sys, the Windows 9X swap file is called win386.swp.

You must set the minimum value of the paging/swap file on both Operating Systems to the same minimum value.

This can be done in Windows 2000 using the System/Advanced/Performance Options menu in Control Panel. Select the Change... option, and set the initial (i.e. minimum) value for the drive you wish to place the paging file on.

So, what is the right size for this file? Microsoft recommend RAM + 12MB as a minimum i.e. a system with 256 MB RAM would set the paging file at 268 MB. This is to allow a full dump of system memory in the event of a crash. People using less than 256 MB are advised to set the value slightly higher than RAM + 12MB: those with 128 MB or less should try RAM X 1.75, those with over 128 MB should try RAM x 1.5. Remember of course that there is no harm in setting your page file higher than these values, you just lose disk space! If you are really tight for space, the absolute minimum you should set your page file to is equal to your RAM, any less than this could cause your system to crash.

Make the maximum page file setting as large as possible. Don't worry about the maximum size of the page file. Use a setting two to three times the size of the initial page file size or more. Windows 2000 will only expand the size of the page file when it needs to, so you are not using valuable hard drive space unless you need to. This way, you can avoid the "Insufficient Memory" error during a complex operation.
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  #5  
Old January 20th, 2004, 02:58 AM
USMC_devildog USMC_devildog is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Murf
Welcome to the Forum

Jarhead, won't hold that against ya. As MaDef indicates.

It is possible to share a paging file on a dual boot installation of Windows 2000, unless you have installed Windows 2000 using the NTFS File System. The Windows 2000 paging file is called pagefile.sys, the Windows 9X swap file is called win386.swp.

You must set the minimum value of the paging/swap file on both Operating Systems to the same minimum value.

This can be done in Windows 2000 using the System/Advanced/Performance Options menu in Control Panel. Select the Change... option, and set the initial (i.e. minimum) value for the drive you wish to place the paging file on.

So, what is the right size for this file? Microsoft recommend RAM + 12MB as a minimum i.e. a system with 256 MB RAM would set the paging file at 268 MB. This is to allow a full dump of system memory in the event of a crash. People using less than 256 MB are advised to set the value slightly higher than RAM + 12MB: those with 128 MB or less should try RAM X 1.75, those with over 128 MB should try RAM x 1.5. Remember of course that there is no harm in setting your page file higher than these values, you just lose disk space! If you are really tight for space, the absolute minimum you should set your page file to is equal to your RAM, any less than this could cause your system to crash.

Make the maximum page file setting as large as possible. Don't worry about the maximum size of the page file. Use a setting two to three times the size of the initial page file size or more. Windows 2000 will only expand the size of the page file when it needs to, so you are not using valuable hard drive space unless you need to. This way, you can avoid the "Insufficient Memory" error during a complex operation.
Jarhead Huh? LOL

Thanks for the post. Both filesystems will be NTFS. Esp. the Main. Since that is the case, then there will be different instances of the swap, correct? As i understand it, using fat32=use same swap. using NTFS=different swap? I've been a tech for a few years now, but i've never ran across this particular problem. Moving the swap on a single OS system, OK, but not dual boots.
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  #6  
Old January 20th, 2004, 06:19 AM
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actually Jarhead, if both are fat32 you can use the same pagefile(swapfile). the same should hold true if both are ntfs (I'm not positive since I haven't tried it with ntfs). But it won't work if one is fat32 and the other is ntfs.
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  #7  
Old January 20th, 2004, 02:15 PM
USMC_devildog USMC_devildog is offline
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Roger That. Thanks for the help.

Semper
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  #8  
Old January 21st, 2004, 02:08 AM
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Oohhrahh
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