A very respectable name-- it was Harper, MVP (& not Martell, MVP)--
has said: Under certain circumstances, perhaps rare, there can be a
serious crash, if a maximum is set for the Swap File, and there is no
telling how big it may wish to grow. HE HAS SEEN IT, with his own eyes.
(Now, he is blind.) So, forget about the 2.5x usable RAM rule. (He now
sits at his keyboard, day & night, waiting to pounce, should anyone
suggest using it.) I didn't do it long! I couldn't bear the sight of
nearly a GB worth of Win386.swp, (although it seemed to function well).

Unless turned off, Windows is always managing VM. It manages it based on
what is shown shadowed in min & max at "R-Clk My Computer, Properties,
Performance tab, Virtual Memory button". That is OK at defaults of zero
& "No maximum". The only MVP approved alteration is to set the min
larger, based on careful observation over days. You would set it at 20%
larger than the greatest value you saw for Swap File "SIZE" (not "use"),
using System Monitor. If your observation discovers a constant &
frequent Swap File "USE" figure, THAT is when to consider additional
RAM.

WARNING: Once, I turned off VM for a zero swap file. All seemed to run
well, UNTIL I opened a Windows DOS (in a box) session. It produced an
orderly crash of the DOS box. Later, online, I did it again, just to
report the experience accurately. The crash this time was horrendous- IT
HAD A HEARTBEAT.

There is one other setting I've tried & rejected:
"ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1", in System.ini, [386.Enh] Section. This,
gave me a Win386.swp file generally 10-20 MB in size, sometimes zero.
That's with Windows in control of the size, and min=0, max=No max. It
was beautiful to watch. When the Swap file was in "use" (say, 20 MB),
the "size" went to around 100 MB. However, there was resizing going on,
even when "swap file in use" was zero (Windows tries to anticipate how
big to make it, depending on what you're doing), and, again, my
sluggishness persisted.The Microsoft literature says it's less
efficient, as well. Although I generally loved seeing the small
Win386.swp sizes, I discontinued "ConservativeSwapfileUsage=1". (That
"sluggishness" is gone; it was something entirely unrelated to VM. In
fact, I was never able to pin anything on VM at all, except, I believe,
Win386.swp gets in the way of a proper Scandisk/Defrag.) This setting
might be appropriate for one who has so much RAM, as to never have a
"use" figure.

Do you have "System Monitor" in START... System Tools? If not, get it
from "START, Settings, Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs, Windows Setup
tab, D-Clk System Tools, check System Monitor, OK, Apply, OK". May as
well take "Resource Meter", too. Now, go through the menus and at least
have it display

(a) Swap file in use.
(b) Swap file size.
(c) Swappable memory.
(d) Unused physical memory.
(e) Allocated memory.
(f) Disk cache size.
(g) Locked memory
(h) Other memory
(i) Kernel Processor Usage
(j) Kernel Threads

I must go. I'm on my way to Saskatchewan & have no time to explain what
each of those are. Just watch that "in use" figure, is all, for now.


--
Thanks or Good Luck,
There may be humor in this post, and,
Naturally, you will not sue,
should things get worse after this,
PCR

wrote in message ...
| What is resetting my swap file setting to "allow windows98 to manage
| virtual memory" from "allow user to manage virtual memory"?
|
| Every week it seems like when I check my virtual memory settings I
find
| that it has reverted back to "allow windows to manage virtual memory."
I
| like to set my own swap file size, and for years 3 or 4 years this
| setting stuck.
|
| But I installed (and later unistalled) Media Player 7 about three
weeks
| ago. Now something (MP7?) keeps changing it back to allow windows to
| manage. What is resetting my virtual memory and how do I stop it? I
| have not installed any new sowthware recently. Thanks. PS (MP7
screwed
| up my computer in more ways than one.)