Page File Craziness.

[jimmm33]

I have in a XP Home sp2 machine that gets this exact error:

Limited Virtual Memory
Your system is running without a properly sized paging file. Please use the virtual memory option of the System applet in the Control Panel to create a paging file or to increase the initial size of your paging file.
Limited Virtual Memory
Your system has no paging file or the paging file is too small.

http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;140472

The Solution:

RESOLUTION
The best solution is to add the user System with full access to the root directory. By default, File Manager will update all the files in whatever directory that is being modified to give them the same permissions, so it will give the System full access to the directory and the Pagefile.sys file.

Usually this is good because you would expect all the files in that directory to have the same permission. But if you try to set the directory to have fewer permissions than a file in that directory has, at some time in the future, you may accidentally overwrite those broader permissions with the lesser directory permissions. This can happen by simply viewing the permissions for the directory and clicking the OK button. As stated above, the default setting is to replace permissions on files in the directory, so this replaces the greater permissions; in this case, it gives the System Read access on the directory but Full access on the Pagefile.sys file itself.

The problem is that I can't do all that with XP Home.

So here is the work around:

1. Locate or create a directory for the Pagefile.sys file. This could be the Winnt directory, which by default should have System Full access.
2. Make sure that this directory has System Full access and that all previous directories including the root have at least System Read access.
3. Start Regedt32. Select the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE on Local Machine subtree, and search for the following subkey:

SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management
4. On the right side of the window, choose the PagingFiles :REG_MULTI_SZ: value.
5. Either double-click it, or from the Edit menu, choose Multi String.
6. Edit the string, and insert the full path for where you would like the Pagefile.sys file to reside. For example, change C:\Pagefile.sys 44 100 to C:\Winnt\Pagefile.sys 44 100. (Here 44 refers to the minimum pagefile size and 100 the maximum.)
7. Exit Regedt32.
8. Restart the computer, and check to make sure Pagefile.sys appears in the correct location. Then delete the Pagefile.sys file in the root directory as this file is no longer be used.

Tried it. Didn't work. Now heres the kicker. Windows is installed on F:\

The guy brought it to me said he installed Windows when he upgraded and would like me to change it back to C:\

I think the problems are related and a format is the only solution, but I wanted to see if anyone had any ideas.

[leezer3]

I'm pretty certain that there is no way to change the letter of the primary Windows drive; See this thread in Windows XP for more details:
http://forums.windrivers.com/showthread.php?t=68764

Chris Lees

[confus-ed]

So huh ? Not to state the obvious except for comic effect , but I'm confus-ed !

Everyone & everything 'wants' (it mighn't 'need' it) access & permissions to get at the swap file !

Just what on earth are you asking & why ? Your error says somebody turned off automatic memory handling - so turn it back on & tell him its extra if he wants all his drive letters where they ought to be ! (it can indeed be mission impossible to fix it up!)

[jimmm33]

No matter how I set the swap file (custom size, or system managed) it reverts back to zero size at reboot. This error comes up at every boot. And the machine boots and runs very slow.

[confus-ed]

No matter how I set the swap file (custom size, or system managed) it reverts back to zero size at reboot. This error comes up at every boot. And the machine boots and runs very slow.

Gotcha ! .. All that craziness in XP where it doesn't know the difference between admin owned & system owned stuff may be at play - did you try this in safe mode having logged on as 'THE adminstrator' ? (which actually is system, but Billy Boy seems as confus-ed on this particular bit of inheritance classification as I was by your opening post ! )

[jimmm33]

Tried Admin in Safe Mode. Same thing.

I just broke the news to the guy. I told we need to backup and reload. He said ok.

Thanks Confus-ed.

[confus-ed]

Can't say I was that much help, but you are welcome anyway !

Btw thinking about it some more, a fix might be -

..add the Everyone group with Full Control permission to the NTFS partition that contains the PAGEFILE.SYS file...

& I concluded that by reading this -Removing Everyone On Root Dir. Leaves Limited Virtual Memory. (which might be worth a quick shot if I've managed to reply fast enough ! )

[jimmm33]

I looked into that but I don't think I can add the Everyone group with Full Control permission to the NTFS partition on a XP Home machine. I read about a workaround application that gives Home some of the permissions options but I felt like that was more than I wanted to deal with, when a reload would be a long term solution.

I believe it has to do with Home uses Simple file Sharing and has no Security Tab.

Thanks again.

[confus-ed]

..but I don't think I can add the Everyone group with Full Control permission to the NTFS partition on a XP Home machine..

You can you know - XP Pro Security Settings For XP Home However I'd better add (with no inferance on you , more for any folks reading this later) if you don't know what you are doing with permissions - leave well alone !

All the underlying mechanisms in both home & pro versions of xp are the same (e.g. sharing as you can see from that link), they just trimmed out much of the stuff to simply matters for home use, but if you know what you are looking for you can pretty much do most things ..

Personally though here, I'd be more interested in knowing what made a muck of matters in the first place !