Interested to know the purpose of the pagefile.sys file and if it’s possible to delete it or not? You are right place here this post explains what is pageliles.sys, where is located and it’s safe to delete pagefile.sys or not.
What is pagefile.sys?
The page file is located at the root of the Windows installation drive (Basically C: drive). And it acts as a backup memory on your computer that helps the actual RAM focus on what is important and aids it when the RAM is too exhausted. This means when the physical RAM usage is very high, windows 10 moves infrequently or least used memory pages from the physical RAM to paging files or pagefile.sys.
Another important role of Pagefile .sys It records information about the Windows status during a crash (BSOD).
Can I delete the pagefile.sys file?
Like other system files, you cannot delete the page file.sys file directly from Windows Explorer.
But yes disabling the page file feature will automatically delete the pagefile.sys file.
Well If and when your physical RAM usage reaches 100%, applications might crash or hang, and you might lose unsaved work. At times, even the Windows operating system might hang as well. So, it’s best not to touch the pagefile.sys file.
Changing the size of pagefile.sys
- Press Windows + R, type Sysdm.cpl and click on Ok.
- When the System Properties window opens, move to the Advanced tab by clicking on the same
- click the Settings button in the Performance section.
- Navigate to the Advanced tab. From there, you’ll see the size of the paging file for all drives.
- To change it, click the Change button in Virtualmemory section.
- Here Uncheck Automatically manage paging file size for all drives.
- Select your system drive from the list. By default, it should be labeled as C.
- Select the Custom size option and set the Initial and Maximum sizes.
- Once you’re done, click Set and OK to save changes.
Move pagefile.sys to a different drive
If your pagefile.sys is taking too much space on your system drive, you can move it to another drive easily. To do that,
- Press Windows + R, type Sysdm.cpl and click on Ok.
- When the System Properties window opens, move to the Advanced tab by clicking on the same
- click the Settings button in the Performance section.
- Navigate to the Advanced tab. From there, you’ll see the size of the paging file for all drives.
- To change it, click the Change button in Virtualmemory section.
- Uncheck the Automatically manage paging file size for all drives option.
- Select your C drive and then set the No paging file option. Now click the Set button.
- Choose the drive that you want to use to store pagefile.sys.
- Select System managed size option and click the Set button. Click OK to save changes.
- Restart your PC to apply changes.
Clear pagefile on shutdown
- Press Windows + R, type Regedit, and ok
- This will open the Windows registry editor, first, backup registry database then locates the following path.
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HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management
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Double click on Value Name: ClearPageFileAtShutdown
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If this DWORD isn’t available, right-click the empty space in the right pane and choose New > DWORD (32-bit) Value.
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Enter ClearPageFileAtShutdown as the name of the new DWORD and double-click it.
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When the Properties window opens, set the Value data to 1 and click OK to save changes.
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Close Registry Editor.
Remove pagefile.sys
Now come to the user’s questions, is it possible to remove the pagefile.sys file? Yes, it is, you can delete pagefile.sys following steps below.
IMPORTANT: Disabling the page file or deleting the page file.sys file might adversely affect the overall performance of the Windows 10 operating system. If you find that Windows 10 is not working properly after disabling and deleting the pagefile, please turn on the pagefile again.
- Press Windows + R, type Sysdm.cpl and click on Ok.
- This will open the System Properties dialog,
- Switch to the Advanced tab by clicking on the same
- In the Performance section, click the Settings button will open the Performance Options dialog.
- Here, switch to the Advanced tab. In the Virtual memory section, you can see the size of the paging file.
- Click on the Change button to open the Virtual Memory dialog.
- To disable and delete the pagefile, uncheck the Automatically manage paging file size for all drives option.
- Next, select the No paging file radio button, Click the Set button.
- Click the Yes button when you get the warning dialog. Finally, click the Apply button.
- restart your computer once to delete the page file.sys file.
Anytime you can Select Automatically manage paging file size for all drives option. Click the Apply button to enable the paging file. When asked, reboot your computer once to generate the page file.sys file.