[Default] On Sat, 16 Apr 2016 11:37:08 +0100, in
microsoft.public.windowsxp.general "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
wrote:

In message , Micky
writes:
[Default] On Wed, 13 Apr 2016 14:01:49 -0400, in
microsoft.public.windowsxp.general Wolf K
wrote:

On 2016-04-13 11:20, Micky wrote:
[...]
3) Anyhow, the computer is functioning well almost all the time, but I
see a lot of reading and writing that pagefile If I had two more
gigs of RAM, 4 gigs total, and was running the same number of programs
and the same OS, would I expect to see no use of the pagefile?

Based on my experience, you would see a lot less paging, and the overall
performance will be faster. If you do any kind of medium- to heavy-duty

To elucidate (based on XP): have a look at the amount of memory actually
being used, in task manager (is it still called that in Vista?). I'd say

Yes.

if it's consistently below about three-quarters of the physical RAM
available, then adding more will make little difference. My brother's
laptop was really struggling, but then that only had IIRR half a meg -
putting it up to 1 made a considerable difference: it was literally like
a new machine, in terms of speed. _This_ machine (the one I'm typing on)
only came with 1M, and I'd bought a 2M module (the most it could take)
at the same time, being led to believe XP would be a lot happier with
that - but I didn't get round to fitting it for some time; at the time I
did, my normal use was showing as mostly 7xx in Task Manager. Sure
enough, changing the memory module, when I finally got round to it,
didn't seem to make a lot of difference. (FWIW, my memory usage seems to
hover around 1.2xG these days; I _think_ the increase is mainly due to
Firefox, and/or the way I now use Firefox.)

I'm at 67% of 2 gigs now. I have had many times when everything is
going well at 95%, so I figured when it was 70% or lower, it should
surely be okay. XP was no better than Vista. Maybe this happens
when I was up at 95% AND there is still a problem with freeing up**
memory, even though the Task Manager says 67%.

Definitely I've noticed that when I open too many tabs and Firefox
starts to be sluggish, to give, I forget the words in the title bar
"not processing"?, and to even not let me maximize a minimized FF
window, even when it works for a while and I close tabs and even
windows, it rarely helps, even when the % of used memory drops a lot.


**I remember when freeing memory was really bad in win3.1, maybe, and
got fixed in win98, but that does mean every part of it was fixed.


This is not to say I haven't made big progress. Got rid of Previous
Versions, got rid of automatic Windows Update, and recently added
Session Manager to Firefox.

That's been downloaded 4 million times and has almost a 5 star rating,
but one problem: I assumed since a major purpose was to save windows
and tabs during a crash that that was the default. Then I ran Seach
EVerything searching for C:\ sessionstore and sorting on
date, and I saw that the two latest copies were 14 hours old, despite
many changes to the tabs.

I found I had to do one or both of these:
1 On the Saving & Restoring tab of General of Options,
check Create a new backup every n minutes.
2 At the start of my FF session, save the session (which had tabs
saved by FF itself) and at the bottom where it asks if I want to do
this repeatedly, put in a value of n minutes.

Maybe only the first was needed but since I didn't do it, I could
correct things in the middle of a session by doing the second.

After doing the second thing above, the newest sessionstore file was
never more than n minutes old. Except when I hadn't used FF, hadn't
focused on it and changed something. Except once that I don't know
the reason for yet.

I haven't had another crash or shutdown yet, so I still have no
example of it working. If it doesn't after all, you'll probably hear
about it.

More below

graphics/video editing, 6 or 8GB would be better. You should buy a 4GB
set from the same manufacturer to minimise odds of memory glitches such
as subtle mismatch in timing.

(We've already established that the machine - or, at least, the OS -
can't use more than 4G. [But Wolf didn't know that when he wrote the
above.])

I infer you have an older machine. Adding RAM is the cheapest upgrade
until you decide you need a newer machine.

Agreed, with the above proviso re amount that the OS can use (and if the
machine isn't so old that you pay a _premium_ for suitable memory, which
is unlikely).

This one was bought for a business, where it ran only 2 or 3 programs
most of the time, and it only has room for 2 gig, but I have 4 gig
bought for another machine. I just have to allot time to fix
everything up. Right now the space on the desk is being used for a

By "fix everything up", do you mean transfer the entire system - Vista
and all files - from the machine that has only room for 2G, to another
machine? Or do you mean that "This one" can _take_ that 4G, but you'll
have to take some modules out?

No, not fixing the 2 gig machine (though the time I've spent doing
that has taught me plenty for the next machine)

I meant the new machine
Putting the memory in the new machine (10 minutes).
Copying the backup of my XP machine (a Dell) to a new HDD and
installing in the new better machine (also a Dell) and seeing if it
works. (2 or 3 hours. I work slowly)
I've been told it might work because they are both Dells, but if
it doesn't I want to use Acronis True Image Home PC Backup and
Recovery *Plus*, which promises to move a system to a box with
different hardware. That will take me a lot of time.
Adding the new video card I bought, so that I can run flight
simulator software, so I can fly the battery operated plane someone
gave me. I found a club and went to their field one day, and a guy
was nice enough to let me fly his plane for a couple minutes, but not
to take off or land. They told me about a simulator, and I bought
the last control box I could find online. (I hope they've made more
by now. The name escapes me but everyone at that field recommended
it.) With the simple software, I keep crashing, and better software
won't run on the built-in video. (90 minutes)
I think the helicopter drones are a lot easier to fly than the
airplane drones.

And then maybe upgrading to win7. I have a CD. I want to get
that done in time for the free upgrade to 10, if I'm eligible.
[]
Have a good day,

And you too.

From me to you both too.

Yes, and from me to you. LOL