XP Tweak Disable Page File
If your computer has 1 GB of RAM or more, disabling the page file can speed up XP by allowing for faster memory management and access. The page file acts as virtual memory on your computer. Basically once the physical RAM is used up, Windows uses the hard drive for additional memory. Systems with under 1GB should not use this tweak … I am using 1 GB as a base guideline depending on your system and applications running results will vary.
Right click on My Computer \ Properties and click on the Advanced tab. Under performance click the settings button.
Now in the Performance Options window click the Advanced tab and under Virtual Memory click on the Change button.
Now in the Virtual Memory window click on No paging file then hit the Set button. You will then be prompted to reboot your computer for this tweak to take effect.
The method here is a fairly simple one. However, like many MS programs, the result is not always what you would expect when simply asking the system to do something.
See the link below (png screenshot, hosted courtesy of ImageShack):
http://img257.imageshack.us/img257/2964/pagefilebitcheznu3.png
You'll notice that my (Windows XP skinned to look like Vista. . .) screen looks just like yours—but Task Manager is still reporting that it's using some ~500mb of pagefile space. What is this?