If you have 4GB, are you getting 4GB?

I haven't found a use for them in Win32 and have never used them. If the
user takes basic steps to secure their computer by using a modified HOSTS
file and other tweaks they will be on their way to having a bullet proof
system. From personal experience I have seen people that get their machines
compromised are the ones that get duped into clicking on or opening things
they shouldn't be opening, especially from things sent by total strangers.
These are the people with lacking computer skills that aren't even advanced
enough to be called novices. Third party "protections" aren't a substitute
for common sense and user skills. A dirt cheap router or switch will fill
the bill as well.







Rita

 

Yes, good point. Sure, you can always go higher with a fixed sized
pagefile, but your performance gains shrink to the point were it is
comparable with letting Windows do the work for you. At least this has been
my personal experience doing this. I even set the pagefile to a separate HD
(U320 SCSI RAID) from which the OS is on and the gains we negligible over
what Windows management is doing. I also found resizing and defragging
hasn't been much of an issue for me either since most of this is happening
when my system has been idle for some time. I came to the conclusion, at
least for my operating style, that a fixed pagefile is equivalent to a
placebo in a double-blind test and it is near impossible to distinguish
which one is being used.







Rita

 

Rita, whilst I agree with your ideas, I still prefer that added layer!

David

 

No. It is limited by the swap space. And that depends on how
the swap space is set up.

---- Paul J. Gans

 

If you are going to run 64-bit Windows on that same machine,
you will have to change the processor, won't you? And will
your present machine take one of the new chips?

I assume that you have already looked into this. In that
case, since the 64-bit OS will address the full 4 GB, I'd
go for the 4 GB.

---- Paul J. Gans

 

Thanks Al. I'm about to install CS2 and that sounds
useful.

--- Paul J. Gans

 

PC bootloader ROMs back in the old DOS days were often located
at the extreme high end of the addressable memory space.

Nobody had that much memory back then.

----- Paul J. Gans

 

It also is a function of the motherboard. There are many
32-bit motherboards out there that will not see a full 4 GB
in spite of having the slots for that much memory.

I don't think we yet know what will become "standard" on
64-bit motherboards.

---- Paul J. Gans

 

Good advice.

Or read the net using a unix clone on your ISP's machine which
is what I'm doing right now.

Of course my Windows machine talking to my ISP is sitting behind
a router also acting as a hardware firewall.

---- Paul J. Gans

 

The PC I'm talking about already has a 64-bit processor - the AMD 4400 X2
as it happens. Precisely why I'm staying with the 4GB.

David

 

That will help, somewhat. However, no matter how fast your HD is,
swapping is vastly slower than RAM. My 'virtual memory' shows as
however much free space is on my C: drive, which is about 55GB on this
machine.

 

Keeping it on another physical drive IS advantageous, but keeping it on
another partition of the same physical drive only makes the swap process
slower, although it may avoid the fragmentation problems.

 

My experience as well. A good defrag program, like Diskeeper, will
minimize this problem.

 

Letting Windows manage the swapfile is usually the best approach. Have
tried it both ways, and the difference is not perceptible. I would
rather not set an arbitrary swapfile size and find hours into a process
that it wasn't enough.

 

There is always overhead, and the memory management depends a lot on
what chipset your computer uses (and what OS). Many computers also
share main memory with the graphics system, which further erodes your
free ram.
Still, 3.2GB is much better than a bit under 1GB.... right?

 

While I agree that the best protection is an informed user, who follows
the 'safe hex' program, an anti-virus and firewall program are useful to
alert you to attempts to compromise your system, and might save you from
things like the Blaster worm. Keeping the OS updated regularly is also
mandatory in this environment.

 

That should keep you in CPU cycles for a few years. Care to trade for
my 512MB AMD Athlon XP (1.8Ghz)? Grin.
I have been thinking of replacing it, but the trauma of moving
everything over to a new machine is daunting.

 

That's a given even on my SATA RAID0 running two WD Raptor 10,000 rpm
drives.

 

Ron Hunter wrote:
[]

That's exactly how I feel!

David

 

Yes, I'm not quite sure how I will schedule the move just yet. I expect
to use the Windows "Files and Settings Transfer Wizard. Need the desk
space for two PCs as well. Plus I'm just installing a small FreeBSD
system....

David