Does the DisablePagingExecutive registry change have any actual effect?

Question

On a number of machines in the past, across different versions of Windows (2000, XP, and no Vista), I've enabled DisablePagingExecutive to try and improve performance. In each case, and I've had plenty of memory, and in the especially so in the current case. However, after enabling this registry tweak and rebooting, I've checked task manager after a while, and I still show a huge chunk of the kernel paged to disk, even though I have 2GB of physical memory free.

Has anybody ever used this tweak successfully? Ever? Maybe I'm viewing the wrong indicator when I check the task manager (Performance tab -> "Kernel Memory" section), but I'd like to prevent Windows from paging everything it can to disk, especially considering the amount of memory provided in desktops these days. It seems like a "Don't page to disk unless there's extreme memory pressure" option ought to exist - is there one?

Answer 1

There is an enormous amount of confusion on the internet regarding this function. The setting effects only a portion of the kernel known as the executive, and then only to the portions that are pageable. There are other parts of the kernel that are completely unaffected by this setting.

Kernel paging works the same way as any other paging. Code and data that is frequently accessed will be kept in RAM while the remainder will remain on disk - where it belongs. The system will not remove any portion of the kernel from RAM unless it has found a better use for it. Microsoft has devoted an enormous amount of research and testing to the paging systems.

In the context of the kernel "Nonpaged" means code and data that can never be paged out under any circumstances. "Paged" means code and data that CAN be paged out if necessary. How much actually IS paged out is impossible to tell from Task Manager. A portion of the code that is paged out was never read from disk in the first place because it wasn't needed yet. Not all of the kernel is frequently accessed. You should not expect Paged and Nonpaged numbers to be effected by the setting in question.

Note: When code is paged out it is not normally copied to the pagefile. This is not necessary as it can simply be reloaded from the original files. This applies to most code, not just the kerenl.

With a reasonable amount of RAM the setting will do essentially nothing. It simply prevents the system from paging out data that it didn't want to page out anyway.

Answer 2

I'm not sure if you realise this, but page-faults are the mechanism which Windows uses to load executable code. So, for example, a DLL is mapped to virtual memory, and then page-faults are used to do the actual loading from disk as required. The pagefile is not involved in this.

So lots of what you think of as 'paged to disk' might be stuff that was on disk in the first place.

Answer 3

The DisablePagingExecutive tweak does not stop paging, it's purpose was to prevent the "Executive" (i.e. the Kernel itself) being paged and thus causing whole system slowdown, not just individual paged apps.

You can try and disable paging completely by removing all pagefiles in System Properties (or in HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\PagingFiles). This works well for me, but things get rather unpleasant when you run out of physical memory, and you must have a page file to debug STOP errors.

Answer 4

System level components, such as the kernel, executive, and device drivers, can allocate memory from two pools. These are the paged pool, which can be paged out at the memory managers discretion, and the non-paged pool which must remain in RAM at all times. The developer decides according to his needs what pool will be used. It is recommended that the paged pool be used whenever possible as this allows the system memory manager maximum flexibility. Both pools are of limited size and in 32 bit systems in particular these limits can pose a problem. The paged pool is considerably larger. If the non-paged pool were used excessively the size limit could be reached and this will cause some serious system problems.

The items labeled in Task Manager as "Paged" and "Non paged" kernel memory are showing the allocations of these pools. It has absolutely nothing to do with the dynamic state of how much memory actually is paged out. The "DisablePagingExceutive" registry entry influences the dynamic paging state of a portion of the paged pool so it's effects will never be shown by ask Manager.

Answer 5

man,the kernel paging file have been diaabled.so close all pagingfiles on disk then you find a professional ram checking software ... check out