To view/change the setting, right click My Computer/properties/performance/virtual memory. The default is to have windows manage the size(variable). You can change it to specify limits for min and max size(also variable) or you can set min and max the same(fixed). If you do the latter and it's not big enough you could have memory problems. The supposed advantage of fixed is that windows doesn't spend time and cycles managing the expansion and contraction of the swap file. There are many different recommendations as to how big to make it, but it depends partly on how much RAM you have. Post back.

Here is an article all about virtual memory and swap file suggestions. Also has alot of Win info in plain english.

http://www.pcnineoneone.com/howto/swpfile1.html

Mister Bill

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A great part of the information I have
was aquired by looking up something
and finding something else on the way.
~Franklin P. Adams

I have 128mb ram and a 20gb hd. I set the virtual memory min/max to 256. Started to have problems with browser home page opening. Reset it to allowing windows to manage. Browser and email problem cleared up. When I checked the system.ini after resetting to windows default there was a new setting there "paging=on". I think by defining the swap file you are probably turning of paging off and as you go through a few pages you will probably run out of memory very quickly and may run into problems.