40GB SSD Drive and Windows Vista 64

S

Sadude

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 20, 2003
Messages
227
Hi guys I have a OCZ 40 gig SSD Drive as my OS drive and a 500gb WD SATA reg Drive as my storage drive. How can I install a fully updated Win Vista 64 on my SSD drive without filling it up?

I'm trying right now but I can't I can't even patch i have about 300mb leftover and I don't have enought to patch. I know it's possible. What am I doing wrong.
 
Ok so why do i have about 300 mbs left? what's going on? why are updates taking up so much space?
 
did you install other applications?, I specifically remember my vista ultimate 64 windows install being less than <20GB
 
Vista will be - by default - larger than Windows 7 on the same drive. Some changes were made to Windows 7 to keep the WinSxS folder somewhat smaller and not quite as "crazy" when it comes to keeping duplicate copies of system related files around for compatibility reasons. Also, you've got to consider the page file (equal to the amount of system RAM), the hibernation file (equal to the amount of system RAM), and the fact that during Windows Updates not only are the files being duplicated to the WinSxS folder but also System Restore (if it's functional) is making many small incremental restore points during the entire process.

It adds up quite fast, indeed.

I can't say with 100% certainty since I never used Vista as a day-to-day OS, but I'm sure sure it shouldn't be taking up ~40GB of space after a clean installation + hitting Windows Update until there's just nothing left to update = that's a clean install of the OS and nothing else. It shouldn't be more than maybe 12-18GB tops, depending on how much system RAM you have and whether or not you're leaving the page file at the default settings and not disabling the hibernation file (unless you specifically require it).

That's about all that comes to mind. If you've got 4GB of system RAM, that's going to be 4GB + 4GB (page file and hibernation file) that's "gone" right there from the gitgo, and on a 40GB SSD that's a huge chunk of space. Disable hibernation and redo the page file to a 1GB static one would be my suggestion and get some of that space back.

Personally I'd still say you're much MUCH better off getting Windows 7 for an SSD these days, seriously. I know that some folks like/love Vista and that's fine, but Windows 7 is just better for those types of storage devices, seriously.
 
Joe Average said:
Vista will be - by default - larger than Windows 7 on the same drive. Some changes were made to Windows 7 to keep the WinSxS folder somewhat smaller and not quite as "crazy" when it comes to keeping duplicate copies of system related files around for compatibility reasons. Also, you've got to consider the page file (equal to the amount of system RAM), the hibernation file (equal to the amount of system RAM), and the fact that during Windows Updates not only are the files being duplicated to the WinSxS folder but also System Restore (if it's functional) is making many small incremental restore points during the entire process.

It adds up quite fast, indeed.

I can't say with 100% certainty since I never used Vista as a day-to-day OS, but I'm sure sure it shouldn't be taking up ~40GB of space after a clean installation + hitting Windows Update until there's just nothing left to update = that's a clean install of the OS and nothing else. It shouldn't be more than maybe 12-18GB tops, depending on how much system RAM you have and whether or not you're leaving the page file at the default settings and not disabling the hibernation file (unless you specifically require it).

That's about all that comes to mind. If you've got 4GB of system RAM, that's going to be 4GB + 4GB (page file and hibernation file) that's "gone" right there from the gitgo, and on a 40GB SSD that's a huge chunk of space. Disable hibernation and redo the page file to a 1GB static one would be my suggestion and get some of that space back.

Personally I'd still say you're much MUCH better off getting Windows 7 for an SSD these days, seriously. I know that some folks like/love Vista and that's fine, but Windows 7 is just better for those types of storage devices, seriously.
Click to expand...


Joe,

This is basically a machine that had a hard drive failure and was upgraded to a 40gb SSD drive and a 500GB Storage drive. I did not install any other apps on the drive just Windows and I installed it with default settings. I will look into Win 7 and Suggest what you're saying. Thanks. This has me very confused.,
 
Actually I'm going to hold off on that Windows 7 and turn off Hibernation to see if that helps.

How do I do that on Vista 64
 
Upgrading your OS was not the solution to this problem.

  • Turn off Hibernation by running powercfg -h off at an elevated cmd line.
  • Reduce the size of your page file by setting the minimal to 400MB and maximum to 1.25 your memory (1.25x is for Vista)
  • Turn of System Restore (or if you must leave it on, reduce the size to 2GB by following this guide)
  • Run CCleaner
  • Adjust your user folder items by going to the 'find target' property and transferring them onto your 500GB HDD. This keeps pictures, video's, documents, etc all on a secondary drive. They do not benefit from the SSD as much as applications/games do.
  • After you install SP1, run vsp1cln.exe at an elevated cmd prompt
  • After you install SP2, run compcln.exe at an elevated cmd prompt.

^ Would save you 10-15 GB.
 
Last edited:
bigdogchris said:
Upgrading your OS was not the solution to this problem.

  • Turn off Hibernation by running powercfg -h off at an elevated cmd line.
  • Reduce the size of your page file by setting the minimal to 400MB and maximum to 1.25 your memory (1.25x is for Vista)
  • Turn of System Restore (or if you must leave it on, reduce the size to 2GB by following this guide)
  • Run CCleaner
  • Adjust your user folder items by going to the 'find target' property and transferring them onto your 500GB HDD. This keeps pictures, video's, documents, etc all on a secondary drive. They do not benefit from the SSD as much as applications/games do.
  • After you install SP1, run vsp1cln.exe at an elevated cmd prompt
  • After you install SP2, run compcln.exe at an elevated cmd prompt.

^ Would save you 10-15 GB.
Click to expand...

Ok, I turned off Hibernation but nothing happen ( i saw no freed up memory) I also turned down Page file setting and saw no difference. I did see a difference when i turned off system restore. I got 5gigs back.
 
Last edited:
The users' folders are the biggest thing to take care of during the fresh install. I didn't do this, and my users folder quickly grew to over 15GB, leaving me with almost no space on my 50GB Agility 2. I miss the days of save games, config files, etc all being within their own folder's hierarchy, not duplicated all over across user folders and whatnot.
 
TwistedAegis said:
The users' folders are the biggest thing to take care of during the fresh install. I didn't do this, and my users folder quickly grew to over 15GB, leaving me with almost no space on my 50GB Agility 2. I miss the days of save games, config files, etc all being within their own folder's hierarchy, not duplicated all over across user folders and whatnot.
Click to expand...

But how do I do this
 
Sadude said:
I just ordered this: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004Q0PT3I/ref=ox_ya_os_product

It clearly states that the 64bit version takes up 20 gigabytes. Do most Video/Sound card manufacturers have updated drivers for Win 7.
Click to expand...

I just made a post the other day about that specific thing: how much space Windows 7 takes up on a clean installation, you can read the post here:

http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1037490674&postcount=12

I don't use an SSD yet (still too expensive for me given the space vs price) but I will say that for the past oh, 10 years or so, my system partition has always been 40GB in size, regardless of how large the hard drive is. Right now my Windows 7 Professional x64 installation sits on yet another 40GB partition (on a Hitachi 7K500-series 320GB SATA II hard drive) and with all my apps "installed" (since I use a lot of portable versions), and I'm at 16.7GB used, 22.2GB free, with:

- Office 2010 Pro installed (disclaimer: I use Word, Excel, and Outlook so the Office folder is about 745MB at the moment, I have not installed Office 2010 SP1 as of today)
- about 27 other apps (the portable ones are NOT counted in this as they run from a RAMdisk) including Photoshop CS5
- a 1GB static page file
- no hibernation file (4GB of system RAM)
- several files in the Downloads folder totaling 2.1GB of space (will probably get burned to a DVD+R as it gets closer to the 4.3GB mark)
- fully updated across the board for every app and Windows Update available as of 10AM this morning (an hour before I made this post)
- this installation is nearly 3 months old, almost a record for me to be honest
- my WinSxS folder has 29,239 files in it, 6,848 folders, and is 4.16GB in size
- System Restore/Protection is disabled as I make daily images of the system partition
- my actual Users folder (just mine since I'm the only user on my laptop) sits at 8.11GB presently - a chunk of that is the 2.1GB in the Downloads folder so it's not additional space

So yes, you can get Windows 7 installed, functional, and with a lot of space left over on a 40GB drive of any kind. ;)
 
As an Amazon Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
Removing hibernation didn't seem to do anything. Am I suppose to manually delete the folder after? If so where is it?
 
If you properly disabled hibernation (Admin Command Prompt, then the command powercfg -h off and press Enter), you should have regained some space on the drive, but that's conditional: there are some instances where not having proper ACPI support at 100% across all hardware device drivers means the hibernation subsystem might not even be functional to begin with which would obviously mean there's no hibernation file to delete anyway.

Regardless, do this:

Open a Command Prompt (doesn't have to be Admin level), then type cd \ (press Enter) to get to the root of the system partition. Type:

dir /a (and press Enter)

If you see a hiberfil.sys there, you still have a hibernation file (and will be able to see how large it is, should match your system RAM size). If there's no hiberfil.sys listed, it's already deleted and hibernation is disabled.

You can also see the pagefile.sys there as well. My static one is listed as 1,073,741,824 bytes (basically 1GB). The hiberfil.sys is the hibernation file; there's no "folder" associated with that subsystem, just that one single file which is used as a bit-for-bit duplicate of the contents of your system RAM when you choose to use it. That's why it's the same size as whatever amount of system RAM you have installed. 4GB of RAM = a 4GB hiberfil.sys, 6GB = 6GB, etc. It can use up a lot of space on modern machines with > 4GB of RAM and people don't even realize it.
 
Yes, the Hibernation file is still there. Also my Pagefile.sys says 400,XXX,XXX bytes despite the fact I set the minimum at 400mb and max at 1250mb Why didn't it work?

Also how do I set the users folder to send stuff to my storage drive?
 
Ok, I ran the cmd prompt and got it to work. now why is my setpoint file so big.
 
You need to set the page file manually to the static size or else it'll just adjust itself as Windows deems necessary - set the same size as the minimum and maximum. It will only resize to something larger past that point in really extreme situations where you have almost no actual free RAM of any kind and Windows does need to create some virtual memory.

If you're using Vista things are different, too - Windows 7 improves upon the memory management rather dramatically compared to Vista and is far more efficient in those respects.
 
bigdogchris means move some of the folders in your User profile to another location, like the 500GB drive you have, then let Windows know you've "moved" the folder by right clicking on the folders and changing the target location (aka where Windows can "see" the folder).

So if you create a My Documents folder on the 500GB drive, then you go to the My Documents folder in your User profile at:

C:\Users\<username>\Documents

and right-click on that folder and choose the Location tab, you should see something like this by default:

docsp.png


If you enter the new location of the My Documents folder (on the 500GB drive) - and yes, you've got to type it in manually or copy-paste the actual complete path to the new folder in the new location - then Windows will "switch" the My Documents folder to that location, and anything that gets saved to the My Documents shortcut/link will go to the 500GB drive, not to the system drive.

Clicking "Find Target" will only work if the path to the new location is input manually - the point of the Find Target button is to make the link to the folder; if it doesn't exist, you'll get the warning about not finding the target, so you need to type it in manually or do the copy-paste thing.

Do that for My Documents, My Pictures, My Videos, etc... that's how you "move" a folder to another location, basically. Create the new folder in the new location, then use the Location tab (this only works for those folders inside the User profile, of course) to point Windows to the new destination aka target location.

Even shorter method: click the Move folder, browse to the new folder/location, and select it, then click Apply and OK to lock in the new folder as the destination for whatever files you're saving to the My Documents folder. Simple.

Hope that's clear.
 
Ok, after it's all said and done I have about 9 gigs left on my 40gig SSD Drive. I did everything everyone suggested. Is there anything else I should consider.

Also, Windows sees the drive as 37 gigs and not 40, is that something it does to allocate memory for some odd reason>
 
Sadude said:
Ok, after it's all said and done I have about 9 gigs left on my 40gig SSD Drive. I did everything everyone suggested. Is there anything else I should consider.

Also, Windows sees the drive as 37 gigs and not 40, is that something it does to allocate memory for some odd reason>
Click to expand...
28GB is a lot still unless you have some games/applications installed. What do you have installed?
 
Yeah the drivers for some of my hardware. It did not give me an option to not put it in my other drive. How can I go around that?
 
Sadude said:
Yeah the drivers for some of my hardware. It did not give me an option to not put it in my other drive. How can I go around that?
Click to expand...
OS + Drivers and nothing else is 28GB? That doesn't sound right.

Turn on Hidden and view OS files and check your C:\ and see how big the pagefile.sys is and also check for the hiberfil.sys.

Also, did you reduce or disable system restore? What did you set it at?

Did you run CCleaner to wipe out temp files?

Did you run the two Service Pack cleanup tools?
 
I might be missing it, but why hasn't WinDirStat been run yet? I'm sure that will at least give us a better picture before making assumptions. Just a suggestion.
 
Bigdog I've run CCleaner and both service pack cleanup tools.

My pagefile.sys is 419,430,400 under command prompt. I set it as suggested, minimum 400 max 1.25gig (1,250 mb) I think that might be my problem. Not sure why the pagefile sys is so large.
 
Last edited:
Sadude said:
Bigdog I've run CCleaner and both service pack cleanup tools.

My pagefile.sys is 419,430,400 under command prompt. I set it as suggested, minimum 400 max 1.25gig (1,250 mb) I think that might be my problem. Not sure why the pagefile sys is so large.
Click to expand...

That's ~400MB in size at 419.430,400 bytes which means at that time you checked on it, Windows probably wasn't having any need to resize it to something up to the chosen max of 1.25GB.

Something is pretty funky here with this machine, and I can't say why, but I know that if I do a clean installation of Vista Ultimate x64 on this Dell Latitude D830 of mine right now and fully update it across the board and don't touch a damned thing (in other words, I leave it alone) it's not going to consume 28GB+ of drive space - and that's just the OS, fully updated with Windows Update, etc. I'd leave the page file as it is (which would end up being 4GB because that's how much RAM I have), a 4GB page file, and even after hitting Windows Update I'd barely crack 20GB and THAT is also with System Restore enabled and the multiple restore points created during the update process.

Again, Windows 7 would be a totally different beast on that SSD but, with Vista, I honestly can't say why it's consuming 28GB+ on the OP's SSD. That's just not right, it shouldn't be more than 20GB after a clean install and fully updated... and after some adjustments (page file/hibernation/delete restore points) it shouldn't be more than 15GB, ever).

Something is fishy there... is this a clean install? Did you track down an integrated Vista Ultimate SP2 x64 installation DVD (which would be SP2 by default, no need to do the service pack installations which, if done manually on the RTM build, could be contributing to all the 'wasted' space)?

/me shakes his head... this one makes no sense at all
 
This is a clean install. My original harddrive died. Picked up an SSD as my O/S drive and a 500gb storage drive. It's a Vista 64 Disc that I bought in 2008. Don't think it has SP1 on it. It automatically starts to patch after Install. Should I redo the install? or is there anything else is I can do?
 
Only suggestion is to get yourself a proper Vista (whatever edition) Service Pack 2 x64 installation disc/ISO and use that. You can find a proper Vista Ultimate SP2 x64 ISO "out there, somewhere beyond the heavens..." and that's what I'd recommend you use for the installation - not only will it take less time than doing the RTM install, then all the other BS after it, but it's probably going to take up a lot less space as well since there won't nearly be as many duped files in the WinSxS folder.

Here's something you can try just for shits and giggles if you want, it's up to you:

Go get the Windows 7 Enterprise x64 trial edition from:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/cc442495

and download/burn it/install it to a USB stick (there's a tool for that here from Microsoft). Install it clean and fully update it and then check to see how much space it's used up after the installation and all the updates are done. Don't install anything else at all unless required - try to use as many drivers from Windows Update as possible, of all kinds. Don't install third-party or even OEM drivers if they're available from Windows Update.

Then when it's all done, check on the space usage, then redo the page file down to whatever you want, disable hibernation, disable System Restore, etc, and see how small it really gets. Then you'll have something to work with.

Hell, you may just realize how much better Windows 7 actually is in the process... :)
 
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004Q0PT3I/ref=ox_ya_os_product

Correct me if I'm wrong but this will only work on one Motherboard right? I want to know if I can use it on a new machine if I decide not the use my current machine lets say a year from now. In other words I realize it only works on a machine at any given time, but can I use it on a new machine in the future and just that particular machine.
 
As an Amazon Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
OEM System Builder copies of Windows come with no support from Microsoft (they're supposed to get support from the company that sold the computer you're supposed to get with the OS) and yes, the license is designed to be "locked" to one particular hardware configuration or machine. If there's a problem with the hardware (blows up, burns out, etc) and you need to reinstall the OS on a different machine, like you swapped out a bad mobo, etc, then a phone call to Microsoft will get you a new Product Key to reinstall the OS - yes, that is valid even for the OEM System Builder edition.

Most people buy the OEM System Builder editions to save a few bucks on the OS, true, but they also tend to be enthusiasts that do a lot of hardware upgrades over time. Now, Microsoft is well aware of all this, but they're not total hardasses about it: if you call 'em up and say "My mobo burned out and I had to replace it, so I need to reinstall, I have the OEM System Builder copy, can I get a new Product Key?" and they'll give you one even if you're telling a bit of a white lie and you only decided to upgrade to a new mobo for some reason.

Like I said, people do it all the time, and Microsoft is aware of it. They also keep track of the Product Keys issued and the activations on file so, as long as you're not calling them up 30 times a year with requests for a new Product Key each time 'cause your mobos keep burning out, you'll be fine. :D

That one at Amazon will work just fine and $99 is about the standard price for the OEM System Builder copy of that version of Windows 7.
 
Great, I'll give Win 7 a shot then. I plan on building a new machine in about a year. So as long as MS won't give me beef I'll purchase this now. Hopefully Win 7 will be nicer on my ssd.
 
I still strongly suggest giving that Windows 7 Enterprise trial a go... that's what it's there for (well, I guess it's not really for consumers/home users, but whatever) since technically there is no trial edition of consumer versions of Windows 7. Yes, you can install Windows 7 consumer versions and technically have 30 days to activate it (the "grace period") but that isn't actually a trial; the grace period is a way to verify the machine works with the OS, the hardware is supported with drivers from the device manufacturers, etc. Everybody uses it like it's a trial version but it's not...

But the Enterprise edition is basically the exact same thing as Ultimate, so at the bare minimum you'd know exactly how Windows 7 will perform on your system, how the hardware is supported, and of course how much of a footprint the install will require. Enterprise should take about 9.2GB itself (just the OS, not counting anything else including the page file or the hibernation file) - and yes that's the x64 version too.

A clean install with a minimal page file, no hibernation file, and System Restore disabled on that 40GB SSD should not be larger than 12-15GB... if that much, and that's after being fully updated as well. Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 x64 should be about 7.9GB just for the OS itself, right after the installation and before any updates. After all the updates available, you should see about 9.5-10GB used just for the OS, perhaps a wee bit more. Again, that's not counting the page file or hibernation file or restore points which you can muck around with post-installation/post-updates.

But it's up to you... the Enterprise trial will let you know what to expect, even when you're waiting for the actual purchased Home Premium from Amazon if you choose to buy it.

Good luck...
 
Joe Average said:
I still strongly suggest giving that Windows 7 Enterprise trial a go... that's what it's there for (well, I guess it's not really for consumers/home users, but whatever) since technically there is no trial edition of consumer versions of Windows 7. Yes, you can install Windows 7 consumer versions and technically have 30 days to activate it (the "grace period") but that isn't actually a trial; the grace period is a way to verify the machine works with the OS, the hardware is supported with drivers from the device manufacturers, etc. Everybody uses it like it's a trial version but it's not...

But the Enterprise edition is basically the exact same thing as Ultimate, so at the bare minimum you'd know exactly how Windows 7 will perform on your system, how the hardware is supported, and of course how much of a footprint the install will require. Enterprise should take about 9.2GB itself (just the OS, not counting anything else including the page file or the hibernation file) - and yes that's the x64 version too.

A clean install with a minimal page file, no hibernation file, and System Restore disabled on that 40GB SSD should not be larger than 12-15GB... if that much, and that's after being fully updated as well. Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 x64 should be about 7.9GB just for the OS itself, right after the installation and before any updates. After all the updates available, you should see about 9.5-10GB used just for the OS, perhaps a wee bit more. Again, that's not counting the page file or hibernation file or restore points which you can muck around with post-installation/post-updates.

But it's up to you... the Enterprise trial will let you know what to expect, even when you're waiting for the actual purchased Home Premium from Amazon if you choose to buy it.

Good luck...
Click to expand...

Yeah I figured "What the hell" I'll be building a new machine in the future might as well get it now. And since it's less resource intensive I might as well give it a shot. I've got nothing to lose, well except the fact that my wife is going to give me hello for dropping 100 bucks on an O/S. lol Women don't understand our habbits anyway.


Do I use the same commands and steps to that I did for Vista 64 to free up memory? Also what should I set the page file to in Win7 64?
 
As far as page file/hibernation/System Restore, they are the same, yep. Best way to access the controls for the page file and System Restore are just press (and hold) the Windows key on the keyboard then tap Pause (usually the Pause/Break key, near the PrintScreen/etc keys, top right corner of the keyboard) and that will bring up System Properties where that stuff is.

As for hibernation, same principle: open an Admin Command Prompt, powercfg -h off, hit Enter, done.

For your page file, it really depends on the amount of RAM in the system, but if it's 4GB or more, I still suggest a static 1GB page file. You've stated you're using a 400MB minimum/1250MB maximum, which means Windows will create an original one that's 400MB in size, but if necessary it will expand it as required up to your "max" of 1.25GB so, the downside to that is that Windows would end up with a potentially fragmented page file.

YES, I know you're on an SSD and YES I know that fragmentation has a negligible effect because of the extremely low and rather consistent SSD random access times, but it's a tough habit to break - that's why I always always recommend a static page file, meaning the minimum and the maximum size is set to the same amount. 1024MB min/1024MB max, that's a 1GB page file and more than enough for probably 98% of the consumers/enthusiasts running Windows as an operating system.

You can try 512MB min and 512MB max if you want, but I'd bet Windows would gripe at some point that it's not enough virtual memory and would expand it, but I've yet to see that happen when it's 1GB in size, static in nature, non-fragmenting.

But that's just me... do your own tinkering and see what happens.

The #1 rule or recommendation that you'll get from people knowledgeable about Windows 7 these days will be something I'm pretty sure I started a few years ago which is the concept of leave it alone. Windows 7 is not like any other version of Windows ever made, not even Vista.

Leave it alone means leave the basic OS alone given a minor tweak here and there, such as you're contemplating for the page file and the other aspects. It doesn't mean try and tweak it like XP days: there's no requirement or actual proven benefit of disabling services willy-nilly, there's no reason to disable the page file entirely, there's no reason to excessively defragment the OS (even on a plain old mechanical hard drive) and all those other "tweaks" that XP and even Vista might have benefited from to varying degrees of success.

Leave it alone - for the most part - means install the OS, make a minor tweak as noted in this thread with respect to reducing the page file size (let's face it: if you've got 8GB+ of RAM, do you really think that machine will require an 8GB page file? I didn't think so), disabling hibernation completely if you don't use it at all and simple Sleep/Standby is just as useful (and again, with 8GB+ of system RAM, by default you'd lose 16GB+ of drive space for those two files... kind of excessive, right?), and then System Restore can be disabled as well to save more space.

I only bring these "tweaks" up for one reason: you're space limited with a 40GB SSD so this stuff isn't going to hurt performance in the least, not one bit, while providing you (and anyone that chooses to implement these suggestions) more space on such space-limited installations because of small capacity SSDs or even hard drives.

That's about it. Oh, and don't move the page file off the SSD as some other websites and guides might suggest. Any modern SSD is going to last for at least a year or two given that it's not defective, and as the costs come down, if necessary you'll be sure you can replace it with the same drive or an even larger faster one for the same costs at a later time.

The reason to leave the page file on the SSD is because it'll be the fastest drive in your system, period. Even Microsoft recommends just leaving the page file alone with respect to the location - meaning it stays on the system drive/partition itself on an SSD. You can reduce the size of it, definitely, but don't move it. You can add more static page files to each physical drive in your system whether they're an SSD or a physical hard drive, doesn't matter, and this will help the OS multitask more efficiently - but don't pull the page file from the system drive on an SSD. It will just hurt performance more in the long run. Reduce, yes, move, no.

'Nuff typed. ;)
 
Joe Average said:
As far as page file/hibernation/System Restore, they are the same, yep. Best way to access the controls for the page file and System Restore are just press (and hold) the Windows key on the keyboard then tap Pause (usually the Pause/Break key, near the PrintScreen/etc keys, top right corner of the keyboard) and that will bring up System Properties where that stuff is.

As for hibernation, same principle: open an Admin Command Prompt, powercfg -h off, hit Enter, done.

For your page file, it really depends on the amount of RAM in the system, but if it's 4GB or more, I still suggest a static 1GB page file. You've stated you're using a 400MB minimum/1250MB maximum, which means Windows will create an original one that's 400MB in size, but if necessary it will expand it as required up to your "max" of 1.25GB so, the downside to that is that Windows would end up with a potentially fragmented page file.

YES, I know you're on an SSD and YES I know that fragmentation has a negligible effect because of the extremely low and rather consistent SSD random access times, but it's a tough habit to break - that's why I always always recommend a static page file, meaning the minimum and the maximum size is set to the same amount. 1024MB min/1024MB max, that's a 1GB page file and more than enough for probably 98% of the consumers/enthusiasts running Windows as an operating system.

You can try 512MB min and 512MB max if you want, but I'd bet Windows would gripe at some point that it's not enough virtual memory and would expand it, but I've yet to see that happen when it's 1GB in size, static in nature, non-fragmenting.

But that's just me... do your own tinkering and see what happens.

The #1 rule or recommendation that you'll get from people knowledgeable about Windows 7 these days will be something I'm pretty sure I started a few years ago which is the concept of leave it alone. Windows 7 is not like any other version of Windows ever made, not even Vista.

Leave it alone means leave the basic OS alone given a minor tweak here and there, such as you're contemplating for the page file and the other aspects. It doesn't mean try and tweak it like XP days: there's no requirement or actual proven benefit of disabling services willy-nilly, there's no reason to disable the page file entirely, there's no reason to excessively defragment the OS (even on a plain old mechanical hard drive) and all those other "tweaks" that XP and even Vista might have benefited from to varying degrees of success.

Leave it alone - for the most part - means install the OS, make a minor tweak as noted in this thread with respect to reducing the page file size (let's face it: if you've got 8GB+ of RAM, do you really think that machine will require an 8GB page file? I didn't think so), disabling hibernation completely if you don't use it at all and simple Sleep/Standby is just as useful (and again, with 8GB+ of system RAM, by default you'd lose 16GB+ of drive space for those two files... kind of excessive, right?), and then System Restore can be disabled as well to save more space.

I only bring these "tweaks" up for one reason: you're space limited with a 40GB SSD so this stuff isn't going to hurt performance in the least, not one bit, while providing you (and anyone that chooses to implement these suggestions) more space on such space-limited installations because of small capacity SSDs or even hard drives.

That's about it. Oh, and don't move the page file off the SSD as some other websites and guides might suggest. Any modern SSD is going to last for at least a year or two given that it's not defective, and as the costs come down, if necessary you'll be sure you can replace it with the same drive or an even larger faster one for the same costs at a later time.

The reason to leave the page file on the SSD is because it'll be the fastest drive in your system, period. Even Microsoft recommends just leaving the page file alone with respect to the location - meaning it stays on the system drive/partition itself on an SSD. You can reduce the size of it, definitely, but don't move it. You can add more static page files to each physical drive in your system whether they're an SSD or a physical hard drive, doesn't matter, and this will help the OS multitask more efficiently - but don't pull the page file from the system drive on an SSD. It will just hurt performance more in the long run. Reduce, yes, move, no.

'Nuff typed. ;)
Click to expand...

Wow thanks man! Yeah I have 8gigs of Ram! I'll tinker with it. Should I just boot my machine now with the Win 7 DVD and what off my WD 500gb drive? Should I format it in Win 7 or leave it be?
 
Well see, you never said how much RAM you had till that post just now, so that was ~16GB of space gone right after the installation was done with Vista since by default the page file and hibernation file - as discussed ad nauseum in this thread so far, mainly by me actually - match the size of the physical RAM in the machine. DOH!!! :D

Based on that knowledge, it's easy to see why a Vista installation with 8GB of RAM could easily be around the 28GB mark, especially after you do the install and then hit Windows Update for everything...

As far as Windows 7, I don't know what you've got in mind at this point. If you grabbed that Enterprise ISO and you're game, go for it. Install it to the SSD and then "tweak" it with the above related configuration changes and see what happens. Can't hurt...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top