Thanks Digarati, I already use the CCLeaner, but will give ATF Cleaner a go as well. If I have my HD partitioned, is it better to put the page file on the partition, or are you actually refering to putting it on a seperate HD altogether, like a slave.

All the best

Lucky

You don't need ATF if you use, and are comfortable using, CCleaner. ATF is a more basic cleaner than CCleaner. In either case, run a cleaner before defragging, setting up a Page File, and before manual malware scans.

It is better to have the PF on a separate HD altogether, because then the operating system can access both at the same time, if needed. When on the same drive (even if separate partitions) only one sector of the drive can be read at a time, so there is little performance advantage. Still many feel that if you have your single HD partitioned, it is better to have the PF off the primary/boot partition. It is best to have a small partition for the exclusive use of the PF. If a separate partition is not possible, it is better to have the PF as the first file on the drive/partition it is installed on. However, this is not easy to set up after the PC has been used for some time unless you have lots of free space to juggle files about while setting up.

Note that if you allow Windows to manage the size, the PF expands and contracts in size as needed. This can lead to additional fragmentation as files are saved in the expansion area. Because of this fragmentation potential , unless the PF is in it's own partition, it should be fixed in size, IMO.

Note that even MS still touts the old adage to set the PF to 1.5 x RAM. This was fine when 256Mb of RAM was considered a huge amount. But not today. If you have 1Gb or more of RAM, it is not likely you need more than 1Gb for a PF except maybe for a very busy file server. The more RAM you have, the smaller the PF can be. Remember, if the CPU and XP are using the slooowww page file, it is because they ran out of fast RAM to work with.

(see here for more details).