Gavotte Ramdisk Utility

[jtr1962]

I came across the Gavotte Ramdisk Utility today when googling if it was possible to get XP to use more than 4GB of RAM. While you can't (unless you have SP1 and enable PAE), you can still make use of otherwise unaddressable RAM with this utility because it can access RAM over the 4 GB barrier, even with a 32-bit O/S. On my new system with 16 GB I occasionally will need to boot into my old XP install. XP can only see 3.42 GB of the 16 GB. With the Gavotte Ramdisk Utility I can make a 12.47 GB ramdisk. I can then enable the pagefile and place it on the ramdisk. XP will only let me make a 4 GB pagefile, but using 7.42 GB of RAM is better than using 3.42 GB. I also at the same time solve any issues which might arise from not having a pagefile. Since I have lots of free space on the ramdisk, I'll probably place my browser cache there as well. I highly recommend this utility to anyone who might be dual-booting a 32-bit O/S on a modern system with > 4 GB RAM.

 

[Bozo]

Cool!

 

[jtr1962]

Playing around some more, I was able to create multiple pagefiles to use most of the ramdisk. Just open regedit and go to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management key. In the "PagingFiles" multi-string value paste the following:

Z:\pagefil1.sys 4095 4095
Z:\pagefil2.sys 4095 4095
Z:\pagefil3.sys 4095 4095

This assumes that Z is your ramdisk. Modify as needed for your particular case. You can use the numbering scheme shown to have fewer or more pagefiles as needed, depending upon the space available on your ramdisk. Using 4096 for the size causes Windows to make a 4080 MB pagefile, whereas 4095 results in a 4095 MB pagefile. Granted, it's gross overkill but now I can make use of most of my 16 GB in XP. I left about half a gig free on the ramdisk for temp files, browser cache, and so forth.