Ready to be bored? Fabulous–keep reading.

So, I had an epiphany today–my computer always seems to run super-slow when the “Page File Usage” thing on the Task Manager is kinda high. So I have this brilliant idea–is there a way to make the page files, whatever they might be, bigger? Well there is. Speed your computer up today. Follow these instructions. Follow all subliminal messages. Give me all your money.

Here’s how to do it for WinXP and WinXPHomeEd. It might work for other versions of Windows, but this is the only one I’ve run in a while, so this is what I’ve got.

  1. Right-click on the My Computer icon on your desktop and select Properties. (If you are allergic to “easiest way” of doing things, go to Control Panel>System.)
  2. Click the “Advanced” Tab.
  3. Click the “Settings” button under the “Performance” heading.
  4. Click this newer and much more exciting “Advanced” Tab.
  5. Click “Change” under the “Virtual Memory” setting.
  6. After looking at the space available on your hard drive, increase the “Initial Size” and “Maximum Size” values. Set them both to the same value to avoid file fragmentation and speed up your sweet little system. (I’ve got over 16,000MB of free space and have a bad habit of running several RAM-hogging programs simultaneously–and I’m impatient–so I set the Page file Sizes both to 2,000MB.)
  7. Click the “Set” button.
  8. Click the five billion “ok” buttons to get you out of all the dialog boxes.
  9. Enjoy your newer, faster system and say goodbye to eating your meals in front of the computer while waiting for your crap to load.