hi OM and kkseal
cpu priority is system setting made available through control panel. It decides whether programmes will be given priority or services.As we are mostly using programmes that priority will improve response of your programmes. Its upto you to use default.
with Windows defrag, this you might have noticed but with advanced programme you can configure as outlined for ultimate defrag and you will notice improvement. But must be performed only after other things listed above it is completed.
(if directories are consolidated, disk thrashing is reduced. and if they are put near MFT access time and seek time is reduced)
kkseal You are right. Less than 1024 i.e. keep your pagefile.sys.
But you may go through the process of deleting it and defrag HDD then recreate it.
The reason behind it is that being a system file, it is locked by windows os. It is virtual memory and gets defragmented and also placed somewhere in the middle. So there will not be proper defragmentation of HDD. If you remove pagefile.sys by the procedure as outlined and then do defrag, consolidation will take place. There after if you again set size of pagefile it will be automatically recreated. here you can set optimum size which is twice the RAM.
There is another setting which helps actual placement of pagefile.sys at the begining of second HDD. But that is for advanced user. The procedure outlined above will give huge improvement.
Above 1024 bm RAM you can safely delete pagefile.sys as all windows and program files will be loaded into RAM and access will be faster. With three or four programmes running I never get my RAM filled more than 800 MB so remaining RAM is available.
If pagefile.sys is present window will shift many files to it if not used, though the programme is open and oodles of RAM is available. If you switch suddenly you will notice delay and disk activity.
You can use cachemem and freeramXp for RAM optimisation and defrag(done transparently). Here also with more RAM you will notice better performance.
If you want to keep pagefile.sys( at least for those having less than 1024 MB RAM) use pagedefrag given by microsoft.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/utilities/pagedefrag.mspx
Download here.
http://download.sysinternals.com/Files/PageDefrag.zip
It will optimize page file and improve speed. I did not tell about this as it is little more technical.
I hope this clears the doubt.
There is one more thing I would like to tell.
If you are running windows and installing or deleting softwares it will create restore points before these events in addition to scheduled restore creation. Over a period you will notice that windows folder is bloated. That will reduce the speed. i
If you have run the windows smoothly after install of new programme for about a week or so you can safely delete all restore points but the last one.This option can be availed by right clicking C: drive (winxp os drive)
>>properties>>Disk Cleanup>>More Options>>System restore: Clean Up button.
Do this only if you don't want to go back to old state.
Hope all this help you.
Ensure power is uninterrupted during whole procees and at least 20 minutes back up is available to pause and shutdown.
Pankaj
