3 data related questions. unrelated file in use, RAM, pagefile

[Micky]

3 data related questions.

I'm using Vista but it's a lot like w7, and these questions apply to
XP too, I think.

1) Coming out of Windows sleep or maybe FFox crashing, I'm looking at
Win Resource Monitor, Disk, and I see about 500,000,000 Bytes/minute
being read from C:\downloads\xp-downloads\COL18341.exe which has
nothing to do with anything. It's some sort of Photosmart Premier 7.5
for HP that I downloaded for some reason 3 years ago. I've never run
it. I don't know how long the transfer lasted but it was showing in
the Monitor window least 20 seconds. The program never started or
anything and after it was gone from the Monitor window, I saw no trace
of it. What the heck was happening and why? Why this file?

2) Even when I'm only using 80% of my RAM, I think I still see a lot
of reading or writing the pagefile. Not in volume of data maybe but
from more than one program, right now, explorer, lsass, firefox,
system, avgsnx, eudora, all reading from pagefile at the same time,
with 83% of RAM in use. Does that make sense?

3) Anyhow, the computer is functioning well almost all the time, but I
see a lot of reading and writing that pagefile If I had two more
gigs of RAM, 4 gigs total, and was running the same number of programs
and the same OS, would I expect to see no use of the pagefile?

[Paul]

Post by Micky
3 data related questions.
I'm using Vista but it's a lot like w7, and these questions apply to
XP too, I think.
1) Coming out of Windows sleep or maybe FFox crashing, I'm looking at
Win Resource Monitor, Disk, and I see about 500,000,000 Bytes/minute
being read from C:\downloads\xp-downloads\COL18341.exe which has
nothing to do with anything. It's some sort of Photosmart Premier 7.5
for HP that I downloaded for some reason 3 years ago. I've never run
it. I don't know how long the transfer lasted but it was showing in
the Monitor window least 20 seconds. The program never started or
anything and after it was gone from the Monitor window, I saw no trace
of it. What the heck was happening and why? Why this file?
2) Even when I'm only using 80% of my RAM, I think I still see a lot
of reading or writing the pagefile. Not in volume of data maybe but
from more than one program, right now, explorer, lsass, firefox,
system, avgsnx, eudora, all reading from pagefile at the same time,
with 83% of RAM in use. Does that make sense?
3) Anyhow, the computer is functioning well almost all the time, but I
see a lot of reading and writing that pagefile If I had two more
gigs of RAM, 4 gigs total, and was running the same number of programs
and the same OS, would I expect to see no use of the pagefile?

1) AV scan ?

2) Paging has to have a policy defined, as to
when the system is under pressure, and when
pages of not-recently-referenced memory
should be paged out. An action such as Firefox
using some memory to open another web page or tab,
might be sufficient to trigger the activity.
(Firefox can "balloon up and shrink again" as
part of its behavior, which can rock the boat
for the rest of the system.)

3) Perhaps.

Paul

[Micky]

[Default] On Wed, 13 Apr 2016 12:10:25 -0400, in

Post by Paul

Post by Micky
3 data related questions.
I'm using Vista but it's a lot like w7, and these questions apply to
XP too, I think.
1) Coming out of Windows sleep or maybe FFox crashing, I'm looking at
Win Resource Monitor, Disk, and I see about 500,000,000 Bytes/minute
being read from C:\downloads\xp-downloads\COL18341.exe which has
nothing to do with anything. It's some sort of Photosmart Premier 7.5
for HP that I downloaded for some reason 3 years ago. I've never run
it. I don't know how long the transfer lasted but it was showing in
the Monitor window least 20 seconds. The program never started or
anything and after it was gone from the Monitor window, I saw no trace
of it. What the heck was happening and why? Why this file?
2) Even when I'm only using 80% of my RAM, I think I still see a lot
of reading or writing the pagefile. Not in volume of data maybe but
from more than one program, right now, explorer, lsass, firefox,
system, avgsnx, eudora, all reading from pagefile at the same time,
with 83% of RAM in use. Does that make sense?
3) Anyhow, the computer is functioning well almost all the time, but I
see a lot of reading and writing that pagefile If I had two more
gigs of RAM, 4 gigs total, and was running the same number of programs
and the same OS, would I expect to see no use of the pagefile?

1) AV scan ?

That one thing was the only really wierd thing I've seen, but I'll do
the AV scan eventually.

Post by Paul
2) Paging has to have a policy defined, as to
when the system is under pressure, and when
pages of not-recently-referenced memory
should be paged out. An action such as Firefox
using some memory to open another web page or tab,
might be sufficient to trigger the activity.
(Firefox can "balloon up and shrink again" as
part of its behavior, which can rock the boat
for the rest of the system.)

Okay.

Post by Paul
3) Perhaps.

I'll let you know in a few months.

Post by Paul
Paul

[Wolf K]

On 2016-04-13 11:20, Micky wrote:
[...]

Post by Micky
3) Anyhow, the computer is functioning well almost all the time, but I
see a lot of reading and writing that pagefile If I had two more
gigs of RAM, 4 gigs total, and was running the same number of programs
and the same OS, would I expect to see no use of the pagefile?

Based on my experience, you would see a lot less paging, and the overall
performance will be faster. If you do any kind of medium- to heavy-duty
graphics/video editing, 6 or 8GB would be better. You should buy a 4GB
set from the same manufacturer to minimise odds of memory glitches such
as subtle mismatch in timing.

I infer you have an older machine. Adding RAM is the cheapest upgrade
until you decide you need a newer machine.

Have a good day,

[Micky]

[Default] On Wed, 13 Apr 2016 14:01:49 -0400, in

Post by Wolf K
[...]

Post by Micky
3) Anyhow, the computer is functioning well almost all the time, but I
see a lot of reading and writing that pagefile If I had two more
gigs of RAM, 4 gigs total, and was running the same number of programs
and the same OS, would I expect to see no use of the pagefile?

Based on my experience, you would see a lot less paging, and the overall
performance will be faster. If you do any kind of medium- to heavy-duty
graphics/video editing, 6 or 8GB would be better. You should buy a 4GB
set from the same manufacturer to minimise odds of memory glitches such
as subtle mismatch in timing.
I infer you have an older machine. Adding RAM is the cheapest upgrade
until you decide you need a newer machine.

This one was bought for a business, where it ran only 2 or 3 programs
most of the time, and it only has room for 2 gig, but I have 4 gig
bought for another machine. I just have to allot time to fix
everything up. Right now the space on the desk is being used for a
Mac, for a friend who died in February. I'm sending files to the
people he was maintaing the files for, and looking in his 40,000
emails for bank accounts and insurance. He should have left a better
list. And before that I have to learn to understand a Mac, at least
a little.

Post by Wolf K
Have a good day,

And you too.

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

Post by Micky
[Default] On Wed, 13 Apr 2016 14:01:49 -0400, in

Post by Wolf K
[...]

Post by Micky
3) Anyhow, the computer is functioning well almost all the time, but I
see a lot of reading and writing that pagefile If I had two more
gigs of RAM, 4 gigs total, and was running the same number of programs
and the same OS, would I expect to see no use of the pagefile?

Based on my experience, you would see a lot less paging, and the overall
performance will be faster. If you do any kind of medium- to heavy-duty

To elucidate (based on XP): have a look at the amount of memory actually
being used, in task manager (is it still called that in Vista?). I'd say
if it's consistently below about three-quarters of the physical RAM
available, then adding more will make little difference. My brother's
laptop was really struggling, but then that only had IIRR half a meg -
putting it up to 1 made a considerable difference: it was literally like
a new machine, in terms of speed. _This_ machine (the one I'm typing on)
only came with 1M, and I'd bought a 2M module (the most it could take)
at the same time, being led to believe XP would be a lot happier with
that - but I didn't get round to fitting it for some time; at the time I
did, my normal use was showing as mostly 7xx in Task Manager. Sure
enough, changing the memory module, when I finally got round to it,
didn't seem to make a lot of difference. (FWIW, my memory usage seems to
hover around 1.2xG these days; I _think_ the increase is mainly due to
Firefox, and/or the way I now use Firefox.)

Post by Micky

Post by Wolf K
graphics/video editing, 6 or 8GB would be better. You should buy a 4GB
set from the same manufacturer to minimise odds of memory glitches such
as subtle mismatch in timing.

(We've already established that the machine - or, at least, the OS -
can't use more than 4G. [But Wolf didn't know that when he wrote the
above.])

Post by Micky

Post by Wolf K
I infer you have an older machine. Adding RAM is the cheapest upgrade
until you decide you need a newer machine.

Agreed, with the above proviso re amount that the OS can use (and if the
machine isn't so old that you pay a _premium_ for suitable memory, which
is unlikely).

Post by Micky
This one was bought for a business, where it ran only 2 or 3 programs
most of the time, and it only has room for 2 gig, but I have 4 gig
bought for another machine. I just have to allot time to fix
everything up. Right now the space on the desk is being used for a

By "fix everything up", do you mean transfer the entire system - Vista
and all files - from the machine that has only room for 2G, to another
machine? Or do you mean that "This one" can _take_ that 4G, but you'll
have to take some modules out?
[]

Post by Micky

Post by Wolf K
Have a good day,

And you too.

From me to you both too.

[Micky]

[Default] On Sat, 16 Apr 2016 11:37:08 +0100, in
microsoft.public.windowsxp.general "J. P. Gilliver (John)"

Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)

Post by Micky
[Default] On Wed, 13 Apr 2016 14:01:49 -0400, in

Post by Wolf K
[...]

Post by Micky
3) Anyhow, the computer is functioning well almost all the time, but I
see a lot of reading and writing that pagefile If I had two more
gigs of RAM, 4 gigs total, and was running the same number of programs
and the same OS, would I expect to see no use of the pagefile?

Based on my experience, you would see a lot less paging, and the overall
performance will be faster. If you do any kind of medium- to heavy-duty

To elucidate (based on XP): have a look at the amount of memory actually
being used, in task manager (is it still called that in Vista?). I'd say

Yes.

Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)
if it's consistently below about three-quarters of the physical RAM
available, then adding more will make little difference. My brother's
laptop was really struggling, but then that only had IIRR half a meg -
putting it up to 1 made a considerable difference: it was literally like
a new machine, in terms of speed. _This_ machine (the one I'm typing on)
only came with 1M, and I'd bought a 2M module (the most it could take)
at the same time, being led to believe XP would be a lot happier with
that - but I didn't get round to fitting it for some time; at the time I
did, my normal use was showing as mostly 7xx in Task Manager. Sure
enough, changing the memory module, when I finally got round to it,
didn't seem to make a lot of difference. (FWIW, my memory usage seems to
hover around 1.2xG these days; I _think_ the increase is mainly due to
Firefox, and/or the way I now use Firefox.)

I'm at 67% of 2 gigs now. I have had many times when everything is
going well at 95%, so I figured when it was 70% or lower, it should
surely be okay. XP was no better than Vista. Maybe this happens
when I was up at 95% AND there is still a problem with freeing up**
memory, even though the Task Manager says 67%.

Definitely I've noticed that when I open too many tabs and Firefox
starts to be sluggish, to give, I forget the words in the title bar
"not processing"?, and to even not let me maximize a minimized FF
window, even when it works for a while and I close tabs and even
windows, it rarely helps, even when the % of used memory drops a lot.


**I remember when freeing memory was really bad in win3.1, maybe, and
got fixed in win98, but that does mean every part of it was fixed.


This is not to say I haven't made big progress. Got rid of Previous
Versions, got rid of automatic Windows Update, and recently added
Session Manager to Firefox.

That's been downloaded 4 million times and has almost a 5 star rating,
but one problem: I assumed since a major purpose was to save windows
and tabs during a crash that that was the default. Then I ran Seach
EVerything searching for C:\ sessionstore and sorting on
date, and I saw that the two latest copies were 14 hours old, despite
many changes to the tabs.

I found I had to do one or both of these:
1 On the Saving & Restoring tab of General of Options,
check Create a new backup every n minutes.
2 At the start of my FF session, save the session (which had tabs
saved by FF itself) and at the bottom where it asks if I want to do
this repeatedly, put in a value of n minutes.

Maybe only the first was needed but since I didn't do it, I could
correct things in the middle of a session by doing the second.

After doing the second thing above, the newest sessionstore file was
never more than n minutes old. Except when I hadn't used FF, hadn't
focused on it and changed something. Except once that I don't know
the reason for yet.

I haven't had another crash or shutdown yet, so I still have no
example of it working. If it doesn't after all, you'll probably hear
about it.

More below

Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)

Post by Micky

Post by Wolf K
graphics/video editing, 6 or 8GB would be better. You should buy a 4GB
set from the same manufacturer to minimise odds of memory glitches such
as subtle mismatch in timing.

(We've already established that the machine - or, at least, the OS -
can't use more than 4G. [But Wolf didn't know that when he wrote the
above.])

Post by Micky

Post by Wolf K
I infer you have an older machine. Adding RAM is the cheapest upgrade
until you decide you need a newer machine.

Agreed, with the above proviso re amount that the OS can use (and if the
machine isn't so old that you pay a _premium_ for suitable memory, which
is unlikely).

Post by Micky
This one was bought for a business, where it ran only 2 or 3 programs
most of the time, and it only has room for 2 gig, but I have 4 gig
bought for another machine. I just have to allot time to fix
everything up. Right now the space on the desk is being used for a

By "fix everything up", do you mean transfer the entire system - Vista
and all files - from the machine that has only room for 2G, to another
machine? Or do you mean that "This one" can _take_ that 4G, but you'll
have to take some modules out?

No, not fixing the 2 gig machine (though the time I've spent doing
that has taught me plenty for the next machine)

I meant the new machine
Putting the memory in the new machine (10 minutes).
Copying the backup of my XP machine (a Dell) to a new HDD and
installing in the new better machine (also a Dell) and seeing if it
works. (2 or 3 hours. I work slowly)
I've been told it might work because they are both Dells, but if
it doesn't I want to use Acronis True Image Home PC Backup and
Recovery *Plus*, which promises to move a system to a box with
different hardware. That will take me a lot of time.
Adding the new video card I bought, so that I can run flight
simulator software, so I can fly the battery operated plane someone
gave me. I found a club and went to their field one day, and a guy
was nice enough to let me fly his plane for a couple minutes, but not
to take off or land. They told me about a simulator, and I bought
the last control box I could find online. (I hope they've made more
by now. The name escapes me but everyone at that field recommended
it.) With the simple software, I keep crashing, and better software
won't run on the built-in video. (90 minutes)
I think the helicopter drones are a lot easier to fly than the
airplane drones.

And then maybe upgrading to win7. I have a CD. I want to get
that done in time for the free upgrade to 10, if I'm eligible.

Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)
[]

Post by Micky

Post by Wolf K
Have a good day,

And you too.

From me to you both too.

Yes, and from me to you. LOL

[Paul in Houston TX]

Post by Micky
3 data related questions.
I'm using Vista but it's a lot like w7, and these questions apply to
XP too, I think.

32 bit or 64 bit?

[Micky]

[Default] On Wed, 13 Apr 2016 14:49:28 -0500, in
microsoft.public.windowsxp.general Paul in Houston TX

Post by Paul in Houston TX

Post by Micky
3 data related questions.
I'm using Vista but it's a lot like w7, and these questions apply to
XP too, I think.

32 bit or 64 bit?

32 bit.

[Paul in Houston TX]

Post by Micky
[Default] On Wed, 13 Apr 2016 14:49:28 -0500, in
microsoft.public.windowsxp.general Paul in Houston TX

Post by Paul in Houston TX

Post by Micky
3 data related questions.
I'm using Vista but it's a lot like w7, and these questions apply to
XP too, I think.

32 bit or 64 bit?

32 bit.

Max on a 32 bit system is ~4.3g (2^32). Able to use is ~3.3g.
Assuming that your computer can handle over 2g ram I would
definitely install 4g total, asap. Over that is a waste of money.

[Micky]

On Wed, 13 Apr 2016 19:19:11 -0500, Paul in Houston TX

Post by Paul in Houston TX

Post by Micky
[Default] On Wed, 13 Apr 2016 14:49:28 -0500, in
microsoft.public.windowsxp.general Paul in Houston TX

Post by Paul in Houston TX

Post by Micky
3 data related questions.
I'm using Vista but it's a lot like w7, and these questions apply to
XP too, I think.

32 bit or 64 bit?

32 bit.

Max on a 32 bit system is ~4.3g (2^32). Able to use is ~3.3g.
Assuming that your computer can handle over 2g ram I would
definitely install 4g total, asap. Over that is a waste of money.

Thanks.

[Yousuf Khan]

Post by Micky
3 data related questions.
I'm using Vista but it's a lot like w7, and these questions apply to
XP too, I think.
1) Coming out of Windows sleep or maybe FFox crashing, I'm looking at
Win Resource Monitor, Disk, and I see about 500,000,000 Bytes/minute
being read from C:\downloads\xp-downloads\COL18341.exe which has
nothing to do with anything. It's some sort of Photosmart Premier 7.5
for HP that I downloaded for some reason 3 years ago. I've never run
it. I don't know how long the transfer lasted but it was showing in
the Monitor window least 20 seconds. The program never started or
anything and after it was gone from the Monitor window, I saw no trace
of it. What the heck was happening and why? Why this file?

Sounds like an anti-virus scan to me. I used to see my AV scanning some
weird irrelevant files at random times when I was least expecting it.
Usually it was scanning some files in my Thunderbird directories. I got
rid of the problem by putting an exclusion in the AV setup for those
folders.

Post by Micky
2) Even when I'm only using 80% of my RAM, I think I still see a lot
of reading or writing the pagefile. Not in volume of data maybe but
from more than one program, right now, explorer, lsass, firefox,
system, avgsnx, eudora, all reading from pagefile at the same time,
with 83% of RAM in use. Does that make sense?

Yes, it makes perfect sense, at 83% usage, you're probably actually over
100% usage, and programs are having to store or retrieve their data from
the pagefile. It's pegged at 83% simply because some of that RAM space
needs to be used as disk cache, and so is not available to programs to
use. As disk cache, you're still actually using that "free space".

If you look under Resource Monitor, under the Memory tab, you'll see a
horizontal stacked bar graph with 5 categories represented: Hardware
Reserved, In Use (this what the programs use), Modified (this is also
the programs), Standby (this is the disk cache), and Free (actually
unused RAM). In my case, I have 16GB of RAM, and it's shown as only 32%
in use: the vast majority is being shown as Standby (9361 MB), while
actually Free is only 1697 MB.

If you want to know which programs are using the pagefile the most, then
sort your memory list by Hard Faults/sec, that tells you which programs
are looking for a particular piece of data in RAM and finding it's not
there, and having to go to the disk to retrieve it instead.

Post by Micky
3) Anyhow, the computer is functioning well almost all the time, but I
see a lot of reading and writing that pagefile If I had two more
gigs of RAM, 4 gigs total, and was running the same number of programs
and the same OS, would I expect to see no use of the pagefile?

You won't see no use of the pagefile, as even just the act of loading a
program for the first time shows up as a hard fault. But it will reduce
your hard faults quite a bit. Actually these days even 4GB is not even
enough for the programs these days. You actually need a mimimum of 6GB
to have a comfortable system, but in that case you also need the 64-bit
version of your OS.

Yousuf Khan

[Micky]

Great post. Thank you. I'll try answer in more detail later, esp. if
manage to check out the meters you mention.

[Default] On Wed, 20 Apr 2016 09:46:41 -0400, in
microsoft.public.windowsxp.general Yousuf Khan

Post by Yousuf Khan

Post by Micky
3 data related questions.
I'm using Vista but it's a lot like w7, and these questions apply to
XP too, I think.
1) Coming out of Windows sleep or maybe FFox crashing, I'm looking at
Win Resource Monitor, Disk, and I see about 500,000,000 Bytes/minute
being read from C:\downloads\xp-downloads\COL18341.exe which has
nothing to do with anything. It's some sort of Photosmart Premier 7.5
for HP that I downloaded for some reason 3 years ago. I've never run
it. I don't know how long the transfer lasted but it was showing in
the Monitor window least 20 seconds. The program never started or
anything and after it was gone from the Monitor window, I saw no trace
of it. What the heck was happening and why? Why this file?

Sounds like an anti-virus scan to me. I used to see my AV scanning some
weird irrelevant files at random times when I was least expecting it.
Usually it was scanning some files in my Thunderbird directories. I got
rid of the problem by putting an exclusion in the AV setup for those
folders.

Post by Micky
2) Even when I'm only using 80% of my RAM, I think I still see a lot
of reading or writing the pagefile. Not in volume of data maybe but
from more than one program, right now, explorer, lsass, firefox,
system, avgsnx, eudora, all reading from pagefile at the same time,
with 83% of RAM in use. Does that make sense?

Yes, it makes perfect sense, at 83% usage, you're probably actually over
100% usage, and programs are having to store or retrieve their data from
the pagefile. It's pegged at 83% simply because some of that RAM space
needs to be used as disk cache, and so is not available to programs to
use. As disk cache, you're still actually using that "free space".
If you look under Resource Monitor, under the Memory tab, you'll see a
horizontal stacked bar graph with 5 categories represented: Hardware
Reserved, In Use (this what the programs use), Modified (this is also
the programs), Standby (this is the disk cache), and Free (actually
unused RAM). In my case, I have 16GB of RAM, and it's shown as only 32%
in use: the vast majority is being shown as Standby (9361 MB), while
actually Free is only 1697 MB.
If you want to know which programs are using the pagefile the most, then
sort your memory list by Hard Faults/sec, that tells you which programs
are looking for a particular piece of data in RAM and finding it's not
there, and having to go to the disk to retrieve it instead.

Post by Micky
3) Anyhow, the computer is functioning well almost all the time, but I
see a lot of reading and writing that pagefile If I had two more
gigs of RAM, 4 gigs total, and was running the same number of programs
and the same OS, would I expect to see no use of the pagefile?

You won't see no use of the pagefile, as even just the act of loading a
program for the first time shows up as a hard fault. But it will reduce
your hard faults quite a bit. Actually these days even 4GB is not even
enough for the programs these days. You actually need a mimimum of 6GB
to have a comfortable system, but in that case you also need the 64-bit
version of your OS.
Yousuf Khan