How to Create a Swap Partition

Creating a swap partition in Windows Vista improves the program's overall performance. A swap partition is a dedicated section of the hard drive that is used for the computer's virtual memory. When the RAM is filled with program resources on the computer, a virtual partition is used to save the information on the hard drive. As the information is needed, the operating system retrieves it from the virtual swap partition. Creating a swap partition is accomplished through the Drive Management console on a Windows Vista computer.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

1. Right-click the "My Computer" icon on the desktop and select "Manage."

2. Click the "Disk Management" icon on the left of the window. This opens the partition manager to increase or shrink disk space on each logical drive.

3. Right-click the drive that has available space and select "Shrink." Enter a new size for the partition. Once created, there is added "Unallocated" space shown in the Disk Manager.

4. Right-click the new free space and select "Create Simple Partition." Enter the size for your swap partition. Enter a drive letter for your new partition and click "Ok." This is your new swap file partition.

Assign Virtual Memory to the Swap Partition

5. Click the Windows "Start" button and select "Settings." Choose Control Panel from the menu. Double-click the "System " icon and click the "Advanced Settings" tab on the left of the window.

6. Click the "Advanced" tab. Click the "Settings" button in the "Performance" section. Click the "Advanced" tab in this window and click "Change" in the "Virtual Settings" section.

7. Enter the partition drive letter created in section one. You can also choose the size of the swap drive virtual memory saved on the partition. The standard size for virtual memory is 2.5 times the amount of the physical RAM in the computer.

8. Press the "Ok" button in the Virtual Memory dialog box and close the window. Click "Ok" at the general properties screen to save the settings.

9. Reboot the computer for the changes to take effect.

References

• windvis.com (partition creation)
• windvis.com (assigning memory to the swap drive)