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the NEW "Advanced" tab that appears. Look for the section marked "Virtual Memory" and click "Change."

You'll see a list of all your installed hard drives. Click once on the drive you just put in (your boot drive will be C:). Now click the option below that reads "System Managed Size." If you're more technical, go ahead and set the numbers yourself - the minimum should be at least equal to the amount of physical memory in your computer and I usually use 1.5 or 2x that for the max.

Now click "Set." Now you want to click on C: in the list and then click "No paging file." Click set again, and then click "yes" and "ok" until you're back out of all the screens. Your paging file is now NOT on your boot drive.

Why does this help Windows run better? When Windows runs out of space to do things in your physical ram (memory) it makes the room it needs by temporarily dumping some things onto the hard drive - into your paging file. Since that file gets written to pretty often, it 1) ties up your hard drive a bit and 2) causes fragmentation. By keeping the paging file on another drive, you free up your main drive and help it stay defragmented.

This is also a good way to improve Photoshop performance. If you use it, go to "Edit," then to "Preferences," then to "Plug Ins and Scratch Disks." Under "Scratch Disks," click the drop down and select the new drive letter Windows added. This will give Photoshop a little more "wiggle room" when you're working on large files.

You've saved a hard drive from a wretched fate and given your PC a little boost at the same time. Congrats!

Learn more about this author, Lee Mathews.
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