There's a file on my c: called "pagefile.sys." Is this a vital file? It's almost 1.9GB in size - I was wondering if I could delete it to make some room.

This is a 'file' generated/used by W2K (NT) as 'virtual' memory; that part of the drive behaves as though it was RAM... When physical RAM is fully used and there is need for more, infomation/data not currently being accessed can be 'swaped' to that location and thus free physical RAM for immediate use. That same data can be transferred back if need be into physical RAM at any time. If the Page-file (Swap-file) is being overly accessed/used then one would normally add extra RAM; extra RAM is the simplest way (usually the cheapest too) to improve overall performance of a given system. Without some area so defined (on the hard-drive) W2K (and also NT XP) will not run properly, especially when running applications that demand/use large areas of RAM. Size (and location) can be set by default or as you prefer. So it is not wise to remove it completely under normal circumstances. More info: http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci214300,00.html http://www.forensics-intl.com/def7.html All Windows OS have a similar 'file'; in '9x (ME) it's generally referred to a Swap-file'. More on that definition see: http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,289893,sid9_gci213077,00.html

1.9Gb is far too big for a page file. One this size will probably detriment the performance of your PC. Judging by your physical memory, you set the inital size of your pagefile to 256Mb and the maximum to 512Mb.

The pagefile.sys shouldn't be any larger than your Ram. If by chance you have h/d space issues like I did, you can change the location of the pagefile to another volume or partition on your computer or server.

I seem to recall that the recommended size for a Page-file (Swap-file) is 2.5 times the installed RAM. Although if one has humungous amounts of RAM installed, a large Pagfe-file becomes an unecessary reality, and so the formula falls down...?

i thought it 1.5x the ram size

I'm afraid you are all incorrect. For NT, it Ram plus 12MB. For Windows 2000 it's 1.5x Ram. But that is just the recommended settings as a starting point. What the page file and see if it is growing. If so, set the initial size larger. A huge pagefile will increase boot time because the pagefile is create at bootup. Making it too large will not necessarily improve performance.