Clear Pagefile On System Shutdown Clear pagefile to enhance system security

[abartar 0]

While it is generally not necessary for most users, some of us want to clear the pagefile on shutdown.

 

PAGEFILE:

Windows uses this file as virtual memory / extra ram. e.g. If you are working on a highly confidential MS Word doc. When you load this document it is loaded into ram. To save ram windows places certain items in the pagefile. With some effort, the pagefile can then be opened and the document can be extracted as well as any other open program or files. -- A BIG SECURITY RISK for confidential data.

 

However Microsoft has implemented a feature that will clear the page file but they do not have it enabled by default.

 

Please note, this will significantly increase the amount of time it takes to shut down your computer depending on the size of your pagefile. ---> but worth for computers having confidential data.

 

 

1. Start Regedit.

2. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management

3. Select ClearPageFileAtShutdown from the list on the right.

4. Right click on it and select Modify.

5. Change the value to 1 to enable.

6. Reboot your computer.

[Quatrux 4]

I saw this kind of a feature in TweakXP to clear the pagefile on reboot, maybe it is useful or maybe not, but as I am the only user on my computer I don't really care, I just need that my computer would shutdown faster, besides I have a lot of RAM and I have turned of pagefile at all and don't have any problems..

[KDEWolf 0]

It was nice to remember this. I had it activated a long time ago (different from Quatrux, I used to share a long time ago the computer with some... 'careless' dumb people). Then I recently had an HD crash, and run some important registry backups, one of them having this option turned on. Lately I was quite annoyed by the time it was taking to shutdown for some time (since it starts up damn quick, after all it's an almost clean install), and couldn't realize what was happening... Now I just disabled it, since nobody uses this computer anymore, besides me. Thanks (even if it did help backwards hehe)!