Virtual memory

Copyright (C) Caldera, Inc. 1993, 1998. All rights reserved.  Version 1.0

Use the Virtual Memory dialog box to view or change swap file settings. This dialog box allows you to install permanent swap files on Stacker compressed drives. The swap file settings control how your system uses virtual memory.

Use this dialog box in the same way as the standard Control Panel - 386 Enhanced - Virtual Memory dialog box. Using the standard Virtual Memory dialog box you cannot create permanent swap files on stacker compressed drives.

Current Setting Area shows the drive, size, and type of the swap file currently being used.

When you choose the Change button, the Virtual memory dialog box expands, displaying these additional settings:

Drive	This option lists the disk drives on your computer and the network drives to which you are connected.

Type	This option lists the types of swap files you can create depending on the drive you have selected.

Space Available	This value shows the total amount of space available (in KB) on the selected drive.

Maximum Size 	This value shows the maximum size for the permanent swap file.

Recommended Size	This value shows the recommended value you should specify for a permanent swap file.

New Size 	Use this option to specify the size of your swap file.

Use 32-Bit Access	Use this check box to turn 32-bit disk access on or off.


swap file

A hidden file on a hard disk or network drive that MS Windows uses for swapping information from memory to the disk or drive.


virtual memory

The space on your hard disk or network drive that MS Windows uses as if it were actually memory. MS Windows does this using swap files.


Stacker compressed drive

A Stacker compressed drive is a logical drive created on your existing hard disk using the Novell DOS Setup utility. The data is compressed before being written to, and decompressed when read from, the Stacked drive, increasing your hard disk capacity by up to twice its original size.


Drive

This option lists the standard hard disk drives and Stacker compressed drives on your computer, and the network drives to which you are connected. The standard hard disks are labelled hard disk, Stacker compressed drives are labelled Stacker, and network drives are labelled network.

Open the list, and then select the drive where you want the swap file to be located.

The available settings in the Type list and Size Box change, depending on whether you select a disk or a network drive. For example, if you select a network drive, the Permanent setting used to create a permanent swap file is not available.


Type

This option lists the types of swap files you can create depending on the drive you selected.

Open the list, and then select the type of swap file (Temporary, Permanent, or None) that you want to create.

Using a permanent swap file improves the speed of MS Windows because the swap file is contiguous and accessing it generally takes less time than accessing a non-contiguous temporary swap file. Because a permanent swap file must be contiguous, you cannot create a permanent swap file larger than the largest contiguous free block of space on your hard disk.

Depending on the type of swap file you select, the Maximum Size and Recommended Size values may or may not appear in the dialog box. For example, if you choose to create a temporary swap file on a network drive, Maximum Size does not appear.

Note that you cannot create a temporary swap file on Stacker compressed drives.


Maximum Size

This value shows the maximum size for the permanent swap file. This size is determined by the amount of contiguous disk space found on the selected drive. If the selected drive is a Stacker drive, then the value shows the size of the largest contiguous physical disk space.

If you select Temporary or None as the swap file type, this information does not appear in the dialog box.


Space Available

This value shows the total amount of space available (in KB) on the selected drive. If the selected drive is a Stacker drive, the value shown represents the estimated available space which is always larger than the physical available space.


Recommended Size

This value shows the recommended value you should specify for a permanent swap file to achieve the best performance.

If you select Temporary as the swap file type, this information displays the recommended maximum size to which the temporary swap file should grow. This value reflects the most efficient use of your disk, based on the available disk space.

If you select None as the swap file type, this information does not appear in the dialog box.


New Size

Use this option to specify the size of your swap file in KB.

Type a value.

If you are creating a permanent swap file, this is the amount of space on the selected disk that will be allocated to the file. If you are creating a temporary swap file, the swap file cannot grow to exceed this value.


Use 32-bit Access

Use this check box to turn 32-bit disk access on or off.

Select this check box if you only have a small amount of free memory and you want increased performance when you are using the DOS Prompt.

When this box is selected, you can run more instances of the DOS Prompt and switch between them faster. If you have more than one instance of  the DOS Prompt running and the applications running in them are all accessing disk drives, the access time is faster when using 32-bit disk access.

When you install MS Windows, the MS Windows Setup program checks to determine whether your hard disk controller is compatible with the 32-bit disk-access feature. If it is compatible, the 32-bit Disk Access check box appears.


Virtual Memory dialog box

The standard way of changing swap file settings is to activate the Control Panel 386 Enhanced icon, and press the Virtual Memory button. You can use this dialog box to change swap file settings, but you will not be able to create a swap file on Stacker compressed drives.