How to change virtual memory size on Windows 10

Virtual memory is essential on Windows 10. By default, the OS will manage the virtual memory on its own. It will set a value based on what it thinks is best and how much RAM you have. You can however, change virtual memory size on Windows 10 to whatever you like. You can decrease or increase it. You should know that increasing it requires that you have that much free space on your disk. Here’s how you can change virtual memory size on Windows 10.

Change virtual memory size

Open the Control Panel and go to System and Security>System. In the column on the left, click Advanced System Settings.

On the System Properties window (window 1 in the screenshot below), go to the Advanced tab. Click ‘Settings’ under the ‘Performance’ section. This will open the Performance options window (window 2 in the screenshot below). Go to the Advanced tab, and click ‘Change’ under the ‘Virtual Memory’ section. The Virtual Memory window will open (window 3 in the screenshot below). Uncheck the ‘Automatically manage paging file size for all devices’ option. You can allocate virtual memory for each drive.

Make sure the C drive is selected and select the ‘Custom size’ option. You can now enter how much space the virtual memory should take up. There is a minimum limit which is 16MB and that’s really, really small. There’s also a recommended size which is quite small and then there’s the current size of the virtual drive.

Keep the above limits in mind and then change the size of the virtual memory. When you’re done, click OK/Apply to close all three windows. You will see a prompt telling you that a system restart is necessary in order to apply the change. Accept the prompt, and restart your system to change virtual memory size.

Increasing the virtual memory size will make your system run smoother but within reason. If you have trouble running apps that are RAM heavy, increasing the virtual memory should be able to help if not solve the problem. Decreasing its size may have a negative impact on your system’s performance. In fact, setting it to the recommended size might not be a good idea. The recommended size is considerably less than what Windows 10 sets by default but that doesn’t mean you should actually listen to the recommendation.

If you have the space to spare, adding a little extra GBs to the virtual memory isn’t a bad idea. It’s easy to change back if it doesn’t deliver any improved performance so there’s no harm done.