" I used the built-in Windows XP-Pro defragg last night and it completely rebuilt my page file (swap file) to a contiguous 4GB segment." wierd, never does it for me. then again i dont run into this much as its generally the first thing i do after i install windows: i uninstall unneccessary windows components, disable the pagefile, rearrange all of the windows files in order that they are loaded at boot to optimize booting, then create a pagefile with a locked size. then install antivirus, disable services, and so on. either way you should have a locked pagefile, since if windows is continually altering the size it is bound to get fragmented. its usually not the end of the world but ive seen BADLY fragmented pagefiles - with over a dozen pieces scattered all over the drive, heh.