Windows

Automatically Clear The Contents Of The Pagefile (2k/XP)

Posted by on May 13, 2005 | 2 Comments

When multiple users share computers, privacy becomes an issue because you don’t want the next person who sits at the computer to know what you were doing. You can make Windows secure and ensure your privacy in a network environment by opening the local security policy on your PC. In Windows XP/2k:

  1. Open the Start menu, select Control Panel, and double-click Administrative Tools.

  2. Double-click the Local Security Policy applet.
  3. Expand Local Policies in the left panel and select Security Options.
  4. In Windows XP, scroll to the bottom of the list and double-click the option to Shutdown: Clear Virtual Memory Pagefile. For Windows 2000, double click the security option to Clear virtual memory pagefile when system shuts down.
  5. Select the Enabled radio button and click OK.

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  • Larry Miller

    This article is rather misleading. In itself clearing the pagefile on shutdown will do very little for security. Many things must be considered if you wish to improve security, there are no quick fixes. Windows locks the pagefile for exclusive use while running so it cannot be accessed by any application. Reading the pagefile would require booting into an alternate operating system, such as a DOS bootdisk with the necessary software. Finding anything of value in several hundred MB of raw data would be very time consuming.

    If you deal with highly sensitive data it may be appropriate to clear the pagefile on shutdown. But this should be done as a part of a well thought out security policy. In itself it would be of little value.

    It should also be noted that clearing the pagefile will considerably lengthen shutdown times, particularly if the pagefile is large.