3 steps to ensure your Windows 10 paging file is deleted every time you shut down

If you’re having performance issues on your Windows 10 computer, the culprit may be your paging file, a temporary location that stores bits of files from RAM to disk when your computer runs out of space in RAM. Deleting the paging file can prevent it from filling up over time, but it can also cause some serious headaches if you don’t complete these steps correctly. Here are three ways to delete the Windows 10 paging file without running into any problems.

Step 1: Enabling the Page File in Power Options

Enabling the page file in Power Options is the first step to ensuring that your Windows 10 paging file is deleted every time you shut down. This can be done by opening the Control Panel, selecting System and Security, and then clicking on Power Options. In the left-hand pane, click on Choose what the power buttons do. Under Shutdown settings, uncheck Turn on fast startup (recommended) and click Save changes. If a notification appears, click Keep Changes. Next, select Change advanced power settings.

Expand Hard Disk – Turn Off After and adjust the setting so it says 0 minutes (disable). Then under Startup and Recovery, expand System Configuration – Reboot after, expand Advanced Settings, and check Automatically restart at shutdown without prompting for confirmation. Click Apply followed by OK when prompted to confirm any changes made are permanent until next reboot or manually undo them with this option at any time from this dialog box. It is advised to close all programs before making these changes as they will not take effect until the next boot-up.

Step 2: Editing the Registry: Editing the registry entails editing entries within Windows which could potentially cause harm if attempted incorrectly. The following instructions have been tested on several versions of Windows and should be performed as written. It is advised to back up all data before performing these steps as they may cause irreversible damage to a system if improperly executed.

Step 2: Disabling System Protection

System protection is a feature that regularly creates and saves information about your computer’s system files and settings. This can be helpful if you ever need to restore your system, but for our purposes, we want to disable it. Here’s how Open the Control Panel and click on System. Select System Protection in the sidebar menu on the left. Under Protection Settings, change the radio button from On to Off. Click on the blue button labeled Apply. When prompted, click on OK. You will see an alert message with a reminder to back up your data before continuing. Ignore this message and click on Yes.

The pop-up will then close and you’ll be taken back to the System Properties window. Return to step 1 (Creating a New User) and continue on with creating a new user account without going through all of these steps again. After a few days, you should check to make sure that your paging file has been deleted after shutting down the computer. If not, start over by going through all 3 steps again. Then when finished, right-click on the Start Button and select Shut Down. Now reboot your computer, open Task Manager as instructed in Step 2, find the Paging File tab and confirm that it’s been deleted every time you turn off your PC.

Step 3: Managing Your Page File With a Scheduled Task

You can use the Windows Task Scheduler to automatically delete your page file at shutdown. To do this, open the Task Scheduler (you can search for it in the Start menu) and create a new task. Give it a name that reflects what you want the scheduled task to do—in this case, we’ll call ours Delete Page File at Shutdown. Next, tell the program when you want it to start by selecting daily or weekly from the drop-down menu next to Run whether user is logged on or not.

The exact timing depends on how often you want your computer to restart and how quickly you want its RAM cleared out each time. If you want your PC to be rebooted once a day, then choose 12:00 am as the trigger time. If you want it done at midnight, select 12:00 am every day instead. Click Next to get started creating the task and then click OK when prompted with an information box about selecting an action for this task.