WinDirStat

[anon]

As I said, it's a system-defined size if you haven't changed that.

I forgot that on Windows 7, the hibernation file is compressed to 75% of its usual size, hence it does look like I mixed them up...

[zot]

hiberfil has a size matching the amount of RAM you have installed. pagefile is usually a system managed size unless you've set the figures manually. Hibernation can be disabled if you don't use it. Completely disabling the paging file is often not recommended due to how Windows manages memory, although with eight gigs and a SSD drive it may become less of an issue.

You've got that backwards. pagefile.sys is the same size as your RAM.

Anon is correct -- at least as Windows XP goes, which recommends a computer's pagefile.sys size (if manually set) to be 150% the amount of RAM, and hyberfil.sys being 100% of RAM size. (Vista/7 could be quite different though.)

I've never understood the reasons for some of these Windows default settings, let alone agreed with them. Like Win9x/XP's default pagefile setting being a dynamic size, as this can greatly increase disk fragmentation (and hence slow down performance) on a nearly-full hard drive. Another counter-intuitive situation is the fact that disabling the page file can cause problems, regardless of how much ram the pc has. (considering that MS DOS did not require a page file - or even support one originally)

But since the wise sages of Microsoft (perhaps moonlighting as virus developers?) decided that people are better off if they do NOT know a file's extension, these other odd default-setting decisions by comparison seem minor.