Change the Size of the Virtual Disk Cache (Windows 95/98/Me)

Registry Guide for Windows
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Registry tweaks, tricks & hacks to optimize, enhance and secure Microsoft Windows.

Change the Size of the Virtual Disk Cache (Windows 95/98/Me)
Category: Home > Windows > File System > Caching and Memory

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This tweak allows you control the minimum and maximum amount of memory being allocated as disk cache. It can be used to speed up your system and possibly avoid some memory problems.

Using notepad or another text editor, open your SYSTEM.INI file from your Windows directory.

Find the section starting with [vcache], and add the following two lines, or modify them if they already exist.

MinFileCache=0
MaxFileCache=4096

These values set the amount of memory in kilobytes to be used for disk caching, if you have more the 16Mb of RAM you may want to increase the MaxFileCache size, to about 25% of your total RAM (i.e. if you have 128Mb use "MaxFileCache=32768")

Restart Windows for the change to take effect.

Note: If you are receiving an error like "Error: An I/O subsystem driver failed to load" try increasing the maximum size to 6144.

Settings:

Name: MinFileCache, MaxFileCache

Disclaimer: Modifying the registry can cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. We cannot guarantee that problems resulting from modifications to the registry can be solved. Use the information provided at your own risk.

Last Modified: May 12, 2002

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