1

I thought Process Explorer has every statistic possible. But I was looking for the pagefile size of a process and I can't find it. Maybe it's under a different name?

KeyC0de
  • 219
  • 1
  • 7
  • 19
  • I am quite certain Process Explorer does not have this option. It shows information provided by the OS and I don't believe it provides this. The PROCESS_MEMORY_COUNTERS structure has the PagefileUsage field but it actually contains the commit charge of the process which is something very different. – LMiller7 Nov 22 '20 at 01:29

2 Answers2

2

There is a difference between the reserved virtual space of a process and the amount that is actually allocated or used.

An operating system ensures that each process has a reserved amount of swap space that is enough for a total swap-out, in case its RAM memory is required for another purpose. But if enough RAM is available, this amount may never be actually allocated or used.

In Process Explorer, the following columns show these amounts:

  • Private Bytes:

    • Virtual memory reserved for the process alone
    • View > Select Columns > Process Memory > Private Bytes
    • Process properties: Performance > Virtual Memory > Private Bytes
    • Column in Sysinternals' pslist.exe -m output: Priv

  • Working Set

    • Physical memory used in total
    • View > Select Columns > Process Memory > Working Set Size
    • Process properties: Performance > Physical Memory > Working Set
    • Column in Sysinternals' pslist.exe -m output: WS

  • WS Private:

    • Physical memory that is process-only, meaning cannot be shared, which is counted as part of the Working Set.
    • View > Select Columns > Process Memory > WS Private Bytes
    • Process properties > Performance > Physical Memory > Working Set > WS Private
    • Column in Sysinternals' pslist.exe -m output: None

Reference: 2019-06-26, Mark Russinovich, Pushing the Limits of Windows: Virtual Memory (Archived here.) (First published on TechNet on Nov 17, 2008)

StackzOfZtuff
  • 1,493
  • 1
  • 15
  • 23
harrymc
  • 455,459
  • 31
  • 526
  • 924
1

Page File, set in Windows Settings (Advanced System Settings) is a setting for the entire system. There is one page file only. So there is not a Page File per application. That is why Process Explorer does not have this statistic.

You can see Page Pool which may be what you are thinking of.

Page File changes its contents based on memory usage.

What are "Commited Memory", "Cached", "Paged", "Not-paged pool" & How They are Different with "In-Use Memory"

John
  • 46,167
  • 4
  • 33
  • 54
  • I know this. But I'm talking about the usage a certain process is taking on the pagefile. I was reading [this](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/psapi/process-memory-usage-information) which sparked my interest and I asked the question. – KeyC0de Nov 21 '20 at 20:32
  • You may be thinking of Page Pool and I amended my answer accordingly. There is still just one Page File, – John Nov 21 '20 at 20:35
  • The poster is asking about the part of the pagefile allocated to one process. – harrymc Nov 21 '20 at 21:06
  • I understand but I was clarifying about how Page File works. To the very best of my knowledge, it is not related to applications (processes) but rather a pool for memory when needed. – John Nov 21 '20 at 21:13
  • It is very related - a process cannot start without swap space being reserved for its entire RAM. – harrymc Nov 22 '20 at 09:00