Moving the Windows NT Default Paging and Spool File

ID: Q123747

The information in this article applies to:

SUMMARY

This article describes how to move the paging file and print spooler to another hard disk. You may want to do this if you install a new hard disk that is faster than the hard disk currently storing your paging and print spooler files.


MORE INFORMATION

There are three sections of this article:

  1. Moving the Paging File


  2. Moving the Default Spool Directory for All Printers


  3. Moving the Default Spool Directory on a Per Printer Basis and Creating Multiple Spool Directories


Section 1: Moving the Paging File

  1. In Control Panel, double-click System.


  2. Choose Virtual Memory.


  3. Set the Initial Size (MB) and Maximum size values to 0 (zero) and then choose Set.


  4. Select the new drive that you want to use to store the paging file.


  5. Set Initial Size (MB) and Maximum size. For the Initial size, Microsoft recommends using the "Total Page File Size for All Drives" Recommended Value.


  6. Choose Set and then choose OK twice.


  7. Choose Restart Now


Section 2: Moving the Default Spool Directory for All Printers

NOTE: Following this procedure applies a new default spool directory to all printers configured on this system.

Windows NT 3.5 and Windows NT 3.51:

  1. Start Registry Editor.


  2. From the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE subtree, go to the following subkey:

    \SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Printers


  3. Select the Printers key.


  4. From the Edit menu choose Add Value.


  5. Add a value using the following information:
    Value Name: DefaultSpoolDirectory
    Data Type : REG_SZ
    String : <full path to printer spool directory>


  6. Exit Registry Editor.


  7. Go to File Manager, select the drive on which the new spool directory will be created and then create the directory on the drive defined in the Registry value DefaultSpoolDirectory. For example, if in the Registry under DefaultSpoolDirectory the value "F:\SPOOL" was entered, then a directory called SPOOL would need to be created on the F: drive.


  8. If the new directory is located on an NTFS drive, please assign the appropriate permissions to the spool directory. Q137503 describes the appropriate entries.


  9. Stop and Restart the Spooler service in the Services section of Control Panel.


  10. To verify correct operation, first, open File Manager and highlight the spool directory(s) on the appropriate drive. Then open an application, like Write, with a document over 100Kbytes in size. print the document and, while printing, immediately press ALT-TAB to move back to the File Manager window. There should be two files now appearing on the right hand side window under the spool directory. They should have extensions of .SHD and .SPL. Once the print job is completed these two will be deleted by NT. If no files appear, try printing a larger file. Then verify Registry settings and NTFS permissions (Q137503) if spool directory resides on NTFS partition.


Windows NT 4.0:

  1. In Control Panel, double-click Printers.


  2. On the File menu, click Server Properties, and then select the Advanced tab.


  3. Type the desired path in the Spool Folder box, and then click OK.


Section 3: Moving the Default Spool Directory on a Per Printer Basis and

Creating Multiple Spool Directories

NOTE: Following this procedure applies a new default spool directory to a specific printer configured on this system. If you want to define this for all printers, use procedures listed in Section 2.

  1. Start Registry Editor.


  2. From the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE subtree, go to the following subkey:

    \SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Printers \<specific printer>\SpoolDirectory


  3. Select the Printers key.


  4. From the Edit menu choose Add Value.


  5. Add a value using the following information:
    Value Name: SpoolDirectory Data Type : REG_SZ String : <full path to printer spool directory>


  6. Exit Registry Editor.


  7. Go to File Manager, select the drive on which the new spool directories will be created and then create the directories on the drive defined in each of the printer's Registry value SpoolDirectory. For example, if in the Registry under SpoolDirectory the value "F:\SPOOL\PRINTQ1" was entered, then a directory called SPOOL would need to be created on the F: drive and then a subdirectory under SPOOL called PRINTQ1 would need to be created.


  8. If the new directories are located on an NTFS drive, please assign the appropriate permissions to the spool directories. Q137503 describes the appropriate entries.


  9. Stop and Restart the Spooler service in the Services section of Control Panel.


  10. To verify correct operation, first, open File Manager and highlight the spool directory(s) on the appropriate drive. Then open an application, like Write, with a document over 100Kbytes in size. print the document and, while printing, immediately press ALT-TAB to move back to the File Manager window. There should be two files now appearing on the right hand side window under the spool directory. They should have extensions of .SHD and .SPL. Once the print job is completed these two will be deleted by NT. If no files appear, try printing a larger file. Then verify Registry settings and NTFS permissions (Q137503) if spool directory resides on NTFS partition.




NOTE: Neither DefaultSpoolDirectory nor SpoolDirectory are set by default. The global default location for all printers spool files is %SYSTEMROOT%\SYSTEM32\SPOOL\PRINTERS. DefaultSpoolDirectory defines a new global default location for all printers to put their spool files. SpoolDirectory defines a new printer-specific location for spool files that overrides the global default on a per-printer basis.

An actual directory name needs to be specified; specifying only the root directory (for example: "C:\") won't work. Instead, you must use C:\<directory>, where "<directory>" is the name of the directory you want to use. If you do specify the root directory as the default spool location, spooling reverts back to the %systemroot%\system32\spool\printer directory.

The Windows NT Resource Kit documentation does not indicate this nor does it explicitly state that only a directory will work (see p.226 & pp.637- 640).

Additional query words: pagefile 


Keywords          : kbprint kbhowto 
Version           : winnt:3.50 3.51 4.0
Platform          : winnt 
Issue type        :

Last Reviewed: February 13, 1999