Win 11: Pagefile disabled but virtual memory still exists

Question

On Windows 11 system, I disabled pagefile. Subsequently, 'Performance Options' shows 'Total paging file size for all drives: 0MB'. However, the virtual memory is still not set to zero and affects the performance. The following output from the systeminfo command shows the same:

OS Name:                   Microsoft Windows 11 Pro
OS Version:                10.0.22631 N/A Build 22631
OS Manufacturer:           Microsoft Corporation
OS Configuration:          Standalone Workstation
System Manufacturer:       Dell Inc.
System Model:              OptiPlex 7780 AIO
System Type:               x64-based PC
BIOS Version:              Dell Inc. 1.25.0, 16-Aug-23
Windows Directory:         C:\WINDOWS
System Directory:          C:\WINDOWS\system32
Boot Device:               \Device\HarddiskVolume1
Total Physical Memory:     16,071 MB
Available Physical Memory: 11,234 MB
Virtual Memory: Max Size:  16,071 MB
Virtual Memory: Available: 9,582 MB
Virtual Memory: In Use:    6,489 MB
Page File Location(s):     N/A

Does this mean Virtual memory is taken from RAM itself?

Answer 1

Yes, the only backing store for virtual memory in this case is physical RAM or a file (in the case where a program maps a file into its address space).

On Windows, the virtual memory maximum size (also known as the commit limit) is the sum of physical memory and the page files.

Note that having virtual memory isn't a negative thing and doesn't degrade performance on Windows, it's just the fundamental model of most operating systems, including Windows.

From Mark Russinovich's post Testing the Limits of Windows: Virtual Memory

When a process commits a region of virtual memory, the operating system guarantees that it can maintain all the data the process stores in the memory either in physical memory or on disk. That means that a process can run up against another limit: the commit limit.

As you’d expect from the description of the commit guarantee, the commit limit is the sum of physical memory and the sizes of the paging files. In reality, not quite all of physical memory counts toward the commit limit since the operating system reserves part of physical memory for its own use. The amount of committed virtual memory for all the active processes, called the current commit charge, cannot exceed the system commit limit. When the commit limit is reached, virtual allocations that commit memory fail.

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Note that disabling your page file can have the effect of disabling the ability of Windows to write out crash dumps, as when a crash occurs, it initially writes the crash dump to the pagefile on the blue screen.