For an explanation of how OS/2 manages memory, please read the respective chapter in the "Introduction" of the XFolder Online Reference.

If the information on this page regarding the different CONFIG.SYS settings is not sufficient for you, you'll find additional explanations in the respective chapters of the OS/2 Online Reference.

Press "Apply" to have the changes you've made written to the CONFIG.SYS file. This will only change the CONFIG.SYS lines which correspond to the settings on this page. The lines corresponding to the other pages in the "OS/2 Kernel" object will not be changed. This button is only active if you have made any changes to the settings on this page. Please note that you will have to restart the computer to let the changes take effect. A WPS restart does not suffice.

Press "Optimize" to have XFolder propose you new settings according to your system characteristics. CONFIG.SYS will only be changed after you press "Apply" also.

Press "Default" to have the OS/2 default settings displayed on the notebook page. CONFIG.SYS will only be changed after you press "Apply" also.

The "Current size" field shows you the current size of the OS/2 swap file. This display is continually updated when the swapper file size changes.

The "Main memory size" field shows you how much physical main memory (RAM) you have installed on your system.

The "Minimum size" field lets you determine which size the swap file will never fall short of. You should set a reasonably high value here because otherwise OS/2 will keep adjusting the swap file size, which costs a lot of time. The default value of 2 MB is definitely too low for most systems, unless you have a lot of memory installed. As a rule of thumb may apply that OS/2 Warp 4 needs at least 20 MB of memory for itself already, so if you only have 16 MB of RAM, you'll see that the default value of 2 MB is not sufficient even without applications running.

For example, if the current size of the swap file is 20 MB and you have a minimum size of 2 MB set, you should raise that value to 32 MB to avoid unneccessary swap file size adjustments. This setting corresponds to the third parameter of the SWAPPATH CONFIG.SYS command.

The "Warn threshold" field lets you determine when OS/2 will warn you that you're running out of disk space on the drive which holds the swap file when it tries to increase its size. For example, if you have set 2 MB here and OS/2 finds out that only 1 MB disk space is left on the swap file drive, you'll get a warning message. This setting corresponds to the second parameter of the SWAPPATH CONFIG.SYS command.

The "Path" entry field allows you to specifiy the location of the swap file. You may enter any valid directory here. Note however that you cannot change the name of the swap file, which will always be SWAPPER.DAT. In general, you should put the swap file on an HPFS drive, because this avoids fragmentation and is generally faster. In addition, you should put the swap file on the most used partition of the least used hard disk (if you have several hard disks built into your computer). This avoids unneccassary movement of the read/write heads of the hard disks when the swap file is accessed. This setting corresponds to the first parameter of the SWAPPATH CONFIG.SYS command.

Please note that when you change the swap file location, the old swap file will not automatically be deleted during the next reboot. You should therefore remember the old location and manually delete the old swap file after the system has been booted.