The Windows pagefile is somewhat like a system cache of files that is stored on the hard drive. As you use multiple programs at once there can come a time where the amount of available system memory, or RAM, is exhausted. It’s at this point that Windows will swap out lesser used portions of memory to the pagefile in order to maintain stability of the currently executing process or program.

Security can be a pleasant addiction for many – one of its principles is to encrypt anything and everything. A pagefile can contain all sorts of interesting bits of information even after a computer has been powered off. While Windows can be configured to delete the pagefile when it shuts down that isn’t always enough to defeat future nefarious activities.

You could arguing that encrypting your pagefile approaches a realm of unhealthy paranoia but the process is so simple you could merely retort with why not?

Launch a Command Prompt with Admin Rights through the Windows Start->Search field.

The command we are interested in is fsutil – but first let’s check the current status of our pagefile with fsutil behavior query EncryptPagingFile

A value of 0 means the pagefile is currently not encrypted, which is the default Windows preference. To have the pagefile encrypted we need to flip the value to 1 by issuing the command fsutil behavior set EncryptPagingFile 1

Complete a full system reboot to apply the encryption change to your pagefile. To revert the change just repeat the previous command and use the value of 0.