Alright. As a result of this conversation I went looking for another source of information. First stop was the Windows Knowledge base... basically all I got from there was a bunch of hoo-haw about the 1.5 recommended size, bleh.
I found a very informative set of articles written in enough laymen language that I could easily understand it. It also supports many of my own current theories which is also helpful.
I'd encourage you to read through the entirety of what this guy has to say, and do additional research and reading such as can be found in
perris' article posted here at OSNN.net before you jump off on a tangent regarding manipulating your page file size/location, etc.
The beginning is here:
http://www.theeldergeek.com/paging_file.htm ... be sure to read the remaining pages that are linked at the bottom of the page regarding this topic.
Basically, what I found out, was that I can set a low initial minimum size (say 2mb) and a reasonable maximum size limit (say total of RAM installed if it's 768mb or higher) and xp WILL dynamically increase it at it's own behest as needed, and I won't be stuck with a HUGE file that takes up unnecessary hard disk space.
My recommendations are dependant on amount of RAM installed. If you have 64mb (xp minimum) to 256mb installed then I suggest letting XP have complete control... no manual changes execept maybe putting it on a dedicated hard drive. 512mb installed and/or sharing memory w/ onboard anything then study the articles and learn how to determine for yourself your typical system load (through Task Manager) and decide for yourself how to set up your paging file. If you have 768 and above, I'd recommend setting a low minimum (I'm personally going to change mine to 2mb) and a reasonable maximum of at least the amount of RAM you have installed... go as high as you want with this one because it won't get created unless it's needed.
With large amounts of physical memory available XP will do it's best to keep paging operations there... only swapping out to your virtual memory (pagefile.sys) if demands on available physical memory require it.
Update\ I tried creating the initial size at 2mb and xp automatically created the pagefile at the max I specified because it couldn't dynamically expand the page on startup (silly xp). I set the initial minimum back to 50mb which boots up just fine.