When dealing with CPU-intensive processes on Windows servers, monitoring memory usage becomes crucial. The paging file (swap) activity is particularly important as excessive swapping can significantly degrade performance. Process Explorer provides several metrics to analyze this behavior.

The most relevant metrics for monitoring swap activity in Process Explorer are:

• Paging File Write Delta: Shows the change in page file writes between refreshes
• Commit Charge: Total memory committed by processes
• Physical Memory Available: Free RAM available to the system

To effectively monitor swapping:

1. Open Process Explorer's System Information view (Ctrl+I)
2. Check the "Memory" tab
3. Monitor "Paging File Write Delta" for active swapping
4. Compare with "Physical Memory Available" to understand memory pressure

For developers who need to monitor this programmatically, here's a PowerShell script that checks similar metrics:

# Get memory statistics
$memory = Get-Counter '\Memory\Available Bytes'
$pageFile = Get-Counter '\Paging File(_Total)\% Usage'

# Calculate available memory in GB
$availableGB = [math]::Round($memory.CounterSamples.CookedValue / 1GB, 2)

# Output the results
Write-Host "Available Memory: $availableGB GB"
Write-Host "Page File Usage: $($pageFile.CounterSamples.CookedValue)%"

# Alert if swapping is high
if ($pageFile.CounterSamples.CookedValue -gt 50) {
    Write-Warning "High page file usage detected - possible excessive swapping"
}

Here's how to analyze the data:

• Paging File Write Delta > 0: Indicates swapping is occurring
• Consistent high values: Suggests memory pressure
• Spikes during intensive operations: May be normal for your workload

If you detect problematic swapping:

• Increase physical RAM if possible
• Optimize memory usage in your application
• Adjust the paging file size (though Windows usually manages this well)
• Consider using RAM disks for temporary files

For more detailed analysis:

• Performance Monitor (perfmon) with paging file counters
• RAMMap for detailed memory usage breakdown
• Windows Performance Recorder for in-depth analysis

When dealing with memory-intensive operations on Windows servers, it's crucial to distinguish between physical memory usage and paging (swapping) activity. The Windows memory manager handles memory allocation through several mechanisms:

// Sample PowerShell command to check current page file configuration
Get-CimInstance -ClassName Win32_PageFileUsage | Select-Object *

Your intuition about the "Paging File Write Delta" in System Information is correct. This metric shows the change in page file writes between refreshes. Here's what to look for:

• Persistent writes: Continuous non-zero values indicate active swapping
• Write delta spikes: Sudden increases during memory pressure
• Cumulative writes: Check the total page file writes counter

For comprehensive analysis, combine these Process Explorer views:

1. System Information → Memory tab
   - Physical Memory Available
   - Commit Charge (Total/Limit/Peak)

2. Performance Graph → Memory tab
   - Physical Memory Usage
   - Kernel Memory (Paged/Nonpaged)

Here's a real-world example from a SQL Server instance:

For continuous monitoring during your data reconstruction:

# Continuous page file monitoring script
$sampleInterval = 5 # seconds
$duration = 3600 # 1 hour

for ($i=0; $i -lt ($duration/$sampleInterval); $i++) {
    $pf = Get-Counter '\Paging File(*)\Write Bytes/sec'
    $mem = Get-Counter '\Memory\Available MBytes'
    
    [PSCustomObject]@{
        Timestamp = Get-Date
        PageWrites = $pf.CounterSamples.CookedValue | Measure-Object -Sum | Select-Object -ExpandProperty Sum
        AvailableMB = $mem.CounterSamples.CookedValue
    } | Export-Csv -Path ".\memory_log.csv" -Append -NoTypeInformation
    
    Start-Sleep -Seconds $sampleInterval
}

If you confirm swapping is occurring:

1. Identify memory-hungry processes with Process Explorer's "Private Bytes" column
2. Check for memory leaks (private bytes growing without bound)
3. Consider adding physical RAM or optimizing your application's memory usage
4. Adjust the page file size if necessary (though ideally you want to avoid swapping entirely)

For serious performance investigations:

# Start Windows Performance Recorder
wpr -start GeneralProfile -filemode

# After reproducing the issue
wpr -stop memory_trace.etl

# Analyze with Windows Performance Analyzer