I have a Windows 2008 server with 7.5 GB of RAM and I want to get complete crash dumps off it.
I started by moving the page file mostly off the C: drive - I left a small 64-MB page file on the C: drive so there'd be one, but added a 8 GB initial and max page file to the D: drive using Control Panel/System/Advanced system settings/Performance/Settings.../Advanced/Virtual Memory/Change... I reboot, and I have an 8 GB pagefile.sys on my D: drive, all seems well.
Then I set up complete crash dumps, by setting HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\CrashControl\CrashDumpEnabled to 1 and change DumpFile to D:\Memory.dmp. I look under Control Panel/System/Advanced system settings/Startup and Recovery/Settings.../System Failure and I see the right settings. Then I provoked crashing using NotMyFault.
But I wasn't getting a crash dump. So I read this Microsoft doc and it says for 2008/Vista you have to add a DedicatedDumpFile entry in the registry. I added that, again at 8 GB, and now I get crash dumps, but I have both an 8 GB pagefile.sys AND an 8 GB dumpfile.sys on my D: drive (not to mention the 7.5 GB Memory.dmp dump file).
Am I missing something? Is there a way to use the same alternate page file for both normal paging and for crash dumps, so I'm not blowing 24 GB of space on all this?
Apparently, the answer is "no."