Swap area, virtual memory, paging file, are they the same?

[hongtao]

are these three the same concept? except swap is for unix and PF for win?

from my linux info center, there's hardly any use of swap, the available percentage is always 100. but in win task manager, i can see certain amount of PF is consumed, why is it like this?

 

[porterjw]

are these three the same concept? except swap is for unix and PF for win?

Swap is to Linux as a Paging File is to Windows, yes.

from my linux info center, there's hardly any use of swap, the available percentage is always 100. but in win task manager, i can see certain amount of PF is consumed, why is it like this?

Swap will not be utilized until it needs to be, while Windows will always have a bit of stuff in the Page File. I actually have no technical answer for that other than 'it's the way the OS works'.