The Windows page/swap file usually contains very recent information of a user’s activity.  Data is usually overwritten fairly quickly  — depending on how “busy” the system is.  The page file can store potentially sensitive and incriminating evidence.  The legality of admitting evidence found in a page/swap file is still sketchy in the judicial system. However, it’s always a good idea to play it safe.

If you don’t mind a slightly longer shutdown / restart time you can have your system write zero’s to the page file.  This is disabled by default.

Start -> Run -> regedit

Change the following key from a 0 to 1

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\ClearPageFileAtShutdown

*The Microsoft KB article can be found here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314834