Disabling paging file and saving memory in vista

Hey guys, I've recently been working on speeding up my vista x64 install. I cant believe how much of a hog this OS is, with the paging file disabled in xp the maximum memory I've ever used was 1.5 gigs however in vista I've seen it rise over 4 GB (i have 8 total).

Also I've installed vista on a 40 GB partition and with office and programs which refuse to completely install on my secondary partition its almost full. I've switch the documents and the temp folders over to the secondary driver to reduce space consumption on the boot partition.

So what I'm asking is what are some good ways to keep the functionality of vista while reducing memory usage and possibly reduce the HDD usage of vista in total?


P.S. i have a creative x-fi titanium card which many have cited to cause a memory leak which may be a problem.


PC specs>
asus P5E x38 chipset motherboard
e8400
8 gigs of g-skill ram
LG-bluray driver with anydvd for HDCP decryption
creative x-fi titanium sound card
2x ati 4850's in crossfire with catalyst 9.5 drivers