Kernel memory?

[Bill]

In the performance tab of W. task manager, lower right, is Kernel memory.  Listed as total, paged and nonpaged.  The paged number is 3 times higher than the nonpage number.

Could someone point me to a explanation or offer a simple one?  I have a gig of memory and a fixed size page file of 1700mb on the D drive.  I don't think I do much that is intensive.  Why would the page file number be that much higher than the nonpaged usage?

Bill

[Bill]

OK, the further I get the more questions arise.
After digesting the following:

Kernel:
The fundamental part of a program, typically an operating system, that resides in memory at all times and provides the basic services. It is the part of the operating system that is closest to the machine and may activate the hardware directly or interface to another software layer that drives the hardware.

Kernel Memory:
The memory used by the operating system, which is protected and cannot be accessed by regular applications. Virtual memory can be used to page some of the kernel in memory to disk. However, there is always a certain part of the kernel that must reside in physical memory at all times and cannot be swapped out.

So, kernel memory is paged or swapped to allow running apps access to greater amounts of memory?  Wouldn't paging out kernel memory, at least theoretically, be slower than not paging.

Does adding a greater amount of physical memory change the kernel memory allocation and therefore reduce the kernel paging? But practically, XP will run OK with 512 mb so there must be a limit of useable kernel memory?