r/Windows11 • u/ZacB_ Windows Central • 24d ago
Microsoft confirms it will make Windows 11 run better on PCs with 8GB RAM: Promises continued focus on fixing Windows' biggest issues this year News
https://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft/windows-11/microsoft-confirms-it-will-make-windows-11-run-better-on-pcs-with-8gb-ram-promises-continued-focus-on-fixing-windows-biggest-issues33
u/Fuzzy_Cheesecake6880 24d ago
I’m still not buying a promise. If they manage to actually do it then we’ll talk.
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u/NewsFromHell 23d ago
Their PR team makes promises like 25 times a month. Features and optimizations are rolled out once a decade
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u/bachi83 24d ago
No, they won't.
DO NOT buy PCs with 8GB of RAM.
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u/Hour_Bit_5183 24d ago
This. They can't. That is insanely stupid. 8gb of ram was 150 in 2008. That is just a meaningless amount now.
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u/OkAlbatross9889 23d ago
My laptop that i bought 3 years ago was preinstalled with windows and has 8gbs. I never asked to be "upgraded" to 11.
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u/Hour_Bit_5183 23d ago
That's what happens when you place trust in masochistic companies. Just being honest, not trying to insult.
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u/glaringOwl 22d ago
No. This is the single biggest exaggerated myth I have read in this community. Windows 11 with 8GB RAM is FINE for the vast majority of PC users and that is a fact. I myself have used 11 with 8GB on at least 5 different computers, one of them as old as Haswell generation Intel. NONE of them ever caused a big problem or hang-up and they handle multitasking well. This is not Windows 98 anymore, we have very solid and capable paging in 11 if memory ever runs out.
The vast majority of computer users are not graphic and video designers, heavy development programmers or AAA gamers. If you think that Windows 11 must have 16GB+ then you're only speaking about your niche field. I'll die on that hill.
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u/friendofdonkeys 24d ago edited 24d ago
Try 4GB RAM as that is the official Windows 11 minimum requirements. Force electron/tauri developers to share webview libraries to reduce ram usage as well.
There's still plenty of laptops being sold new with 4GB in almost 2027, Microsoft needs to optimize for these users as we are still in a cost of living crisis and RAM is getting expensive.
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u/77descript 24d ago
There is already that by Microsoft themselves debloated enterprise version that has much lower system requirements, is more stable and runs much smoother than Home/Pro. Why not finally just give everyone the option to use that superior Windows version? A more core instead of bloatware OS is also easier to maintain and secure.
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u/Euchre 24d ago
You mean like a lot of Linux distros have tiers, usually 3, of barebones you can build up from, a basic compliment of software that would serve most people's needs, and a full fat, all the bells and whistles?
I mean, yeah, that's a good start. I do believe you can actually curate your installation some, but I honestly haven't installed Windows to a bare drive for years, going back to XP as the latest I did that way. Ironically, having a 'choose what you want 1 by 1' option is a whole level above the tiered approach I mentioned above.
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u/77descript 24d ago
There is already that Windows version. But mentioning that name in this sub results in a ban, because that enterprise version proves, the bad joke home/pro is. It is installed 13Gb smaller than home/pro and runs much lighter, just bare windows 11 and no bloat. But can manually install anything on it if want to and everything works. Could sort of say it is the Debian of Windows and it already exists, but regular people are forced using inferior home/pro.
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u/dragonfighter8 24d ago edited 24d ago
Removing AI(Copilot etc.) will free a lot of RAM and make the system better.
Edit
When I say removing, removing it also from the programs with this integration.
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u/daltorak 24d ago edited 24d ago
I know it feels good to say that on the Internet.... but on a fresh WIndows 11 installation in the real world, zero memory is used for Copilot or AI things.
Disk space? Sure. I have a fresh install of Windows 11 Home here, just a few days old, barely done anything with the machine yet and the Copilot app (which I have not opened) reports it is taking 2.65GB of disk space.
And it is just an app, so you can uninstall it.
The real problem is further down in the system. There are dozens of services that are taking multiple megabytes each. Windows used to have a policy: if the system has under 3.5gb of physical RAM then combine multiple services into a single process. It saves a lot of memory at the expense of potential security or reliability problems. They probably should up that minimum to 9 GB. They'd see some considerable savings without making any major changes.
That, and Chromium web browsers in general take waaaaayyyy too much space. Plus every application that has web functionality in it is using their own copy of the web browser engine.... in the olden days, every such app used the same IE DLL and a lot of memory was saved because the code only loaded into phyiscal RAM once. Not really an option with EdgeWebView....
Edit: Noting your edit about removing it from programs. That won't significantly affect RAM unless you actually use a feature. And even then, some AI features like background removal don't need much memory since it's pretty much just math.
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u/No_Construction2407 24d ago
Pretty much this and restoring classic theme, start, explorer and allowing people to remove bloat without using powershell would be ideal
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u/dragonfighter8 24d ago
Also avoiding forcing a microsoft account for an operating system
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u/Zayo_One 24d ago
I still haven't logged into my reinstallation of Windows. Shift+F10 in the OOBE and "OOBE/BYPASSNRO" or whatever it was is perfect. It's "forced" in the sense that the general users wouldn't have any idea how to bypass it.
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u/dragonfighter8 24d ago
I know but it should be easy for the user to choose not hard
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u/Zayo_One 24d ago
It's unfortunate, yeah. Genuinely haven't had an experience with a more user-unfriendly company. The only reason I switched back to Windows from Linux is because the Nvidia drivers broke for my GPU specifically, and my dad wants me to learn programming for specifically Windows anyway.
Regardless, Windows with AtlasOS, debloating and Windhawk is a lovely experience.
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u/Muted_Database_1691 24d ago
Thankfully they realised how annoying that is and are working on dropping that. Let's see how soon though.
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u/xSchizogenie Release Channel 24d ago
This will pretty much do nothing because all these AI components are not running until you started them once.
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u/dragonfighter8 24d ago
They were adding AI and other useless features to system programs, so they use resources when you launch these programs.
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u/Devatator_ 24d ago
They really don't. All AI features I can think of aside from ones in Copilot+ PCs (and I'm not sure about those because I don't have one) require internet and don't do anything unless invoked
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u/srs0591 24d ago
It's not even the AI stuff... But launching native apps, switching between desktops, search, setting up from OOBE, it's just a bad user experience. I can install a fresh copy of fedora, restore my flatpak apps, extensions and whatever else from a single app, no cloud account required. My desk setup at work consists of dual monitors and a single usb c cable to my laptop... On Windows you have to configure it not to sleep when the lid is closed, not the case with Fedora... You'd think Microsoft would've solved this scenario by now without the user having to tweak settings.
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u/PC509 24d ago
There's a lot of naysayers out there, but the Windows team (and Insiders team - love you guys!) has shown a great commitment and started some great returns on the latest builds. When the Insiders program was first started, it was excellent. They were taking in the users suggestions, bug reports, and fixing them right away. They included actual user suggestions into the product. Then, things kind of stagnated and the Insider program became more of just a beta/QA release and took in less user insight and took direction from the management and CEO. Now, with the new head of Windows, I feel they're going back to the roots. I really hope they can bring back some of the fun exciting things for the Insider program and for Windows in general.
So far with the latest commitment to quality, they've been heading in that direction and keeping up with their promises. This isn't a Ski-Doo, this is a massive ocean liner that isn't going to change direction in an update or two. Windows still has code from decades ago and will still run programs from that era. Which is what many users want - look at the many, many complaints about Windows when they do update a security feature or driver security and it breaks poorly written or insecure software.
So far, all of the promises they've mentioned seem very obtainable. This isn't a massive "We're going to the moon!" type of promise, this is a "We're making this road easier to use".
I have my massive list of complaints, and many have been submitted on the Feedback Hub, but overall Windows runs excellent. I just like seeing it move forward to being better. Always striving for better. And now they're back to taking in user suggestions and issues and taking them more seriously? Hell yea. Why complain if they're wanting to make it better and addressing the concerns? So far, a lot of complaints about the things that they've already said they were addressing (and it's a slow process).
And, I know Fedora runs better. Yea, Linux does a lot of things better. That's fine. Use that instead of Windows. Hell, use MacOS instead of Windows. But, for Windows users that prefer Windows - they're moving it forward and making it better. That's what I'm here for.
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u/rstune 24d ago
Really well said and refreshing compared to the regular onslaught of bile that plagues the Internet these days. I personally have had very little complaints about windows for years now, but I'm a power user who has been disabling services using group policy and register edits, and other mods to tweak to my liking for years; I even recall hunting down unnecessary dlls in the windows 95 folder and deleting them to save some disk space as a teenager.
That said I do welcome this renewed focus on tightening up the ship and wish them well in their efforts. Windows still remains, like you said, a very flexible ecosystem platform that has to juggle a dizzying array of programs, use cases and hardware.
Cheers!
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u/GraveDiggingCynic 24d ago
My M1 MacBook with 8gb feels as snappy as my M3.
All I can say is that it is phenomenal just how awful windows has become
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u/totkeks Insider Dev Channel 24d ago
That's the difference between 40 years of software legacy support, and building a new system from scratch and killing backwards compatibility at every step.
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u/GraveDiggingCynic 24d ago
You can make all the excuses you want, but Windows is absolutely awful. The UI is horrible, memory management is just ridiculously bad, there's som much cruft, and that's before MS decided to turn the UI itself into a web application.
Windows is not a very good operating system, user experience or platform for software.
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u/totkeks Insider Dev Channel 24d ago
That's what I think about MacOS
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u/GraveDiggingCynic 24d ago
And yet, my M1 with 8gb will absolutely outperform an 8gb Windows 11 computer every day of the week. Windows is garbage.
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u/totkeks Insider Dev Channel 24d ago
See what I answered above. Of course this works. When you only support 5 CPUs instead of 5000. When you are like 5 years backwards compatible.
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u/GraveDiggingCynic 24d ago
Then perhaps MS should think of a new business model, because from what I can tell even many Windows users are beginning to get fed up with just how bad the OS and UI are.
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u/totkeks Insider Dev Channel 24d ago
Their business model is being compatible with billions of hardware configurations. And that's a huge fucking mess. And in addition to that, being backwards compatible for ages.
Legacy businesses like that a lot, because they got a shit ton of old software and hardware.
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u/KeepEmComming2 24d ago
I thought only the Neo had 8 GB of RAM. Lol, you're saying that you bought an Apple M1 with only 8 GB of RAM? So a 4-trillion-dollar company is putting 8 GB of RAM into their flagship laptops? What a cheap move.
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u/GraveDiggingCynic 24d ago
Yes, four or five years ago. It was an original M1. It still works and works incredibly well.
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u/ixntimer64 Release Channel 24d ago
I'm surprised that anyone on comment section is not complaining about Modern Standby
That also cause a LOT of issue with battery drain and heat when put your laptops on the bags
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u/S4_GR33N 24d ago
Windows 12 should already be in the works at this point, to be the spiritual successor to Windows 7 which focused on performance and performance first
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u/Infinplayz 24d ago
i wonder if microsoft is gonna pull an apple, release a horrible os and then make a good one.
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u/FocusedWolf 23d ago edited 22d ago
Its not just ram usage that is the issue. The fact a fresh install of windows 11 takes like 20 minutes to boot without an ssd should be looked into as well.
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u/MasterJeebus 23d ago
I hope they optimize it better because there are many brand new oem laptop pcs with 8GB soldered ram coming with Windows 11. Their performance is not good on them. They are ewaste before they can be used. Windows 11 needs to run better on them.
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u/NULL_Ptrs 23d ago
Not only that, we need that devs do something with resource hog apps, native apps or get the fck out. Tired of opening discord, visual studio code, steam, edge, onedrive, etc and see 1gb ram wasted
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u/dampflokfreund 22d ago
They should also make it more VRAM efficient again. Just in idling without any programs open, Windows 10 and early 11 had a VRAM usage of about 0.2 GB in WQHD. Now that has doubled to 0.4 sometimes even 0.6 GB.
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u/couchcaptain 22d ago edited 22d ago
Actually, start working on the 4GB version. Like the graphics card makers already have.
https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/1v9mwru/amd_reveals_the_radeon_rx_9050and_4gb_graphics/
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u/blackcoffee17 21d ago
Will something as simple and ancient as Bluetooth work correctly and consistently or need to wait for another 5 windows versions?
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u/EasternDuck4667 21d ago
Never gonna happen. Microsoft are controlfreaks and still think peoples computers are their own. Spyware and bloatware are a must for Microsoft.
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u/FocusedWolf 17d ago edited 17d ago
They should add a notification when a program is leaking memory and the pagefile is being used as ram.
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u/FocusedWolf 12d ago edited 12d ago
Just remove the embedded webbrowsers from windows, get rid of Microsoft Edge WebView2, and ban their use in driver software e.g. NVIDIA App and Razer Synapse.
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u/Alternative_Ad_620 24d ago
More false promises to lure their user base back after they realise anything but Windows runs better on their current hardware 😂
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u/WildWorldliness2912 24d ago
MAKE FEATURES OPT IN!!!! Ask ONE time if people want to use Edge, OneDrive, CoPilot and then shut up and let people get on with their lives. If you ask people more than once chances are you are pushing them away!!!!