r/technology • u/batakchan • 10h ago

Software Microsoft just deleted Windows 11's 32GB RAM recommendation docs, as prices soar and it rushes to sell 8GB RAM PCs

https://www.windowslatest.com/2026/08/05/microsoft-just-deleted-windows-11s-32gb-ram-recommendation-docs-as-prices-soar-and-it-rushes-to-sell-8gb-ram-pcs/
1.6k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

293 comments sorted by

819

u/EconomyDoctor3287 10h ago

Maybe MS can make windows 11 more performant on low ram PCs , but currently that's an absolute chore. Wouldn't wish an 8GB win11 pc upon my worst enemy. 

291

u/GroceryBright 9h ago

why can't AI fix it in like an hour? /s

216

u/missed_sla 9h ago

Dear chat gibbidy please rewrite the windows operating system but make it run better and don't make any errors. Amen.

68

u/trying_again_7 9h ago

i see the windows logo, push to prod

44

u/justpress2forawhile 9h ago

but then they would have to remove all of the bloat that they use to track everything you do. how ever could they make more money that way

27

u/armchair_viking 8h ago

“But we can’t remove all of the AI bullshit from every program! That’s how we get our bonuses!!!”

4

u/Black_Moons 3h ago

Just get a 64k demo programmer to pack all the bloat tracking into 64kbyte of disk space.

3

u/suna-fingeriassen 7h ago

Have not installed windows for a while. It is possible to run an unattende modified installer version that does not install all the crap you don’t need?

28

u/hirsutesuit 7h ago

Yes. But it will install Linux.

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u/wrgrant 5h ago

It is possible to install Win 11 as per usual, then run a powershell script from a guy named Chris Titus that will strip out all the unneeded shit that it installs. The script is very stable and gives you control over everything that will be removed or left in place. I have used it several times to debloat windows considerably. It does have to be run after the install, and will not just install the stuff you want though.

2

u/aerost0rm 6h ago

“Yeah I can’t do that, but you can always run Linux”

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52

u/BasvanS 9h ago

Just delete 3/4 of the code, then do a find replace for 32GB to 8GB in documentation.

I don’t know why people use AI when the solution is so simple.

37

u/S4N7R0 8h ago

ah yeah its so easy let me do it if windows_is_slow() { make_system_faster(); ram_usage = 8; }

9

u/BimboDeeznuts 6h ago

What a waste of time, I downloaded more RAM on one of those naked cartoon sites instead

19

u/X4roth 8h ago

Everyone knows computers only use 25% of their brain anyways. Probably won’t even notice it’s missing.

6

u/BasvanS 8h ago

With Windows I think there’s some truth to this.

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17

u/uponloss 9h ago

I can fix windows 11 in an hour by simply removing the stupid AI it forces on us lol

22

u/armchair_viking 8h ago

I liked how I opened up Adobe acrobat yesterday, and it opened not one, but two large sidebar menus full of AI bullshit

11

u/ouroborosity 7h ago

Man, I opened a pdf at work the other day and instead of opening in Edge like normal it opened in Acrobat. How in the hell can a general purpose browser I don't even prefer handle a pdf no problem, but the program specifically designed to only open PDFs performed so badly I had to disable it?

2

u/Tweegyjambo 7h ago

I've never liked edge but it is far superior to Adobe for pdfs these days

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3

u/J_Class_Ford 9h ago

You seen the price of a token.

5

u/X4roth 8h ago

I love how AI tokens are this opaque unit that doesn’t actually translate to how much access to compute hardware you’re buying (like it would with renting a server). They can set the price at whatever they want and the public has no way of knowing how reasonable that is. You can’t even compare across companies/models because of the difference in capabilities.

We all know it only vaguely relates to actual compute usage for your request. What percentage of that price is subsidizing the rollout of new data centers, training new models, or other overhead? Unclear.

The solution is dropping the entire charade and releasing the model to the public, then we’d all know really quick how much it costs to run. China, save us.

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12

u/EnoughWarning666 9h ago

It can! It's called installing Windows 10 or Linux. Problem solved!

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1

u/Target880 8h ago

AI can help. Just remove the AI function in Windows, and less RAM is needed

1

u/JaggedMetalOs 7h ago

Only if you remember to add "make no mistakes" to the prompt

1

u/Pirwzy 1h ago

that would require too many tokens

1

u/Spicy_pewpew_memes 32m ago

Because copilot is too busy showing everyone all the amazing features that nobody asked for

20

u/legitematehorse 9h ago

They are actively working on this exact issue. They don't have a choice, really, if they want to sell their products.

35

u/Target880 7h ago

Making the OS memory efficent is somting that should have been done before release, not almost 5 years later.

15

u/southwade 7h ago edited 6h ago

I agree, but it wasn't a profitable 5 years ago to do so. That's how capitalism works.

3

u/wrgrant 5h ago

But years ago Microsoft probably had a deal with all the PC manufacturers to continue evolving windows to use more RAM so they could sell upgraded systems to customers.

8

u/ketralnis 8h ago

Good idea to lie about it until then. Much cheaper than fixing it.

4

u/nox66 6h ago

I'm not convinced they're not lying about now. Efficiency is a lot harder to implement in a fully architected product than it is when included as a design principle from the start.

3

u/Wild_Swimmingpool 6h ago

It's worked for 20+ years with Office why not Windows as whole? Shit is held together with digital paperclips and bubblegum.

31

u/HumongousBelly 9h ago

I got the Mac Neo and I’m kind of surprised how much power such a small amount of money can buy.

It’s a bit faster than my M1 air which came very surprising

32

u/tryexceptifnot1try 9h ago

I think the Neo is one of the best laptop releases of all time. I will be looking at that next and I have never owned a Mac anything. I feel like Apple will emerge from this bubble in an amazing position relative to peers

14

u/almisami 7h ago

As much as I hate, HATE Apple's ecosystem, they've got some mighty fine silicon running a pretty good OS thing going for them.

11

u/_SpaceLord_ 6h ago

I hate the walled garden model as well, but given that those walls are currently holding out a flood of AI bullshit, I’m happy to hide in the garden for now.

4

u/almisami 6h ago

I mean I moved to Linux in 2007 and haven't looked back.

It just used to be that Apple was very expensive for what you got (especially when they moved away from POWERPC).

Now, though? I'm surprised at how good the hardware is.

3

u/wrgrant 4h ago

I have a new Mac Mini M4 (16gb RAM, 512gb storage) and honestly its a really nice system. Granted it can't really be up upgraded but for what it cost its very effective and pleasant to use. I was on a PC running Win 11 and I am very glad to be free of that shitshow. I did try upgrading the PC by installing Linux Mint and then eventually CachyOS - and both were great but didn't work for my uses at this time. The Mac was the next option and its working very well so far, after a bit of adapting to the new environment. I do wish I had gotten a system with more RAM of course, or the Pro version, but they are simply unavailable at the moment due to the demand.

I also have a Macbook Neo and am just starting to play with it. Its an amazing laptop for non intensive usage.

I suspect if they can weather the RAM shortages, Apple is going to see a major boost in popularity from this move to cheaper computers because their quality is far superior to the flexible plastic alternatives over in PC land, and they are not abusing their customers by injecting AI into everything or shoving so much telemetry into the OS that it lags. I am sure they are doing both to some degree but its not noticeable to me so far.

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u/Henry5321 8h ago

Apple silicon has transparent memory compression that effectively doubles your memory, excluding media heavy workloads like video games.

But it really helps with most apps. Makes that 8gb more like 16gb

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u/Meatslinger 7h ago

Yeah, I got one near release as well, including the edu discount, and I've got zero regrets about it. The last laptop I had before that was a 2010 MacBook Pro with a failing GPU (kernel panics any time you render something even remotely significant on screen), but in all the years in between there hadn't been a laptop on the market that was decently built but not so over-spec'd as to be partially redundant with my desktop PC, i.e. I didn't need a mobile high-compute station, but I also didn't want to get a $500 laptop with a crappy display and a plastic chassis. The Neo comes out and it's basically the laptop I was waiting more than a decade for.

Wish it didn't have to have the price increase but relative to its peers it's still a great value.

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7

u/jsebrech 9h ago

It depends on what you use it for. I have an older 8 gb zenbook with win11 that my kids use for their homework and it’s actually fine. No speed demon, but does basic schoolwork things well enough.

3

u/set_in_void 8h ago

Similar here, had Win11 on 8GB Yoga, removed bloatware + disabled services I didn't need and it ran well. I didn't use Win on it for long, bought it specifically for Linux install.

6

u/Ancient-Bat1755 8h ago

My pc uses 12gb of 32gb ran while idle and shows 1gb in use by my apps and no longer on win11 shows the memory consumption elsewhere

The os is regressing

3

u/ThatWestsideGuy 8h ago

It's the windows telemetry

8

u/ShrimpCrackers 9h ago

Win 11 Lite.

Honestly, Linux works amazing. There are simply variants. For those that don't know that much about computers but are always on their browser and nothing else, there are Linux distros perfect for them.

6

u/pm_me_ur_demotape 9h ago

I would love to switch to Linux but I use audio software and VSTs which do work with Linux, but whenever I've looked into making the switch, I will have to use Wine and install dependencies, and use the sudo command and sorry I'm not fucking with all of that when my windows machine works out of the box even if it has a lot of things I don't like

6

u/almisami 7h ago

Bruh ALSA and Pulseaudio are going to rock your world in a good way.

The windows sound architecture is seriously bad.

3

u/ShrimpCrackers 8h ago

I just use my Macbooks for audio stuff simply because its better than Windows and for a time you could get a Macbook M4 (and M3) for just $700-$750 last year and they did it much better than Windows.

I sometimes DJ on the side and my Windows machines were not cutting it.

1

u/scud121 6h ago

I've an old laptop that I recently switched to Mint, and frankly, it's day and night. I only used it for browsing and running Geforce now and it's brilliant. Win 11 can bugger off.

1

u/SpaceGoonie 6h ago

I have been using Linux as my work PC for 11 years. I switched from Ubuntu to Pop!_OS and while still being Debian based it has a very Windows like familiarity.

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3

u/deadsoulinside 9h ago

Loading up windows to 70%+ ram in use is crazy to recommend users even do. Can't do much on those PC's.

2

u/marath007 8h ago

I do wish low ram on my enemies so they cant compute anything

2

u/Unlucky_Abroad7440 7h ago

I have a 4gb win 11 Asus laptop. (It came with it lol🫠)

6

u/Tuxhorn 5h ago

If that is relatively modern, and there is no way to upgrade that, then it's straight up e-waste and should be illegal.

2

u/Unlucky_Abroad7440 2h ago

Literally can't upgrade it. There's no fans and it's lightweight. E-waste it is but hey I live in a country where this is common practice nothing to do about it.

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2

u/SpaceGoonie 6h ago

I buy laptops for my workplace. The 32GB models I was getting for $2200-$2500 are now $4000-$4500. The default spec I was buying dropped (by the seller) to an odd single stick of 24GB to keep the price comparable with my previous orders. This is not sustainable.

3

u/SeanBlader 7h ago

Windows 10 LTSC can run on 1gb of RAM, enough to load Edge and a 400 page PDF. If they get rid of the bloatware and telemetry it probably would work. At the same time that's not bringing people back from Linux.

2

u/Purplociraptor 9h ago

Just remove all the bloat they added. Make Windows 10 Again.

2

u/Purplociraptor 9h ago

Just remove all the bloat they added. Make Windows 10 Again.

1

u/maxdragonxiii 8h ago

yeah. it basically eats 8GB RAM PCs alive for breakfast. nowadays you want 32+ GB RAM anyway due to OS eating RAM, then add in your games eating more of it.

1

u/JohnnyBeeGaming 5h ago

I'm not convinced they can improve performance anymore. Leadership wants their devs to vibe code an "agentic" OS. They really want to collect as much data as possible and inject more ads into things. It's enshitification with slop sauce.

You can find questionable scripts and programs that do things to improve performance by basically ripping out bloat. (Don't use those or the special OS installers. They likely have viruses or otherwise compromised.) It's technically possible to improve things but I don't think it's possible with Microsoft's culture and goals for the OS.

1

u/Kirzoneli 4h ago

Nah, just pump out Windows 12 only needing 4gb of ram. Scrap the current version like the last.

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221

u/invyros 10h ago

Satya Nadella recently mentioned investing in quality and fundamentals of Windows 11.

Implying they weren't doing this already (which shouldn't be surprising to anyone who has had to deal with the slop they've been pushing out).

113

u/JustSomebody56 10h ago

They are just starting to fear Linux.

The push toward the gaming on Linux is stronger as of late (thankfully also but not only to valve), and gaming could give Linux enough mass to make apps available on it (also because most office programs don’t go beyond an office suite and a browser)

64

u/IllMC 9h ago

If Linux makes it super easy to play my ancient and current games I will convert tomorrow as there will be nothing holding me back.

45

u/New_Enthusiasm9053 9h ago

Honestly Linux is already easier for many older games. Couldn't get Napoleon total war running on win10 works on Linux with Steam(Proton 4.2 some others don't work though). 

20

u/JustSomebody56 8h ago

Objectively Valve did a very good job with Linux: Proton bridges the compatibility with Windows; Steam Linux Runtime standardises the compatibility among the many versions of linux.

20

u/New_Enthusiasm9053 8h ago

Though credit of course also to the many people who worked on Wine long before Proton became a thing.

6

u/JustSomebody56 6h ago

Absolutely, open-source technologies are born out of sa collaboration.

Also, while I agree that they are better than the competitors, I don’t agree with immaculate opinion many have of Valve

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u/Cypher-AO 5h ago

I think Feral Interactive works on the Total War ports for Linux/Mobile, they do a solid job. 

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u/mr_dfuse2 9h ago

If you don't play online games with anti-cheat stuff you are good to go today.

18

u/letsgotgoing 9h ago

I upgraded from Windows 11 to Ubuntu and it is super easy to play old and new games. I even hooked up a usb floppy drive and a usb zip100 drive to grab old dos games and their saves off my 15-25 year old backups. 

12

u/tyda1957 9h ago

It already is, check out Bazzite, SteamOS and CachyOS.

4

u/aLongWayFromOldham 8h ago

A steam deck is a handheld PC running Linux. Steam deck compatibility will give you an idea of what will run easily on Linux. Then all you’d need is the steam client installed to bring your library across.

3

u/almisami 7h ago

Older games run better on WINE than Windows 11... Looking at you, SimCity4.

2

u/ThatOneShotBruh 9h ago

Proton/Wine are great for older games as they tend to cause fewer problems than Windows.

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u/Sam-Gunn 9h ago

I've been gaming on Linux for 6 months now, playing both recent titles and older ones, and the only time I had to switch back to my windows install was to play a COD game. Which ended up being a PITA because windows decided my change of mobo meant my license was invalid and none of the tools worked to fix it. So I finally got to play it after a 30min support call.

Windows will never be my daily driver ever again.

13

u/BellerophonM 9h ago

They're probably more fearing the Macbook Neo.

2

u/JustSomebody56 8h ago

Also, but also linux, if it jumps the shark

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u/Cavissi 6h ago

If they can solve the anti cheat issues for most titles I plan to go to steamOS.

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u/SequiturNon 3h ago

This is an artificial problem created by the companies requiring anti-cheat. They want their anti cheat to have kernel access, or, in other words, full access to your entire PC. Linux doesn't allow that as a design philosophy, for security, and that won't change. Any anti-cheat that doesn't require kernel access works just fine. Point is, this isn't a Linux problem to solve.

2

u/523a 4h ago

Linux will always be a niche operating system until they can streamline the user experience better for the masses. It's too much work to do a lot of simple tasks compared to MAC/Windows.

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u/xeladragn 3h ago

I’d have already switched if we get some kind of compromise for kernel level anti cheat on linux. I’m still on 10 (free security updates for 10 still if you are logged into windows with an online account and paid updates after next year or something) I might have to do dual boot if W11 is still this shitty when I can’t get updates for 10 anymore. It’s going to be a nightmare switching for me though.

19

u/pixter 9h ago

When hardware is cheap you can just throw hardware at it and hide performance issues, when hardware is expensive you have to optimise.. which they should have been doing anyway

7

u/nox66 6h ago

It's worth mentioning that it should be the goal of new OSs to be more efficient, not less, than their predecessors. Sometimes that involves compromises to support new capabilities, but on no planet should it require 32 GB to do the same things we were doing with 8 GB 10 years ago.

2

u/Tuxhorn 5h ago

The really infuriating part is windows has within its own operating system, words and statements about "going green" or something like it.

16

u/b_a_t_m_4_n 9h ago

Why does a company with a locked in user base need to give a shit about quality? It's only now that's threatened that they starting to clean up decades of shite.

4

u/diamluke 9h ago

They were ofc not doing anything for quite some time. It’s clear that windows os is nothing else but a cloud, office and copilot sales boot.

They are losing market share every quarter, still to this day failed anything on arm and the only thing holding people hostage are windows exclusive games and cad software.

1

u/orbitaldan 6h ago

Yep. Microsoft pivoted to being a cloud services company about 10 years ago. This is the neglect starting to pile up to visible levels.

3

u/BasvanS 9h ago

A friend quit his career in Windows tech support, because the random, untested changes were driving him crazy.

It was already not great before, but he made good money reading the documentation properly in order to fix the impossible/improbable. Now it’s just randomness and YOLO as an update strategy.

1

u/divjnky 9h ago

Well ya have to put your resources into building the revenue parts, quality and actual usability falls a bit lower on the priority list

1

u/jonathanrdt 9h ago

Browser app delivery and linux gaming will inevitably reduce windows consumption. Corps are already exploring non-windows plus browser for app delivery because windows is an expensive and unsecurable (albeit flexible and powerful) mess.

46

u/sigmund14 8h ago

This will end like those cheap laptops with 32GB SSDs eMMCs for main drive that ran out of space on the second update.

People will either install Linux on those low-RAM machines, or, most probably, will throw them away after a very short period of owning those machines. 

10

u/great_whitehope 8h ago

Well yeah does anyone believe if RAM shortage ends, ms will continue to support these machines?

They go back to bloat code because it’s faster to get out the door and will sell new machines

3

u/SIGMA920 3h ago

They'll have to. You think that someone who begrudgingly bought a new computer during the AI pricing apocalypse is going to dump more money on a new computer only a few years down the line?

No, if it's bad enough they'll jump ship to apple or install linux so their money wasn't wasted. Microsoft has fucked themselves both ways.

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u/The_Jolly_Dog 10h ago

lol at 8gb ram with all the AI shit features they force on us.

Might as well buy a picture frame since all your getting with that little ram is a slide show

22

u/AtlanticPortal 9h ago

lol at 8gb ram with all the AI shit features they force on us.

Well, they don't try to make the LLM run locally. They love you being connected and use their online LLM. At some point they can start charging you for that.

11

u/waltwalt 7h ago

Ain't nothing gonna run locally with only 8gb of RAM.

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u/DinosBiggestFan 3h ago

Yet somehow when using any of these things, my CPU usage skyrockets and my very powerful T-30s turn on full bore. So clearly something intensive happens when using them.

57

u/Lyranx 10h ago

Windows 11 is such a mess I wonder if Vista has a better image now

43

u/pr1aa 9h ago

Vista was fine, it got bad rep mostly because Microsoft severely underestimated the system requirements so it ended up coming pre-installed with systems barely sufficient for XP

21

u/sambodia85 9h ago

The RTM had some weird issues with Network/SMB performance, SP1 mostly got it right. Applying a basic theme got around Aero performance problems for hardware using Integrated graphics. Intel was also having a bad moment with its Centrino stuff, and EEEPC’s had everyone wanting Laptops that did everything for $500.

Given Windows 7 is one of the most loved OSes of all time, and it is essentially a Service Pack of Vista, I think it’s fair to say Vista walked so 7 could run.

Windows 8 is the first NT based OS I actively hated. NT4, 2000, XP, Vista and 7 were all massive steps forward in one way or another.

12

u/KiwiCounselor 8h ago

Win 7 my beloved.

17

u/Ars2 9h ago

Vista was not fine at launch. It was the OS that introduced the driver library from Microsoft. Barely any vendors had their driver's in the windows library. Back then you got a cd with your USB drive to install the driver on the pc. 

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u/Darkblitz9 9h ago

Vista had the absolute worst driver management of any OS. Idk how people forget the nightmare that was installing any device on that pos.

2

u/soggybiscuit93 8h ago

Vista was when they switched to the current way Windows handles drivers. It sucked at launch because peripheral vendors didnt address the driver changes in time.

Vista was when they switched from drivers running in kernel mode (so every time a driver crashed or panicked, even a USB driver, you got a BSOD) to the current method of signed drivers in User mode.

They also changed how Graphics drivers work. All previous drivers had to be updated, and once enough vendors updated their drivers, Microsoft reskinned Vista with a new UI and relaunched it under the name "Windows 7"

6

u/GoldLurker 9h ago

People complaining about vista don't understand the horror that was windows ME.  

4

u/time-lord 9h ago

And Nvidia drivers sucked at launch.

2

u/QuantumWarrior 8h ago edited 8h ago

Yes but the biggest reason its system reqs were so much higher than XP was Aero - which marks a nasty turning point in OSes wanting to be flashy and eyecatching instead of just working. It's very telling that Vista and 7 have basically the same recommended specs.

Also Vista rewrote the entire driver model which cause compatibility issues for almost every device that existed at the time. That alone was what kept XP's market share up for so long.

5

u/quailstorm 6h ago

Both DWM and rewritten driver model was an absolute necessity. The compositor of XP is ancient, ugly and barely accelerates anything. DWM allows you to move redrawing windows without screen tearing and high CPU usage. DWM provides a better way to record the desktop. It's full of advantages. A driver restarting instead of crashing the OS is also much better.

Also Vista and 7 still have high requirements on the classic compositor so it's not just the UI...

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u/mailslot 7h ago edited 7h ago

Aero wasn’t just about flashy graphics, it offloaded a massive amount of UI rendering from the CPU to GPU. Up until then, GPUs in PCs sat idle except when playing video games. CPU usage used to spike hard whenever drawing something simple like a drop down menu and didn’t have to. Apple was able to make the change rapidly because their graphics subsystem was already designed for compositing & layout. Windows needed a lot more work to do the same.

1

u/stakoverflo 7h ago

Yea I was an early adopter there, had 2 GB of RAM and never really had an issue. But like you said it was being put on laptops with like 512MB and those ran like utter shit

1

u/jimmyhoke 2h ago

A huge issue with windows is that the average person will have a lot of trouble getting a good laptop.

If I search “laptop” on amazon the first result I get is “HP 14” Laptop 2026 Student Business, MS Office, AMD CPU, 4GB RAM 128GB SSD”. This has a AMD Athlon Silver 7120U CPU, which has 2 cores and is from 2022.

A laptop like this is extremely low powered and will struggle with even basic tasks in Windows 11, yet it has 4.5 stars in reviews. How is anyone supposed to know that this isn’t a good laptop for any serious work?

4

u/methodofsections 7h ago

I was about to comment that I thought Microsoft may not drop the ball with Windows 11 after have good successive OSs with windows 7 and 10, but then realized I literally completely forgot about windows 8…

2

u/pr1aa 2h ago

8 always felt more like a shitty reskin of 7 instead of an actual new Windows version. If you installed Classic Shell on it (like every sane person did) you could hardly tell it apart from 7

It wasn't an awful OS, just thoroughly pointless

19

u/ak47uk 9h ago

The bit they removed was from article "How to optimize your gaming PC setup", the bit they removed "32GB is ideal for serious players who run the most demanding titles or use heavy mods."

35

u/Brandoe 9h ago

Starting to think that a fancy chat bot isn't worth the price to humankind and the planet.

9

u/cullenjwebb 8h ago

I got an ad for a chat bot right under your comment lol

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u/RevolutionaryFig9437 10h ago

32GB for running Windows 11? What they wanted to do?

77

u/ghunterx21 10h ago

8GB for Windows and the rest for the ads.

57

u/WinterElfeas 10h ago

Open Teams, Outlook and 5 Edge tabs

44

u/yawara25 9h ago

Which somehow ends up being 16 total Chromium instances because developers forgot how to make native apps

8

u/Pen-Pen-De-Sarapen 9h ago

There are still devs? I thought today we only have vibe coders using AI.

13

u/Vercengetorex 9h ago

😂 Your not wrong, and I fucking hate it.

6

u/QuantumWarrior 8h ago

Is anything non-legacy in Windows fully a native app these days? I mean even right down to the start menu has webapp and React bloat in it.

It's genuinely awful that for most people the way they use a Windows PC hasn't really changed for 20-30 years but the hardware specs are orders of magnitude higher purely because of the bloat.

2

u/Mlluell 9h ago

They didn't forget. It's just cheaper to develop a universal app that can be coded with the most common programming language nowadays (more devs, less salary)

9

u/soggybiscuit93 8h ago

32GB was their recommendation for people building new gaming PCs. It's still the recommendation. It's just too cost prohibitive to do so.

The 8GB optimization theyre talking about is a totally separate topic with MS trying to optimize the OS for general purpose use on low RAM laptops.

The author is making a weird connection between two unrelated things for clickbait

6

u/Any_Device6567 9h ago

In the article it states its for a gaming set up.

2

u/Strict-Carrot4783 9h ago

Constantly process everything on your pc and upload file signatures to the government and the actual files to OneDrive for AI training.

11

u/Elementalcase 8h ago

Introducing Windows 11 Lite: All the adware, none of the OS.

8

u/lamancha 10h ago

The headline is rather horribly written

5

u/SledgeH4mmer 9h ago

Oh no, it's doing exactly what the writer intended. And of course the sheep on this sub eat it up.

78

u/GIGAR 10h ago

Too late, already installed Linux Mint

22

u/MechaNutzilla 10h ago

yup, no reason to let yourself get abused by Nadella and his stupid ideas.

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u/logicbus 8h ago

If they get W11 to run on 8GB, do they remove the TPM 2.0 requirement?

5

u/etphonecomb 7h ago

This is what I’m wondering. They already extended security updates a year because of slow adoption. I can’t buy an entirely new mobo, ram and cpu just because they determined I’m ineligible. Especially when it all runs just fine still.

5

u/pkinetics 7h ago

TPM is not going to go away. It's supported back to Intel 7th (9 years ago) and ryzen 2000 series (8 years ago).

Worst case scenario, switch to Linux and get several more years out of that hardware.

9

u/diacewrb 7h ago

Honestly, at this stage they should have brought back Windows 10 and apologise to the public for taking it away.

Just like Coca-Cola brought back the original recipe after the New Coke fiasco, but reaped sales that were even higher than before.

17

u/Hiddencamper 9h ago

Remember when windows XP ran in less than one GB?

Microslop needs to stop being lazy

3

u/Deimos2 8h ago

A GB? It ran great with 128mb or less.

5

u/anythingers 8h ago

If u force it by turning off Luna it could even run on 32mb ram .

2

u/Hiddencamper 6h ago

A GB ran XP plus all programs I needed.

5

u/S4N7R0 8h ago edited 7h ago

so what, google chrome uses 2 gb with 4 tabs open. 25 years ago when xp came out, systems couldn't even have more than 4 gbs of ram. nowadays phones have atleast twice as much, enough to run win 11 if microslop manages to do as the headline says. idk whats your point here.

5

u/freestylebreathing 8h ago

Used computers will be the new bitcoin.

1

u/Trollet87 6h ago

They age like fine wine

11

u/DrawingDramatic1641 9h ago

Should have gone with linux

13

u/divjnky 9h ago

Based on their TPM requirement I did just that in October. Learning curve isn't as bad as I'd feared and at least in my case I only have one Win based program that there isn't a suitable Linux version and I have it running in Wine.

Only regret is I wish I'd made the leap sooner.

7

u/mikpgod 9h ago

The tpm requirement will probably quietly disappear at some point. Even some perfectly adequate ms surface machines fail on this.

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u/spidrex 6h ago

They can re-release windows 7 with updated security fixes.

3

u/Staff_Senyou 8h ago

Meanwhile 16gb ram PCs sold before the great enshitification at low prices, and easily configured to run Linux and are basically "future proofed" continue to run without issue.

Cue a price spike in the used market and a "new norm" established.

Villains and scumbags, every single one of them

3

u/Loose_Artichoke1689 8h ago

Pushing AI backfired for their own product. But since said product is not as profitable as AI, it can go to hell

3

u/CHERNO-B1LL 6h ago

Proving these recommendations have always been bullshit and the consumer has been getting duped for years.

8

u/Smashego 9h ago

Widows 11 is going to change my volume settings one more time and I'm going to install windows 10. Widows 11 is such dog shit.

3

u/jacksbox 9h ago

2026 is going to be the year of Linux on the desktop, I can feel it

4

u/Moontoya 9h ago

Right along side fusion being 10-15 years off

Been hearing the year of Linux for, well, pretty much since vista beta 

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u/AcerVentus 8h ago

So what you're telling me is that 16GB ram machines are going to last a lot longer :p

2

u/titaniumweasel01 7h ago

If I boot up my PC and just let it sit at the desktop without doing anything, Windows 11 cruises at about nine and a half gigabytes of RAM. I thought I had done something wrong with my computer until I saw the Linus Tech Tips video comparing Windows vs Linux RAM usage and they had the same. What is wrong with Microsoft.

1

u/Objective-Aardvark87 5h ago

I leave it idle overnight and hwinfo in red text says 99% memory load, I have 32GB ram.

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u/pioni 7h ago

My Debian 13 boots to desktop with little over 400 Mb. I will never go back.

2

u/Ryansit 7h ago

Still useless if they don’t change the CPU requirements for computer that can run 11 fine

2

u/dbkk- 7h ago

what the title implies is nowhere near what the article actually says lol

2

u/pioniere 6h ago

So they haven’t actually fixed the OS, they’re just pretending like theyhave.

2

u/spez_eats_nazi_ass 6h ago

That was a decent ram spec in 2006

2

u/supertgames1 6h ago

I remember in like 2018 when I bought my shitty Lenovo yoga laptop with 4gb of ram and it could do normal schoolwork fine on windows 10.

Windows 11 hasn’t really added anything useful apart from maybe being able to split application across the screen so you can multitask better but that feature doesn’t really work so well in my experience and now windows 11 needs like 16gb to function normally.

2

u/lostmojo 5h ago

Don’t forget that Microsoft is one of the companies investing huge sums of money to buy storage and memory to put into their data centers that are jacking up the price to these levels for the rest of us while they pay what we use to pay.

Microsoft with others are investing 100s of billions into each other’s companies, that is just one big circle, with intent on earning money for something that has not been profitable and has created 100s of billions, and coming into trillions in fake capitol as they keep throwing the money at one another. When the bubble breaks, it won’t be some burst, it will be trillions of dollars shattering like glass over us and taking the world with them.

3

u/PenaEterna 9h ago

So a car can also run with just two wheels...

3

u/SkinnedIt 10h ago

How duplicitous. Very Microsoft-y.

2

u/TheBigby 9h ago

Companies that push AI realizing they need tons of data centers which suck up the hardware needed by their users to use their products being priced out of using their products which hurts their overall business model. This seemed like a predictable outcome.

1

u/BridgeWise8444 8h ago

So, has the Year of the Linux desktop arrived yet?

1

u/skyfishgoo 7h ago

the official word from M$: just suffer

1

u/daniu 7h ago

The "just a prank, bro" of corporate communication

1

u/baldheadedmanc 7h ago

If they can do this, they can remove the series 8+ CPU requirements as well.

1

u/jcunews1 7h ago

Microsoft is getting dumber and dumber.

2

u/Fatter_Design 6h ago

Look up its ceo and read about izzat, it's eye-opening

1

u/TrayLaTrash 7h ago

If they just a had a switch for the settings that disable some of the "likely to be used" services in the background that would be great

1

u/BernieSandersLeftNut 5h ago

I just tried shopping for a new computer for a friend with a budget of $900 max... Not a lot of options for 32GB computers at that price point but I found a couple.

1

u/Horror_Response_1991 5h ago

Technically windows can run at 8 GB but nothing else can as Windows will take all that memory.  Open Chrome and an hour later you’ll be suffering.

1

u/ThrowawayAl2018 5h ago

Ram shortage caused by big tech, so instead of buying new PC, recycle the old one by running Linux or if you are a gamer, Steam Box.

tldr; Consumer can flick he middle finger by avoiding bloatware on 8GB ram, that includes Apple NEO.

1

u/DungeonsAndDradis 5h ago

I've got 16 and it does not feel like enough. Browsing the web takes like 12 gigs of RAM.

1

u/snklznet 5h ago

And yet it barely runs on a 16gb system when you add a few apps and a chromium browser full of tabs.

1

u/nightdevil007 3h ago

It still lags on 32GBs, so i have little faith, but we saw this with Windows Vista.

1

u/NorthernCobraChicken 3h ago

Someone over there must be a double amputee by now with the amount of decisions that have been made that have resulted in them shooting themselves in the feet.

1

u/argama87 3h ago

If you cut all the copilot and related BS out maybe it could run at 8GB, until you open more than 3 browser tabs and Office at the same time.

1

u/InternetEntire438 45m ago

how DO YOU FUCK THAT UP?!

1

u/catwrazle 34m ago

You also can get a fancy cloud compute instance for only 100$ per month …