How much RAM should a Windows 11 PC have? Microsoft set the bare minimum to 4 GB of RAM in the official system requirements. Clearly, that is far from ideal and specifically set for ultra-low cost devices.
When Microsoft launched the Copilot+ PC label, it set the minimum to 16 GB of RAM. Now, with exploding memory prices, Microsoft announced plans to optimize the Windows 11 operating system for PCs with 8 GB of RAM and above.
Windows head Pavan Davuluri published a new article on the Windows blog to reiterate Microsoft’s plan to improve Windows quality. Most of the post looks at what Microsoft achieved already, but the final part highlights upcoming changes to the operating system.
Here is the important bit:
Memory optimization for 8GB and above. Reducing Windows memory footprint to deliver a fast and responsive Windows experience across the PCs customers use every day.
Davuluri does not reveal directly how Microsoft plans to reduce the memory footprint of the operating system. However, here is what the company outlined elsewhere:
- More Efficient Memory Allocator: Microsoft is updating the core OS memory allocator to lower administrative overhead and manage RAM allocation across system processes and applications more efficiently.
- WinUI 3 Optimization & Migration: WinUI 3 (the modern user interface framework) is being tuned to consume less RAM by design. Additionally, Microsoft is rewriting more legacy/hybrid shell elements using WinUI 3—including the Widgets board, the Run dialog, and file/folder properties windows—to improve both RAM efficiency and UI latency.
- WebView2 & Chromium Efficiency: Embedded web-based interfaces across Windows 11 rely on WebView2 (Chromium engine), which can be memory-heavy due to background process creation. Microsoft is directly targeting these components to reduce their process count and memory footprint.
- Reducing Idle Baseline Consumption: The team is targeting how much RAM the OS claims at initial system startup before any third-party applications (like browsers or game launchers) are opened.
Microsoft has not published exact information about the RAM that it hopes to free up this way nor when the optimizations will find their way into stable versions of the operating system.