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Microsoft admits 8GB RAM is fine for Windows 11, after years of pushing 16GB as the baseline (www.windowslatest.com)
submitted 2 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 70 points 2 months ago (14 children)

8GB should be fine for Windows 11. However, the OS is so bloated that it simply isn't.

Microsoft should fix that.

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  • [–] 10 points 2 months ago (5 children)

    They can't. The spaghetti code base is ancient. You can't really take anything out at this point because it's what keeps it alive.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago (4 children)

    Don't worry, they're using AI now so that'll fix the spaghetti code. /s

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  • [–] 5 points 2 months ago (3 children)

    The IT press was saying a decade or so ago the Microsoft had lost control of its code base and it would bloat and run like slug. Looks like nothing has changed. Too late to fix it with all the AI tokens in the world.

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  • [+] 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)
    [deleted]
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  • [–] 0 points 2 months ago (7 children)

    I watch a Rerez video where he looks at force feedback flightsticks. These sticks came out around the year 2000, and use ports that modern PCs just don't have.

    He tried plugging one made by microsoft into windows 11. This stick was made 26 years ago. It just worked. No setup. No drivers. Just, 26 year old stick.

    The reason? They're still including drivers from Windows ME into Windows 11.

    This is one very niche example, but the 300kb or whatever a driver size is, is being preinstalled in all windows 11 instalations. And Windows 10, and Windows 8, Windows 7, and Windows Vista, and Windows XP.

    I'm gonna guess you can count on one hand the number of people using this flight stick on Windows 11. It only works with a handful of games, because it only ever worked on a handful of games.

    Why would this be included by default on Vista or later?

    Imagine how many thousands of other files are like this. Taking up space, without a reason.

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  • [–] 10 points 2 months ago* (2 children)

    Having the drivers installed is fine and, quite frankly, good; for exactly the reason you point out. When they aren't being used they are only taking up disk space. And that is OK, nobody is particularly upset with Windows' disk space.

    It is the RAM usage, telemetry, and other running processes that just don't need to be running. These are the things that make a Windows setup so bloated. One doesn't need to reach out and tell MS every time you open the start menu, one doesn't need Candy Crush and One Drive ads appearing in the OS. There is no good way to turn all that off. That is just using resources and making the OS worse for users.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    It shouldn't take a measurable amount of time to find the calculator when I start typing "cal" in the application menu. And yet it frequently takes upwards of 10 seconds for anything to show up at all.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago

    I love you LibreOffice but please stop opening your Excel program when I type “Cal” into the start menu hahaha

    (I heavily recommend OpenShell on any Windows 10/11 machines. It makes everything look soooo much better, is hella customizable, removes the horrible garbage search that sucks ass and replaces it with good fast Windows 7 style search, and soooo much more. W10/11 start menu is unusable without it, it’s a mess.)

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  • [–] 8 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    That... doesn't make sense. The Windows NT line changed the way hardware and drivers interacted with a new Hardware Abstraction Layer, so a WinME driver wouldn't load in Win11.

    Additionally, Win7 changed it so that drivers require certification and signature, which I could guess the certification would come in grandfathered, but the signature certainly wouldn't be there for a WinME driver.

    Why even complain about a 300kb driver sitting in System/SysWOW64, as it isn't going to reside in RAM until the actual device is plugged in... so it's actually a good thing to keep. I'm glad they don't act as the arbiter of what is too old and force people to purchase new hardware when the old stuff still works.

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  • [–] 0 points 2 months ago

    What I'm saying is, it shouldn't take up space by default.

    If YOU want to install it, great. You can spend 30 seconds installing the driver. Why force 99.99% of users to take on bloat, when they'll never use it. Same thing with additional languages. If you speak other languages, great. You install them on your device. No reason I should have French installed on my device.

    Now add the same idea with every bit of software. The OS itself should be bare minimum. Then you can add to your own installation.

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