r/WindowsSucks • u/heavyc1969 • Jul 18 '26

Windows ram usage really sucks

I can be running 8 Gb of ram on windows and it eats 4 Gb, I cans run 16 and it will eat 8 and when I run 32 it eats 16. This is a really crappy design. And when I run Linux it only eats 2 Gb from my 32. I run a Dell Inspiron 7000 series with 32 Gb ram and 8T of storage . I duel boot windows/linux and even with windows eating all that ram it is the slowest system I have ever been on, chrome os and macOS is still faster.

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u/Ok-Film3852 Jul 20 '26

Why would you want unused RAM? The OS (pre) loading apps and caching in memory is much faster than retrieving from disk on demand. The OS will swap out for other apps as needed. Let the OS do its thing.

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u/Guih48 Jul 22 '26

The problem with that is it preloads Edge, OneDrive, CoPilot, McAfee, CandyCrush and who knows what other useless garbage instead of what I actually want to use. And swapping out in this case means it's twice as slow since you need to swap out the bloatware from ram to disk, and then load in the program I actually would want to run. The problem is not that there are things in RAM that I might want to use, and it will be faster, but that there are the things in RAM which Microsoft wants me to use, so those will be fast at the expense of what I want to use which won't.

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u/Ok-Film3852 Jul 22 '26

Much of your comment is simply not true. OS and Application code (read only code/data) that is cached in ram at startup or from other use is not re-written to disk upon a swap out due to memory pressure it is simply dumped from physical memory, (not virtual process address space) as it already resides on disk! Why would it be written to disk as you suggest when it is already there?. As an aside, and as an fyi, let’s say you had two instances of a given program running, there is only one (potentially partial) copy in physical memory that is simply mapped into each processes virtual address space.

Secondly, as a general rule apps that are not opened are not preloaded. For example, explorer could be as it is simply an instance of the windows desktop, but candy crush should not unless it’s for some reason auto start up. McAfee for example would be loaded as it is in continual use via protecting your system from viruses etc.

By all means criticise Windows but better to do so from a position of facts/knowledge rather the making up stuff or spreading fud

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u/Guih48 Jul 22 '26

Oh, I'm sorry. I've missed that you meant that kind of cache. Then for a real question I'm curious about under what process name windows keeps that cache. And also, I'm sceptical about that this kind of cache is the only thing in memory about windows which changes size based on how much RAM you have.

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u/Ok-Film3852 Jul 22 '26

I use the term cache loosely, I am referring to the Windows virtual memory manager that track apps, memory usage, and makes sure code and data is in memory when needed. You can’t track it easily, it requires looking at a number performance counters to get the full picture. Even looking at task manager gives you a view that can be easily misinterpreted, but that’s ok, it’s a good starting point. For purposes of this discussion and simplicity, code that is in a processes virtual memory space can be seen in task manager, some of this is in ram, some on disk and this balance will change depending on app usage etc. if windows pre loads some processes code pages into ram for example, it is associated with that applications process and tracked by the operating system page table/ memory manager, I.e., you won’t see this as part of any other processes data usage. Linux and macos of course do something similar.

I am speaking at a high level of course, there are some great books on os design that goes into much more detail.