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Microsoft admits 8GB RAM is fine for Windows 11, after years of pushing 16GB as the baseline
(www.windowslatest.com)
this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2026
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8 GB is NOT fine in Windows 11. I had to install Linux on my father's laptop that has 8G GB so that it becomes useful. Technically speaking because Windows 11 is so bloated, 16 GB should remain the baseline.
if that's what led your father to move to linux, I'd say that 8 gb in windows 11 is PERFECTLY fine.
My gf was complaining her laptop was slow, even though she bought it new last year and it wasn't a cheapo. I went to take a look, 8gb win 11 laptop, hammering more than 7 gb of memory while doing literally nothing after being turned on. "Maybe there's something wrong" I cleaned up her startup apps, uninstalled some stuff that she never used (and came as bloat from samsung), did some optimizations... Restarted, and still at 7+ gb of memory use. Yep, it's fucked.
It's doesn't actually use those 7GB when idling though, it just allocates it so it's directly available if it needs it. It will free up ram from its allocated amount if other processes require ram.
I have 16GB in my laptop, and it took 4 full desktop VMS running at once to finally make it struggle with opensuse KDE as the host.
My work computer sits at 8GB used with basic office things running and a tab or two open on a browser. I guess if you only have one browser tab open at a time you could do 8GB on 11.
My PC has 16gb of ram, but it won't run Windows 11.
It won't run Windows 11, because I refuse to install such a rubbish invasive AI laced OS.