Windows 7: Which windows uses the most RAM?

If computers are roads, MS keeps helping itself to not only more space, but an increasing percentage of available space. Some call that progress, others do not. MS has many reasons why it is better that they use that space and give you the user a decreasing role in managing that space, or even having the ability to manage it. In this way MS looks at the world as a group of people who will never get very good at managing their computer, and as people who never learned to drive (85% of people never defrag a hard drive), just need the MS bus to come and pick them up and take them where they are going. It will only be a short wait, nothing you should complain about.

But if you like to drive, you may have cynicism about MS' tendency to take away your pedals and levers.



The primary point of car responsiveness is the engine responding to the gas pedal. MS puts so much in the trunk of each new version that despite the engine being faster, the car seems just a little sluggish, which irritates drivers but does not matter to people on a bus. Many argue as to the value of those things in the trunk, but the fact that we cannot remove them is absurd, though blackviper helps us try. But try as we might the basic tasks like explorer, network browsing, file searching, mail, whatever, have a tendency to slow down.

The arbitrary chart below shows how as we moved through DOS versions, DOS took a DECREASING amount of resource from the system (through relocating some of itself above 640k), and imposed a relatively unchanging overhead to the hardware, which meant that it got FASTER to us the users. But windows has done the opposite, and each new version has points of sluggishness when compared to the previous version, even on faster hardware. DOS users kept getting happier with each version, but MS is increasingly taking away our ferrari by loading down the trunk with stuff we cannot remove.

XP was released on August 24, 2001. That makes it over 8 years old. In the computer world....that is really darn old. I'm not using any of the software that I had 8 years ago, I'm not using the same computer that I used from 8 years ago. I'm not using the same monitor, mouse or keyboard that I used 8 years ago.

Just because businesses and people are still using it, doesn't mean that it isn't old. I'm pretty sure that anybody at MS would have liked to have seen every single desktop go to Vista and then every single desktop go to Windows 7.

Back when Windows XP first came out, the average computer probably had 512 MB of RAM.

When Windows 7 came out, the average PC has 2-4 GB of RAM.

Any smart OS developer would take advantage of the extra resources. Not utilizing it would be silly.

I rather go with Windows XP now. You can get brilliant themes and gadets on there aswell.

And it will run like the crap the more bloat you add to it as it cannot mange Memory as Vista and Win 7 do.

XP was good in its day but its like a kids Fisherprice look now and a dinosaur.

Any good modern hardware should be on Vista or Win 7 64bit OS to get the most out of it.

Nothing wrong with that. It is your choice.

I agree XP is better for the lower end systems that won't be pumping power to 2 or more gigs of RAM. If Windows 7 uses more than half a gig on just standard services then you won't be able to use supportable older systems that tend to peak out at 1G of RAM capacity. My company is looking into upgrading to 7 but we still have MoBo's in the I800 series that are still using 400MHz RAM. That which are lucky if we can hunt down a full gig for them to have. I understand that "hey it will utilize it better for me and manage my overhead" but whats it matter if the standard OS services swallow all of it up before any applications are running.

I like the idea of Windows7 in a nice new beef box, but to me it's another way of forcing small companies to spend money on all new systems and operating systems, not to mention applications that are compatible. And by the way throw all your old software to the poor because it's only able to be fully utilized by the stoneage Xp users.

Those standard OS services give up any resource they have INSTANTLY without question to any application that requires it. Third-party stuff....now that is what you must watch out for.

Back home I have an old machine: 1GB RAM, 1.7 GHz Celeron CPU and x1500 series ATI Radeon 256MB video. It's on XP now. Should I consider upgrading it to Windows 7? It's mainly used (not by me) for browsing and games, or at least the once that can run on it.

On an 8Gb machine running win 7 ultimate x64: 1.4GB used 3.6GB cached and 3.1GB free