By Tom Warren
Publication Date: 2026-10-15 13:41:00
Earlier this year Microsoft laid out a plan to fix Windows 11, with a focus on performance, reliability, and the overall OS experience. After months of fixes, Microsoft now says the “result is a Windows experience that’s up to 20 percent more responsive.”
Microsoft has made improvements to Start, File Explorer, Search, Edge, and other parts of Windows 11 to make it feel faster and more responsive. “A big part of that work is making smarter use of memory and system resources,” says Navjot Virk, corporate vice president of Windows experiences at Microsoft. “We’ve improved memory management and efficiency across Windows to help keep more of your PC’s resources focused on what you’re actively doing.”
The improvements to memory management now make a “meaningful difference” on PCs with just 8GB of RAM. “Windows can now keep up to 2GB more of your active data in memory instead of moving it to slower storage,” says Virk. “For example, on PCs with 8GB of memory…