Redmond adds new items to its make-Windows-better list
Microsoft has added four new items to the to-do list it set itself to improve the quality of Windows 11.Redmond's list landed in March 2026 in response to users' anger at Windows 11 becoming increasingly flaky and needy.Pavan Davuluri, Microsoft's executive VP for Windows and Devices, promised "improved memory efficiency, lowering the baseline memory footprint for Windows, freeing up more capacity for the apps you run."
Last Friday, Davuluri reviewed Microsoft's efforts in a new post that is unsurprisingly enthusiastic about Redmond's repair job – even though much of the work is yet to appear in production versions of Windows. Among the work Davuluri lauded was removing some AI features, improving driver quality, and trying to make the Windows Insider program less convoluted.
But he also acknowledges there's more to be done and that memory efficiency is yet to manifest."We've steadily been introducing several improvements to the memory efficiency of Windows, from taking advantage of a more efficient memory allocator to reduce overhead across apps and components, continued tuning of WinUI 3 so that apps built on it use less memory by design, as well as driving efficiencies across Chromium and Webview2 components when they appear in the operating system," he wrote.Davuluri's post also reveals that Microsoft has decided to work on four new areas it hopes will make Windows less craptastic.The third of those is "Memory optimization for 8 GB and above," which Davuluri describes as "reducing Windows memory footprint to deliver a fast and responsive Windows experience across the PCs customers use every day."Microsoft's system requirements for Windows 11 state that the OS needs a PC equipped with at least 4 GB of memory, or 16 GB of pricey DDR5/LPDDR5 to qualify as a Copilot+ PC capable of handling AI workloads. The software giant seemingly assumes Windows users are all clamoring to run Copilot and other AI, so working to ensure that Windows 11 can run on 8 GB of memory feels like a tacit admission that Copilot+ PCs aren't exciting buyers, perhaps due to the current high price of memory. Or perhaps because people just don't see much value in paying extra for an AI-capable PC.
