Windows 11 to soon get improved RAM management, snappier UI experience, faster File Explorer and better drivers

Microsoft managed to alienate quite a significant portion of Windows 11 users last year when it started pushing updates focusing on AI-powered Copilot integrations with most default apps, as well as the dreaded Recall feature that raised serious security and privacy issues. In order to appease Windows supporters that were already threatening to switch to Linux, Microsoft promised to scale back the AI focus earlier this year, but Apple immediately delivered another small reality check with the MacBook Neo that launched as a very affordable laptop featuring only 8 GB of RAM.

Surprisingly enough, 8 GB of RAM is enough for Apple’s budget model, as tests have revealed that the latest version of Mac OS can still feel snappy with a ton of apps opened. This certainly would not be possible for a Windows 11 laptop with 8 GB and it would most likely struggle even with 16 GB of RAM. So Windows users again started to complain and it looks like Microsoft is willing to deliver some much needed improvements to make Windows great again.

RAM management improvements

First of all, Windows 11 will soon integrate new background policies to better manage resources like RAM and storage space. For RAM, in particular, Microsoft intends to reduce the baseline memory footprint, so that the OS consumes fewer resources in idle state. Right now, a system with 8 GB of RAM running Windows 11 would use almost 6 GB in idle, while one with 16 GB would use 10 GB. That’s well over 50% of the total RAM in these 2 cases. The situation is considerably more manageable with 32 GB and up, but the current RAM prices may not easily allow for such upgrades. Microsoft has not detailed its exact RAM improvements, but TechPowerUp suggests that Windows 11 could adopt something similar to the Xbox Full Screen Experience that increases performance and lowers RAM usage by eliminating many background tasks.

UI responsiveness

While the UI design in Windows 11 now looks more coherent and fluent, it still feels unresponsive at times. This is caused by the different frameworks in use at the same time, such as WebView2 and React plus all sorts of native components and legacy code still lurking in the background tasks. Microsoft is looking to address these problems by shifting the entire UI infrastructure to WinUI 3. The Start menu itself would feel much snappier as soon as it moves from React to WinUI.

File Explorer enhancements

File Explorer is also expected to see improvements. Even with the recent pre-loading feature, File Explorer in Windows 11 loads slower than on Windows 10. So Microsoft plans to increase responsiveness by reducing latency for the search bars, navigation and context menus. Improvements to reliability and speed of file operations like copying and moving large files are also planned. Apps in general are expected to launch faster, too.

Better driver support and fewer crashes

On the hardware support side, Microsoft wants to offer support for all the latest technologies and processors with better drivers and reduced crash occurrence. The company wants to focus on frequent complaints regarding Bluetooth connection dropouts, USB connection failures, camera and audio inconsistencies on tablets and wakeup issues on devices paired to docks.