Overview
- Microsoft began rolling out small memory and responsiveness changes through monthly updates during 2026 and 26H2 acts as an enablement package that flips those staged features on for more devices.
- Independent tests and user reports find RAM use falling by roughly 1.5–3 GB on many higher‑RAM machines after 26H2, with specific examples including drops from about 6.9GB to ~4.8–5GB on one 48GB PC and from >10GB to ~7GB on a 16GB laptop.
- Low Latency Profile, a feature that briefly boosts CPU frequency to reduce UI pauses and speed Start, Search and app launches, is now widely enabled and is credited with making the OS feel snappier.
- Results are inconsistent: some 8GB systems show little or no change and measured savings can be affected by startup apps, cached memory, browser tabs and whether features were already enabled via earlier updates or community tools.
- Microsoft has not said 26H2 alone caused the drops, so users and IT teams should validate performance on their hardware and expect the change to mainly reflect months of incremental engineering work on the memory manager, memory compression, WinUI and WebView2.