Overview
- Microsoft said on Tuesday, November 3, 2026, that the 26H2 updates are rolling out to enable memory changes that the company claims make 8GB PCs up to 20% more responsive and multitasking up to 40% faster in its lab tests.
- At the technical level Microsoft tuned kernel memory compression to keep about 2 GB more active data in RAM, reduced preloads such as Widgets on low‑RAM machines, and moved many web‑powered experiences to shared engines or native WinUI3 code to cut per‑app memory use.
- Microsoft also reported up to roughly 900 MB of committed‑memory savings across Windows, Edge and Microsoft 365, with Office apps contributing about 350 MB of that reduction.
- Independent hands‑on tests of the 26H2 builds show meaningful idle and workload RAM drops on at least one 8GB laptop (for example idle RAM from about 5.3 GB to 4.1 GB and large reductions in committed memory), but heavy multitasking can still force paging and results vary by hardware and drivers.
- The changes respond to a global RAM shortage that has pushed OEMs to ship more 8GB models, yet Microsoft’s gains could be limited unless browser and third‑party app developers, plus OEMs and driver makers, also reduce their memory footprints.