Windows 11 got a major performance boost with its latest update, including 40% faster multi-tasking on an 8GB PC based on Microsoft’s testing
That update is still a preview, mind, but the full release is coming next week, with other performance boosts, especially for 8GB PCs
Meanwhile the developer of Tiny11 has managed to get a totally stripped-down version of Windows 11 running in an improbable 128MB of memory
Microsoft has gone into the details of how it’s made Windows 11 faster on 8GB PCs (and all systems for that matter), with these changes arriving in the next update for the OS – all while a third-party has demonstrated the operating system running on a meagre 128MB of RAM (with huge caveats as you might expect). A blog post from Pavan Davuluri , head of Windows at Microsoft, entitled ‘Raising the bar for 8GB Windows 11 PCs’ gives us some further metrics as to how much performance has been improved by. Microsoft has mentioned that Windows 11 is now up to 20% more responsive on 8GB machines before, but now it’s added another stat to consider, namely that the OS is 40% faster for multi-tasking (and that kind of workload is where 8GB of RAM can feel a lot more pushed to its limits). In this case, Microsoft’s test involved "opening 20 tabs in Microsoft Edge, a 4K video, large Word, PowerPoint and Excel files, Outlook and File Explorer one after another, keeping everything open as we went." This was 40% faster compared to Windows 11 in January 2026 (before the fix the OS campaign started), as measured on an HP OmniBook 3 laptop with a Snapdragon X Plus (Arm) 8-core CPU and 8GB of memory. Davuluri explains that Microsoft’s approach to upping performance in Windows 11 runs along three distinct paths: "Making better use of the memory in every Windows 11 PC, protecting the interactions that need to feel instant even under load, and ensuring key apps and Windows require less memory." Of course, the exec points out that this work benefits all Windows 11 PCs, but that this tuning will be particularly beneficial for 8GB devices – clearly having key apps drain less system RAM is going to be great for lower memory loadouts. Microsoft notes that in terms of memory management improvements, in multi-tasking tests on 8GB systems, it has "reduced committed-memory growth by up to 900MB" in Windows 11 running Edge and Microsoft 365 apps. We’re also told that thanks to improvements in Windows 11’s compression techniques, more active data for apps can be stored in RAM (as opposed to on your drive, where it’s slower to be fetched) – to the tune of up to 2GB more. Davuluri employs a useful desk metaphor to illustrate this, which I think is worth a read for the less tech-savvy…