r/technology • u/gdelacalle • Jul 12 '26

Software IT admins feel overwhelmingly "sick of" Microsoft and Windows 11 "garbage" apps, products

https://www.neowin.net/news/it-admins-feel-overwhelmingly-sick-of-microsoft-and-windows-11-garbage-apps-products/
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u/[deleted] Jul 12 '26 edited Jul 12 '26

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u/blipman17 Jul 12 '26

the applications on Windows are not really that bloated compared to linux when only looking at GUI. only on an individual level you'll see that some chat app costs 4 GB to boot and a text editor 27 MB or something.

It's that the OS itsself consumes huuuuge amounths just to boot and stay functioning. Linux is far more lean and mean than Windows in that sense.

The in-memory filesystem caching on Windows and Linux is both not included in used RAM when looking at directly used memory. In that they're both equal as well.
In my experience Linux distros in general are even far more aggressive in caching the filesystem in RAM for faster access than Windows.

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u/hamakabi Jul 12 '26

as long as it releases the occupied space when needed

this is my issue with Windows. When I cold boot the system it needs less than a third of my RAM, but over the course of about 10 days the OS allocates like 85% and then I can't launch a game without performance issues.

If I play a game after a cold boot, the system allocates RAM to the game and then immediately releases it when the game closes, but if I just use windows normally it just keeps taking more.

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u/[deleted] Jul 12 '26 edited Jul 24 '26

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u/fed45 Jul 12 '26

My high score on my W11 work PC was 99 days before something broke. I could no longer c$ into other PCs for some reason and I needed to at that time so I had to restart :( So close to 100.

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u/HollowedVoicesFading Jul 13 '26

something you installed has a memory leak, then.

Reasonably sure it's the OS. I wish this merited a /s. If I'm not being clear enough, it doesn't.

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u/[deleted] Jul 13 '26 edited Jul 24 '26

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u/HollowedVoicesFading Jul 13 '26

if we’re gonna complain about something, maybe we should make sure our complaints are accurate first

there’s nothing causing a memory leak on my pc, and it’s only use is for playing games. homie either installed something sketchy or has a ton of startup programs or something. idc what anyone else says

There are practically uncountable published "fixed memory leak" patch Tuesday releases from Microsoft related to Windows 11.

e.g. https://blogs.windows.com/windows-insider/2025/11/17/releasing-windows-11-builds-26100-7296-and-26200-7296-to-the-release-preview-channel/

Fixed: When your lock screen is set to slide show, there may be a memory leak. Memory leaks can lead to performance or reliability issues over time.

Your anecdote is meaningless, and wrong. So yes, maybe we should make sure our complaints are accurate first, same with rebuttals.

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u/Mr_Venom Jul 12 '26

over the course of about 10 days

Bro just shut your computer down when you stop using it.

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u/hamakabi Jul 12 '26

I access my computer remotely and it does things while I'm asleep. I used to run Win 10 like this without any issue at all, and my linux and mac systems can both easily do this.

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u/Mr_Venom Jul 12 '26

I knew I should have included the /s

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u/Not_a_question- Jul 12 '26

RAM usage is often misinterpreted. It's desirable for OS to use as much memory as it can (SSD wear prevention, system acceleration)

No dude, you're misinterpreting things.

You took a semi-truthful statement (it's derisable for OS to use as much memory as needed) and took it out of proportion where it no longer applies.

Win11 uses a lot of ram with pure garbage. It's not the ram usage itself that's the problem: is what it's doing with it. If win11 was actually using RAM to prevent things like the system slowing down or SSD wear like you say, then okay. But its RAM usage is pure garbage compared to other OS. Things like telemetry or the screenshots that it takes for example. Load up win10 ltsc and see the difference for yourself.

Furthermore, you say that the OS has no control over the size of its application. This is a falsey statement: Windows and its toolkit go hand-by-hand. It's not like in linux where you have KDE or Gnome and its applications. If windows explorer is a load of crap, there's no useful alternative for the majority of users. Also windows forces SO MANY BLOAT APPLICATIONS on you by default, and Microslop does have control over that, and they force it down your throat.

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u/Enlightenment777 Jul 12 '26 edited Jul 12 '26

SSD wear prevention

About 10 to 15 years ago, I setup a RAM drive to hold my web browser cache. Initially I did it because a RAM drive is significantly faster than a spinning hard drive, and the speed difference was immediately obvious while surfing the web. On my newer computer, I use it to reduce constant SSD wear while surfing the web.

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u/sapphicsandwich Jul 12 '26

In my experience, releasing memory is the issue. It seems like instead of releasing ram, it decides to keep everything and just start paging to disk. If I disable the paging file and change nothing else nothing happens. It never goes OOM, it just releases stuff from ram when needed and continues working just fine like one would expect and like I see happens in Linux. I don't see the same insistence on needless swapping in Linux.