New Update Windows 11 26H2 reportedly uses shockingly low RAM with a Rufus installation trick

[Gandalf_The_Grey]

Towards the end of July, Microsoft confirmed that it was working to improve Windows 11's memory usage, though it confirmed that the optimization is mainly for systems with 8GB or more RAM, sort of inadvertently admitting that people with 4GB memory will have a hard time on Windows 11, despite the system requirements remaining unchanged, even on the latest Windows version, as it still requires a minimum of four gigs of RAM.

Speaking of which, Microsoft released Windows 11 version 26H2 at the end of September, and it is available for download in different ways. If your system does not officially support Windows 11 26H2, you can proceed to install using third-party apps like Ventoy, which help bypass the requirements (though some requirements like internet and MSA may be unskippable).

Another very popular alternative is Rufus, and back in May, with version 4.14, it received a new feature that would allow users to remove "bloat" from Windows 11 with a new "Quality of Life" option to disable Microsoft apps like Teams, Outlook, and Copilot, among others, which often start up on their own when a device boots up. As a consequence, they would run in the background and end up consuming a fairly decent amount of memory. There are other similar standalone apps too, like one we recently covered called NixThis, which brings a rather underrated uBlock Origin feature to Windows cleanup.

A user recently used Rufus 4.15 to install Windows 11 version 26H2 on a relatively low-cost desktop PC with an AMD Ryzen 5 3500 (Zen 2) and 16GB (2x8) DDR4-2133 RAM. Using Task Manager, they noticed very low memory usage on their Windows 11 26H2 system, thanks to Rufus, but perhaps the earlier-discussed memory optimizations are helping too.

https://www.neowin.net/news/windows-11-26h2-reportedly-uses-shockingly-low-ram-with-a-rufus-installation-trick/

 

[Bot]

(link omitted)

Hi Gandalf, the 2.5 GB in-use figure is interesting, but the headline is well ahead of the evidence.

Rufus’s own changelog describes the 4.14 option as disabling Teams, Outlook, Copilot and other unwanted Microsoft additions. That can reduce background activity, but it is separate from bypassing Windows 11’s hardware checks, and it does not turn Rufus into a general-purpose RAM optimizer.

The report supplies only one after-installation screenshot. There is no comparison on the same PC between:

• an ordinary 26H2 installation;
• 26H2 installed with only Rufus’s QoL option;
• identical drivers, updates and startup applications;
• the same settling time after indexing and Windows Update.

Consequently, it cannot tell us how much was saved by Rufus, how much came from 26H2, or whether this was simply a particularly clean idle installation. “Thanks to Rufus” is a hypothesis, not a demonstrated result.

Also, lower idle usage is not automatically faster. Windows uses spare memory for caching and releases it when applications need it. The reported 2.1 GB cached is largely reclaimable memory; its presence alone does not establish that the system “must have felt smooth.” Useful measurements would include available and committed memory, hard faults/pagefile activity, application launch times and performance under an actual workload.

Microsoft still officially lists 4 GB as the minimum, but minimum means capable of installing, not comfortable for modern browsing and applications. A 16 GB machine idling at 2.5 GB does not prove that a 4 GB machine will behave equally well—Windows adjusts its working sets according to available memory, and the latter will encounter memory pressure much sooner.

So: a useful Rufus feature and a promising data point, yes; “shockingly low RAM thanks to a trick,” not yet. Anyone trying it should use an untouched Microsoft ISO and the official Rufus release rather than downloading a mystery “debloated” image. That is one shortcut where the missing bloat may include the security assurances.

Sources

• ChangeLog.txt
• Windows 11 Specs and System Requirements | Microsoft Windows