Windows XP, 7 and RAM

[Culbrelai]

Well I've recently been consistently pissed off by how much RAM Windows 7 uses. I know I have 24 gigabytes and am being stingy, but I don't like using 5GB of RAM just with two IE windows open... In XP, It literally used less RAM gaming than 7 uses idling...

So one thing I've heard how to fix it to be more like XP is disabling the "Superfetch" service, which supposedly makes things faster.

Any other ideas? Concerns?

And don't tell me to just install XP =P

 

[Alaric]

Strange. I have superfetch enabled and I'm only using less than 1.6 GB with four IE windows and one Firefox window open. That's with W7 64 bit. Does Win7 use a percentage of what's available? I have all the usual crap running in the background , as well.

 

[Automata]

If this is a new install, it is sorting stuff out and should quiet down when it finishes. My (completely stock) Windows 7 system is sitting at 1.18gb used running nothing more than SharpDevelop (130mb) and Firefox (140mb). I'd start by finding out what is taking up your RAM. Going back to an ancient operating system from 2001 isn't the solution.

Leave Superfetch/prefetching on. It uses RAM that you aren't using to preload programs in case you run them. There is no performance penalty for this because it will dump files from Superfetch if you require more RAM. Linux has done this for a long time and it is very nice to have. Idle RAM is wasted RAM.

Post screenshots of your memory usage, as well.

 

[Culbrelai]

Well, its new, ish, I installed it weeks and weeks ago when I finished my computer that is otherwise lovely. 1GB is pretty nice, I would shoot for 2 or 3 at max, realistically. 4/5 idling is too much.

Here's my ram usage, I already see a few programs I can murder shamelessly. I heard Windows 7 uses more ram the more you have availible. I don't want it to do that. I want it to use the least possible for background tasks as possible. Like XP.

 

[Automata]

Is it checking for updates or installing updates in the background? When I see high memory usage for svchost, that is usually what it is doing. Granted, that process can be doing a lot of other things, so that might not be the case.

I don't understand the fascination with disabling as many services in Windows 7 as possible. The services that everyone goes after right away may cause some delays initially (such as indexing or building of the prefetch), but they generally make your system faster. As I mentioned in a previous post, superfetch preloads frequently used programs into free memory. If you run the program it has loaded already, there is no disk access to run it and it is incredibly fast.

I could maybe see a case for disabling a program or service that is constantly slowing the system down when you want to use it. That is annoying and I understand that. But from what I can see here, you aren't seeing a performance hit and just worried that it is taking up too much RAM. That is what doesn't make sense to me. You aren't using the RAM for your programs, so Windows is running background processes. All my Windows copies (work, home, virtual machines) have completely "stock" installs. I have not hit a situation where I've needed to disable a single Windows service or feature because it was slowing the system down.

I'll say it again. Unused RAM is wasted RAM.

 

[Alaric]

I usually watch my start up list in CCleaner to keep annoying background programs to a minimum-which keeps RAM usage down. Like anything with "user experience". Since all that does is send info back to the mothership I kill them quickly. I notice you're using Zone Alarm. I got rid of ZA because it is a resource hog. I also turn off almost all of my automatic updaters , too. I prefer to update manually and it has the added bonus of not having a bazillion updaters flailing away all the time. 5 GB seems like an awful lot of stuff running , but I have no idea what your requirements are.

 

[Culbrelai]

I disabled Windows Update, It only checks when I tell it to, and it wasn't at that time.

The fascination is that



And it does nothing (that I can notice, self-proclaimed OS control freak and power user) that Windows XP does not do, uses more resources. That is ineffeciency and bloat.

OSes should be neither seen nor heard, they are the gateway for you to get your work (or in this case play) done. Not to hog resources that a game could use. Windows XP did this the best, seems to have the least bloat. Windows Vista and its succesful derivative Windows 7 seem to have baaad service/process bloat. Mostly on the fault of itself. I notice no faster performance between XP and 7, 7 can even be slower sometimes.

I disabled Superfetch just to see what it would do and if the slowdowns would be as massive as some claim...



8% less RAM usage to a much more acceptable 3049MB.

Do you know any other windows services/processes that operate under the guise of "saving time" to use obscenely large amounts of RAM?

Edit: Ironically, I like Zone Alarm, even if it does use 250+/- MB of RAM. Its saved me countless times, it acts as a sort of improved-upon-greatly UAC, only looking at actually questionable processes and allowing me to disable individual actions (accessing internet, other files). I need -the most- control over everything that goes on, in order to keep it running fast. Zone alarm helps.

 

[c627627]

While there can be memory leaks due to buggy programs, Windows Vista/7/8 have a different approach to RAM usage where basically they release memory as other programs need it.

It appears they are "wasting" RAM but that's not really the case because they do not use RAM like Windows XP & earlier did.


There are many articles describing the details, maybe someone can link to a good one?

 

[(G{in}[AK)TION]]

but I don't like using 5GB of RAM just with two IE windows open... In XP, It literally used less RAM gaming than 7 uses idling...

5gb of ram with two IE windows open? is this even the 64 bit version of IE? holy snap lol.

at least you got it down to 3gb lolol

anyway, i have had windows 7 on my desktops for a while and they run good enough to please me. my parents use IE so the cpu usage on the atom desktop they use it high. that is, when IE is active...or maybe thats normal when you have like more than 3 windows open. or 6. i hate bing.

anyway, i use google chrome and firefox and rarely use IE. i started to use all 3 of these browsers because at one point in my life, i was stuck with dual processor pentium 3 system for half a year since my Pentium D Desktop was just acting to weird.

SO i suggest you try some other browsers because IE may run great (at least for me) but its god awful if you dont have the resources for it or just have too many plugins loaded into the browser. at least this is what i went through.