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by babypuncher 1459 days ago
Throw in more RAM and Windows 10 will likely feel snappier than Windows 7 did.

It's probable the old Windows 7 install was 32-bit while your fresh install of 10 would have defaulted to 64-bit. That combined with 10's naturally higher memory requirements means the system has less overhead to work with.
4 comments
antisthenes 1459 days ago
> Throw in more RAM and Windows 10 will likely feel snappier than Windows 7 did.

It doesn't and never will. I've used them side by side for a few years and went back to W7 for productivity.

Interestingly enough, Lubuntu LXQt feels snappier than either system.

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867-5309 1459 days ago
recently I've seen new laptops being shipped with 4GB. possibly with a slightly lighter (but not fully debloated) version of 10 (Home? Starter? Edu?)

I'm not sure if this is because Windows memory usage is a lot more efficient now, or if the newer processors' performances can cancel out the RAM capacity bottleneck, or if PC4-25600 + NVMe pagefiles are simply fast enough, or if manufacturers are spreading thinly during the chip shortage. but it's certainly an ongoing trend

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SV_BubbleTime 1459 days ago
It’s all this, and I’m dealing with it today.

Mother I law bought a machine with 4GB of ram, which was fine before windows 10. Now it spends all day doing page/sysfile swap from its mechanical hard drive. Basically unusable.

So here in my pocket is an 8GB stick of DDR3 sodimm for later.

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Dylan16807 1459 days ago
If it was 32-bit, then it's probable the windows 7 install wasn't using all the memory, so there shouldn't have been a big difference.

And 4GB is enough for a blank windows 10 install doing some OS things and browsing. I don't think more memory helps that scenario.

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dr_zoidberg 1459 days ago
32bit PAE was supported since Windows XP and initially allowed for more than 4GB of RAM to be supported, but driver issues made Microsoft put a soft-cap in 4GB under this mode[0]. But Win7 32 bits with PAE would've surely been able to use all of those 4GB fine.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_Address_Extension#Mic...

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Shorel 1459 days ago
In my experience, also with some older hardware: Windows 10 is not happy with just 8 GB of RAM, much less 4 GB.

I mean, everyone uses a browser, even if they use nothing else, and browsers gobble up RAM like crazy.

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