Microsoft says Windows 11 update speeds up 8GB PCs, with multitasking up to 40% faster

What Microsoft announced

Microsoft has released a Windows 11 update, dated 3 November 2026, that it says improves memory use and performance on PCs with 8GB of RAM. The company says those machines are now up to 20% more responsive and up to 40% faster at multitasking, figures drawn from its own lab tests. The update builds on gains Microsoft first described in October 2026, and further memory work is still under way. Changes span Windows itself, the Edge browser and Microsoft 365 apps.

Windows chief Pavan Davuluri framed the result in these words:

“On 8 GB PCs, Windows is now up to 20 percent more responsive, and multitasking is up to 40 percent faster in our lab test.”

Compression and memory savings

Compression is the main lever. Microsoft has fine-tuned how much data Windows compresses, when it moves data from RAM to the drive and when it fetches it back, and it says this tuning matters most on PCs with 8GB of memory. As a result, Windows can keep up to 2GB more active data in memory instead of moving it to storage. An app or browser tab left open is less likely to reload from the hard drive when the user returns to it. Across Windows, Edge and Microsoft 365 apps, Microsoft says committed-memory growth is reduced by up to 900 MB. Word, PowerPoint, Excel and Outlook together use up to 360MB less RAM, which Microsoft attributes to improved efficiency. Widgets no longer load at startup on 8GB PCs and wait until the panel is opened, saving around 200MB. Inactive Edge tabs now go to sleep after 15 minutes, rather than two hours.

Committed-memory growth limit, Windows, Edge and Microsoft 365900

Word, PowerPoint, Excel and Outlook360

Widgets not loaded at startup200

Committed-memory growth limit, Windows, Edge and Microsoft 365

900 MB

Word, PowerPoint, Excel and Outlook

360 MB

Widgets not loaded at startup

200 MB

Data from the article text

Speed gains for everyday tasks

Microsoft says opening the Start menu, search, Settings and File Explorer is up to 20% more responsive than in the January 2026 versions of Windows 11. Edge can open up to 33% faster, and Efficiency Mode in Teams is turned on by default on 8GB PCs, which can speed up launch by up to 20% by reducing the load on system resources. For the multitasking test, Microsoft opened 20 tabs in Edge, a 4K video, the Outlook app, File Explorer, and large Word, PowerPoint and Excel files, and left them all running. Under those conditions, multitasking workflows ran up to 40% faster. Microsoft also says third-party apps such as WhatsApp now use less memory than before.

Overall responsiveness, up to20%

Multitasking speed, up to40%

Edge launch speed, up to33%

Overall responsiveness, up to

20 %

Multitasking speed, up to

40 %

Edge launch speed, up to

33 %

Data from the article text

Hardware and version requirements

The gains require Windows 11 version 26H2 on build 26300.9818 or later. Microsoft also points to newer processors, citing a 2026 8GB Dell XPS 13 that delivers over 90% faster multi-core CPU performance than its 2021 predecessor. The same 8GB model roughly matched a 2021 configuration with twice the memory in general CPU performance, web browsing, 4K video export and some AI tasks. The improvements are therefore a combination of software changes and newer chips, according to the comparison Microsoft presented.

Still in progress

Microsoft says memory compression will become smarter and more efficient over the next few months. Windows features and apps will also share more common parts, such as widgets and search sharing a single web engine. The company is working with PC makers and chipmakers to optimize how much memory a PC needs to reserve for its hardware, leaving more for Windows. The next round of compression changes is expected within the coming months.