Windows Loves RAM
Microsoft made a lot of improvements in Windows 7 to reduce the memory utili-
zation compared to the notorious memory hog Windows Vista. This has helped
significantly, especially on Netbooks, but Windows still performs the best when
the computer has sufficient memory. I already covered trimming the fat from
Windows 7 by disabling components and services that you do not need to use.
This helps, but on some computers it is just not enough.
According to Microsoft the minimum amount of RAM required to run the
basic version of Windows 7 is 1GB. I’m not sure how that is determined exactly,
but I feel sorry for you if you are running Windows 7 on just 1GB. That is plenty
for the core operating system and one or two running applications, but if you
are doing anything more I highly suggest more physical RAM. Before I continue,
let’s cover the basics of RAM.
RAM is the fastest type of memory on your computer outside the CPU cache.
No matter how you use your computer, RAM is always in constant use. Your
computer uses RAM as a high-speed temporary storage location to store data
and applications with which the CPU is currently working. Every time you
launch an application, Windows has to load it from your hard drive into RAM
so that the CPU can execute the code. Depending on the available memory,
Windows may have to kick some other data currently in memory out. That is
called paging, which is covered in greater detail later in this chapter. Paging
is a slow process because it saves current memory back to the slow hard disk.
It is best to avoid paging as much as possible so that as little time as possible
is lost trying to make room so your applications or data can fit in memory.
When you consider all the memory that Windows 7 uses on top of your normal
applications, you will see why it is so important to have the right amount of
high-speed memory available
Microsoft made a lot of improvements in Windows 7 to reduce the memory utili-
zation compared to the notorious memory hog Windows Vista. This has helped
significantly, especially on Netbooks, but Windows still performs the best when
the computer has sufficient memory. I already covered trimming the fat from
Windows 7 by disabling components and services that you do not need to use.
This helps, but on some computers it is just not enough.
According to Microsoft the minimum amount of RAM required to run the
basic version of Windows 7 is 1GB. I’m not sure how that is determined exactly,
but I feel sorry for you if you are running Windows 7 on just 1GB. That is plenty
for the core operating system and one or two running applications, but if you
are doing anything more I highly suggest more physical RAM. Before I continue,
let’s cover the basics of RAM.
RAM is the fastest type of memory on your computer outside the CPU cache.
No matter how you use your computer, RAM is always in constant use. Your
computer uses RAM as a high-speed temporary storage location to store data
and applications with which the CPU is currently working. Every time you
launch an application, Windows has to load it from your hard drive into RAM
so that the CPU can execute the code. Depending on the available memory,
Windows may have to kick some other data currently in memory out. That is
called paging, which is covered in greater detail later in this chapter. Paging
is a slow process because it saves current memory back to the slow hard disk.
It is best to avoid paging as much as possible so that as little time as possible
is lost trying to make room so your applications or data can fit in memory.
When you consider all the memory that Windows 7 uses on top of your normal
applications, you will see why it is so important to have the right amount of
high-speed memory available
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