Installation

Windows 11 comes with plenty of features, but not everyone wants every Microsoft app that gets bundled with it. For people who would rather have a cleaner setup, a recent report suggests that changing how Windows is installed could make a difference in memory usage.

Neowin reported that one user installed Windows 11 26H2 through Rufus 4.15 and saw approximately 2.5GB of RAM being used. Their computer had an AMD Ryzen 5 3500 processor and 16GB of DDR4 memory. Task Manager also showed about 2.1GB of cached memory.

That is an interesting result, especially for anyone tired of seeing background software take up resources before they have even opened the programs they need.

What Rufus Changes

Rufus is a tool for creating bootable USB installation drives. Its “Quality of Life” option allows users to disable certain Microsoft apps during Windows installation, including Teams, Outlook, and Copilot.

According to the report, reducing those apps and their background activity may help explain the lower memory usage. Neowin also suggested that Microsoft’s own memory improvements could have contributed.

The appeal here is having more control over the starting point of a Windows installation. Instead of setting up the computer and then working through unwanted software afterward, users can make some of those choices during installation.

What the Result Actually Tells Us

The reported number is encouraging, but it comes from one computer. The article does not establish how much memory that same machine would use with a standard installation under identical conditions.

That matters because a low memory reading by itself does not tell us whether games run better, programs open faster, or the computer stays responsive with several applications running.

A useful comparison would involve testing the same hardware with both installations, allowing updates to finish, and running the same programs. That would give us a better idea of what the installation changes actually accomplish.

For now, this is a promising example rather than a performance guarantee.

Windows Should Give Users More Choice

My biggest takeaway is that people should have an easier way to choose what comes with their computer. Some users want Teams, Outlook, and Copilot. Others just want Windows and the applications they install themselves.

There should be a straightforward option for both.

I would like to see Microsoft offer a cleaner installation choice that lets users select the extras they need. Having that control built into setup would make more sense than expecting everyone to sort through bundled apps afterward.

The Rufus result makes a cleaner Windows installation worth exploring. I would still want to test it myself before claiming a major performance improvement, but giving users more control over background software is a direction I can get behind.

Source: Neowin, “Windows 11 26H2 reportedly uses shockingly low RAM with a Rufus installation trick.”