Ars Analysis Calls Windows 7 Memory Usage Claims "Scaremongering"

Posted by timothy on Saturday February 20, 2010 @08:30AM from the nothing-but-dihydrogen-monoxide-to-drink dept.

Via newsycombinator comes a reaction at Ars Technica to the recently reported claims of excessive memory use on machines running Windows 7. From the article: "I installed the XPnet performance monitoring tool and waited for it to upload my data to see what it might be complaining about. The cause of the problem was immediately apparent. It's no secret that Windows 7, just like Windows Vista before it, includes aggressive disk caching. The SuperFetch technology causes Windows to preload certain data if the OS detects that it is used regularly, even if there is no specific need for it at any given moment. Though SuperFetch is a little less aggressive in Windows 7, it will still use a substantial amount of memory—but with an important proviso. The OS will only use memory for cache when there is no other demand for that memory."

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Re:It's a matter of definitions by soupd · 2010-02-20 09:02 · Score: 0, Redundant

Windows makes use of unused RAM to cache code/data that past usage suggests the user makes common use of. If active programs or background threads need this RAM, this cache gets smaller as RAM is released. This sounds like a sensible use of otherwise-unused RAM to me.
Re:Tits on a bull by tftp · 2010-02-20 09:22 · Score: 0, Redundant

I wish Linux prefetched stuff. If I open program 1, and ALWAYS open program 2 after, why shouldn't the OS preload program 2?
Allocating RAM is easy. However reading that much data from the HDD is not. SuperFetch makes the boot time of a typical laptop much longer, IMO, because while it is loading you almost can't use your computer to start other things (the HDD is a very slow device, compared to RAM.) I always disable SuperFetch.