Subject: "Microsoft itself accidentally proves Windows 11 minimum system requirements make no sense"

https://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-itself-accidentally-proves-windows-11-minimum-system-requirements-make-no-sense/


I find this interesting. I tend to think it's about right - 16 GB is a
good idea, for modern Windows PC use. It's what I have in this
four-core, eight-thread mini, although it's shared with its GPU, so I
get more like 12 GB reported system RAM. Works fine. This is why OEM
boxes are obsolete, unless you want to game, OEM/self-assembly can still matter for high-performance computing, but I can do all my shit easily
with what I have, and it wasn't expensive, though I did pay separately
for a legitimate Win11 Pro retail OS license, because I don't believe in
using a gray-market license provided by the manufacturer of the hardware
in China, they didn't obtain it according to the terms of Microsoft's
license.

--
Joel W. Crump


--- PyGate Linux v1.5.18
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Subject: Re: "Microsoft itself accidentally proves Windows 11 minimum system requirements make no sense"


Is this piece of news related to the
recent price heist about computer
memory? :)

A.I. in certain extent is a game.


Microsoft itself accidentally proves Windows 11 minimum system
requirements make no sense - Neowin <https://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-itself-accidentally-proves-windows-11-minimum-system-requirements-make-no-sense/>

"price heist" - Google ??
<https://www.google.com/search?q=%22price+heist%22>


--

@~@ Simplicity is Beauty! Remain silent! Drink, Blink, Stretch!
/ v \ May the Force and farces be with you! Live long and prosper!!
/( _ )\ https://sites.google.com/site/changmw/
^ ^ https://github.com/changmw/changmw
The game is afoot... Meow...

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.18
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Subject: Re: "Microsoft itself accidentally proves Windows 11 minimum system requirements make no sense"

On Jul 18, 2026 at 2:31:39?PM EDT, ""Joel W. Crump"" <joelcrump@gmail.com> wrote:

https://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-itself-accidentally-proves-windows-11-minimum-system-requirements-make-no-sense/

I find this interesting. I tend to think it's about right - 16 GB is a
good idea, for modern Windows PC use. It's what I have in this
four-core, eight-thread mini, although it's shared with its GPU, so I
get more like 12 GB reported system RAM. Works fine. This is why OEM
boxes are obsolete, unless you want to game, OEM/self-assembly can still matter for high-performance computing, but I can do all my shit easily
with what I have, and it wasn't expensive, though I did pay separately
for a legitimate Win11 Pro retail OS license, because I don't believe in using a gray-market license provided by the manufacturer of the hardware
in China, they didn't obtain it according to the terms of Microsoft's license.

Windows 11's "official" minimum RAM of 4GB is absurd. It will barely boot in that. The above story of the 2026 Microsoft Surface laptop with 8GB is pretty realistic. And let's face it, MS only did this in a desperate, last-ditch attempt to compete with Apple and the 8GB RAM MacBook Neo.

I say "desperate and last ditch" because Windows is tanking. As of June Windows is down to 53% of desktop share in the U.S. Macs are now 30% and Linux/Chrome is now around 16%.

I remember 25 years ago when Windows was 95%, Macs 4% and Other (Linux) 1%.

And BTW, I am typing this on a MacBook Neo. It runs very well in 8GB because
it is running Unix. I have Safari open with 10 tabs and Usenapp running. Not
to mention that the same OS (iPadOS) runs fine on iPads with 4GB RAM. Same
OS, different UI/UX. It also runs on older, slower iPads with 3GB RAM.

We are witnessing the death of Windows, folks. Stories like this are not helping Windows:

<https://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft/windows-11/windows-11s-massive-july-2026-update-shows-how-ai-is-changing-patch-tuesday>

570 "vulnerabilities" patched.

And the issue with this same update breaking lots of Dell PCs:

<https://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft/windows-11/microsoft-blocks-windows-11-kb5101650-update-for-dell-pcs-after-reports-of-unexpected-shutdowns-and-overheating>

This year has seen monthly issues with every "Patch Tuesday". Is it any wonder people are running away from Windows?

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.18
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Subject: Re: "Microsoft itself accidentally proves Windows 11 minimum system requirements make no sense"

On 7/18/2026 6:31 PM, Nick Charles wrote:

https://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-itself-accidentally-proves-windows-11-minimum-system-requirements-make-no-sense/


I find this interesting. I tend to think it's about right - 16 GB is a
good idea, for modern Windows PC use. It's what I have in this
four-core, eight-thread mini, although it's shared with its GPU, so I
get more like 12 GB reported system RAM. Works fine. This is why OEM
boxes are obsolete, unless you want to game, OEM/self-assembly can still
matter for high-performance computing, but I can do all my shit easily
with what I have, and it wasn't expensive, though I did pay separately
for a legitimate Win11 Pro retail OS license, because I don't believe in
using a gray-market license provided by the manufacturer of the hardware
in China, they didn't obtain it according to the terms of Microsoft's
license.

Windows 11's "official" minimum RAM of 4GB is absurd. It will barely boot in that. The above story of the 2026 Microsoft Surface laptop with 8GB is pretty realistic. And let's face it, MS only did this in a desperate, last-ditch attempt to compete with Apple and the 8GB RAM MacBook Neo.

I say "desperate and last ditch" because Windows is tanking. As of June Windows is down to 53% of desktop share in the U.S. Macs are now 30% and Linux/Chrome is now around 16%.

I remember 25 years ago when Windows was 95%, Macs 4% and Other (Linux) 1%.

And BTW, I am typing this on a MacBook Neo. It runs very well in 8GB because it is running Unix. I have Safari open with 10 tabs and Usenapp running. Not to mention that the same OS (iPadOS) runs fine on iPads with 4GB RAM. Same OS, different UI/UX. It also runs on older, slower iPads with 3GB RAM.

I had a box I built with a high-end Gigabyte motherboard, an i5 with six
cores 12 threads, 32 GB RAM, and NVMe storage, running Linux - talk
about ridiculous overkill. This mini is far less powerful and running
Win11. Works just as well.

--
Joel W. Crump

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.18
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Subject: Re: "Microsoft itself accidentally proves Windows 11 minimum system requirements make no sense"

On Sat, 7/18/2026 6:31 PM, Nick Charles wrote:

I say "desperate and last ditch" because Windows is tanking. As of June Windows is down to 53% of desktop share in the U.S. Macs are now 30% and Linux/Chrome is now around 16%.

Watch where you get your statistics from.

https://www.windowslatest.com/2026/07/12/no-windows-did-not-fall-below-60-market-share-or-lose-15-points-to-linux/

"I downloaded the data from StatCounter, and we found that an operating system labeled
?Unknown? suddenly accounted for 21.45% of the desktop market. This category could include
any device where the browser?s user agent is modified, unavailable, or cannot be correctly
identified by StatCounter.
"

It's hard to say exactly what they've been doing with the collected data.

Paul



--- PyGate Linux v1.5.18
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Subject: Re: "Microsoft itself accidentally proves Windows 11 minimum system requirements make no sense"

On 18/07/2026 in message <7aOcnRu6-PYsY8b3nZ2dnZfqnPSdnZ2d@supernews.com>
Nick Charles wrote:

I say "desperate and last ditch" because Windows is tanking. As of June >Windows is down to 53% of desktop share in the U.S. Macs are now 30% and >Linux/Chrome is now around 16%.

Full details here:

https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide/

I wonder what the 21% unknown is?

--
Jeff Gaines Dorset UK
Are you confused about gender?
Try milking a bull, you'll learn real quick.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.18
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Subject: Re: "Microsoft itself accidentally proves Windows 11 minimum system requirements make no sense"

On 2026/7/19 3:45:21, Paul wrote:

On Sat, 7/18/2026 6:31 PM, Nick Charles wrote:

I say "desperate and last ditch" because Windows is tanking. As of June
Windows is down to 53% of desktop share in the U.S. Macs are now 30% and
Linux/Chrome is now around 16%.

Watch where you get your statistics from.

https://www.windowslatest.com/2026/07/12/no-windows-did-not-fall-below-60-market-share-or-lose-15-points-to-linux/

"I downloaded the data from StatCounter, and we found that an operating system labeled
?Unknown? suddenly accounted for 21.45% of the desktop market. This category could include
any device where the browser?s user agent is modified, unavailable, or cannot be correctly
identified by StatCounter.
"

Also, that sounds like it's based on internet web hits, not an actual
survey.

It's hard to say exactly what they've been doing with the collected data.

Paul

I'd say they don't have to worry; even 53% (if valid) is more than half.

Here in UK, last time I looked round our one remaining chain that sells
PCs (admittedly not recently), there were _no_ Linux systems on offer,
just Windows and Apple. I suspect that chain sells mainly to home users,
but I suspect industry if anything is _more_ likely to use Microsoft -
at least the large corporations who buy in the hundreds - as it's
_easier_ for their IT departments to run that way, including servers and
the like.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()ALIS-Ch++(p)Ar++T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Radio 4 is one of the reasons being British is good. It's not a subset
of Britain - it's almost as if Britain is a subset of Radio 4.
- Stephen Fry, in Radio Times, 7-13 June, 2003.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.18
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Subject: Re: "Microsoft itself accidentally proves Windows 11 minimum system requirements make no sense"

On Sun, 7/19/2026 3:40 AM, Jeff Gaines wrote:

On 18/07/2026 in message <7aOcnRu6-PYsY8b3nZ2dnZfqnPSdnZ2d@supernews.com> Nick Charles wrote:

I say "desperate and last ditch" because Windows is tanking.ÿ As of June
Windows is down to 53% of desktop share in the U.S.ÿ Macs are now 30% and
Linux/Chrome is now around 16%.

Full details here:

https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide/

I wonder what the 21% unknown is?

That's the "error bars" on the methodology on display.

Paul

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.18
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Subject: Re: "Microsoft itself accidentally proves Windows 11 minimum system requirements make no sense"

On Sun, 7/19/2026 3:43 AM, J. P. Gilliver wrote:

Here in UK, last time I looked round our one remaining chain that sells
PCs (admittedly not recently), there were _no_ Linux systems on offer,
just Windows and Apple. I suspect that chain sells mainly to home users,
but I suspect industry if anything is _more_ likely to use Microsoft -
at least the large corporations who buy in the hundreds - as it's
_easier_ for their IT departments to run that way, including servers and
the like.

Would a Linux user actually accept a commercial Linux distro
being placed on their hardware ?

They would just as soon buy a Windows machine, erase the HDD,
install one of five hundred Linux distros on it.

Linux users are generally knowledgeable enough, to fend for
themselves.

Windows users and Apple users, less so. The Windows and Apple
audiences on USENET, are likely to know a little bit more
about nuke and pave, than the average user.

Our IT department at work, was multi-platform, and they
had to be able to do "just about anything".

It depends on where you work, as to how siloed the IT department is.
And our people, didn't live in a single ecosystem vacuum. Our IT
even had to support people on mainframes ("You erased your 192 ?
You're kidding me").

And working in a multi-platform environment, you too as an
employee, have to be ready for anything. In my (non-Windows)
group, I asked for a WinPC one day, as I had some software
that only ran in that ecosystem. Our warehouse (similar to the
Raiders of the Lost Arc warehouse), provided me with a 6MHz PC.
Problem ? It didn't have a NIC in it :-) I didn't have a copy
of Kermit (and when you need Kermit, there's never a way to
get it onto the isolated box). I ended up moving data back
and forth, over a "serial port". Complete with learning
what the end-of-text character is on Apple and Windows and
what you have to type to close the transmitted file. It's
as much fun as you can have while wearing pants. My manager
never found out about the raw edges of not having a
NIC-in-a-box.

As an engineer, one of the things you get when you hire me,
is I come with a kit bag of RS232 connectors and cables,
including the null modem adapter for connecting two computers
over serial. I ran into this use case, rescue-over-serial
enough times, to have my own emergency kit bag for this.
You need 9-to-25, 25-to-9, gender-benders-M-F, null modem
(rolled cable) adapter, lengths of cable etc. On a
typical mission, you need four-adapters-in-a-row to make
a connection.

Paul

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.18
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Subject: Re: "Microsoft itself accidentally proves Windows 11 minimum system requirements make no sense"

On Sat, 7/18/2026 2:31 PM, Joel W. Crump wrote:

https://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft-itself-accidentally-proves-windows-11-minimum-system-requirements-make-no-sense/

I find this interesting.ÿ I tend to think it's about right - 16 GB is a good idea, for modern Windows PC use.ÿ It's what I have in this four-core, eight-thread mini, although it's shared with its GPU, so I get more like 12 GB reported system RAM.ÿ Works fine.ÿ This is why OEM boxes are obsolete, unless you want to game, OEM/self-assembly can still matter for high-performance computing, but I can do all my shit easily with what I have, and it wasn't expensive, though I did pay separately for a legitimate Win11 Pro retail OS license, because I don't believe in using a gray-market license provided by the manufacturer of the hardware in China, they didn't obtain it according to the terms of Microsoft's license.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows11/comments/1u966pg/windows_on_arm_snapdragon_x_elite_is_using_too/

"I'm running Windows 11 ARM64 on a Snapdragon X Elite laptop... with 16 GB RAM.
After startup and only a few basic apps open, memory usage quickly climbs to around 11?12 GB (70?75%),
leaving only about 4 GB available."

The quanta to load up the RAM, might consist of (approximately)...

(1) Windows kernel, allow 350MB for that. It has been plus or minus
that much since WinXP days. The very first version of Win10, I
got that to run in 250MB, with the Memory Compressor railed for
the entire session. Later versions put on a tiny bit of weight.
When the 1GB minimum is observed for Win10, then the Memory
Compressor, it stops.

(2) A 2.3GB mini-version of the OS which is used as a Sandbox for
untrusted applications. This would be a read only file system,
like maybe a Windows Overlay Filesystem. If a computer only has
1GB of physical RAM, this cannot very well load, and the subsystem would
be shut off (likely without any comments either). The best platform to
test the behavior, might be my 3GB RAM laptop. Which would be a tight fit.

(3) On a box with a ["certified"] 40TOPS NPU or the like,
8GB can be set aside for an LLM-AI container of some sort.
There are multiple models now, that can fit in that space.
There are also impossibly-large models, in the 1.5-2.0TB range,
that very few home users will be ready to run. The 1.5TB one
runs at 0.1 tokens per second on a multicore CPU. The single model
I have on a machine here, runs at 10 tokens per second for the
most simple of queries (queries selected to make the token rate look good).
And that feels a bit slow, but I'm not complaining mind you.

When you add those three together, you're getting close to the 11-12GB number.

If you don't have an NPU, it just means some amount of "nuisance"
local LLM-AI can't run. A lot of the more complicated queries would
run in a data center, but some of the simpler stuff ("sharpen this photo") could just as easily run locally. There might be times a CNN or DNN is
loaded, a YOLO5, and we would not know what was in there.

When I asked an AI to draw a picture the other day, it emitted Python
code and told me the result would be revealed if I ran the Python. It
did not give instructions on how to do this, and the "card" it gave me,
needed hand edits before python3 (on WSL2!) would run it. It's a good
thing I am an ordinary user, and can take a joke. Imagine the look
on Granny's face, when she has to edit and run a "card". Think of the generations of Python coders we will be making (shudder).

Browser tabs can easily chow down on lots of RAM. Just the other
day, I visited the Lenovo web site, and a tab became unresponsive
and when I killed the browser, the tab was up to around 6GB. It didn't
even stop at 3GB, which used to be a "traditional value" for a runaway.
A cross-platform browser, should be able to do that on any OS.

You can see then, that to some extent, Windows low end boxes will
always feel like a "too tight pair of shoes". Going for larger RAM (>16GB)
is going to feel more roomy. It would be nice if these features
just had an on-off switch (like, make the OS only need the 350MB one),
but that would be wishful thinking. Even a 16+8 in two RAM slots,
for a total of 24, is going to feel good. Anything below 16GB is bound
to bind a bit.

But I can't say that out loud, because the price
of a 16 and an 8 this week, might be too high to contemplate. An article
today, an exec declares that "the price of consumer RAM is too high",
which means the fundamentals of the pricing are currently incorrect.
Unleash the hounds. Price fixing in RAM has happened before.

Paul

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.18
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Subject: Re: "Microsoft itself accidentally proves Windows 11 minimum system requirements make no sense"


(advocacy groups removed)

On 2026-07-19 17:13, Paul wrote:

Would a Linux user actually accept a commercial Linux distro
being placed on their hardware ?

Sometimes.

It guarantees that it will work with Linux. I would try it, then if not
happy, make a backup, then install my own.

They would just as soon buy a Windows machine, erase the HDD,
install one of five hundred Linux distros on it.

Better install with no system, like this Lenovo laptop.

--
Cheers,
Carlos E.R.
ES??, EU??;

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.18
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Subject: Re: "Microsoft itself accidentally proves Windows 11 minimum system requirements make no sense"

On Sun, 19 Jul 2026 11:13:21 -0400
Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote:

[]

And working in a multi-platform environment, you too as an
employee, have to be ready for anything. In my (non-Windows)
group, I asked for a WinPC one day, as I had some software
that only ran in that ecosystem. Our warehouse (similar to the
Raiders of the Lost Arc warehouse), provided me with a 6MHz PC.
Problem ? It didn't have a NIC in it :-) I didn't have a copy
of Kermit (and when you need Kermit, there's never a way to
get it onto the isolated box). I ended up moving data back
and forth, over a "serial port". Complete with learning
what the end-of-text character is on Apple and Windows and
what you have to type to close the transmitted file. It's
as much fun as you can have while wearing pants. My manager
never found out about the raw edges of not having a
NIC-in-a-box.

As an engineer, one of the things you get when you hire me,
is I come with a kit bag of RS232 connectors and cables,
including the null modem adapter for connecting two computers
over serial. I ran into this use case, rescue-over-serial
enough times, to have my own emergency kit bag for this.
You need 9-to-25, 25-to-9, gender-benders-M-F, null modem
(rolled cable) adapter, lengths of cable etc. On a
typical mission, you need four-adapters-in-a-row to make
a connection.

Paul

Better posted to afc; no NIC computers is *my* generation!

FU set as this was another of man wai chang mega xposts
--
Bah, and indeed Humbug.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.18
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)