memory leaks Archives

Winsage

August 3, 2026

Microsoft finally has a Windows 11 upgrade everyone can get behind

Microsoft is focusing on enhancing Windows 11 by addressing fundamental improvements, as highlighted by CEO Satya Nadella during the fiscal 2026 fourth-quarter earnings call. The company is investing in maintaining high quality and fundamentals for the operating system, with ongoing efforts to fix user concerns. Enhancements include testing a movable taskbar, reducing RAM consumption, fixing memory leaks, improving slow startup times, and updating File Explorer and Windows Search. The introduction of the Low Latency Profile update aims to improve responsiveness in the Start menu and shell. Microsoft has also removed the Copilot branding from certain applications to streamline the user experience. This renewed focus follows a challenging year with problematic updates, including a mandatory update in June that caused boot failures and other issues, prompting an emergency update in July. Financially, Microsoft's More Personal Computing revenue declined by 4%, with Windows OEM and Devices revenue dropping by 7%.

Winsage

July 28, 2026

Why Does Windows Explorer Use So Much Memory?

A user on Reddit reported that Windows Explorer was using over 21GB of memory, which can cause performance issues on systems with less than 8GB of RAM. One cause of excessive memory consumption is third-party shell extensions, which can be identified by booting into Safe Mode. A tool called ShellExView can help locate problematic extensions. To create a system restore point, users can press Win + R, type systempropertiesprotection.exe, click Create, enter a description, and click Create. Windows Explorer may also retain large caches of temporary data, leading to high memory usage. To clear temporary files, users can press Win + I, navigate to System > Storage > Temporary files, check the relevant boxes, and click Remove files. They can also manually clean the thumbnail and icon cache by deleting specific files in the %localappdata% directory. Corrupted system files can contribute to high memory usage, and users can run DISM and SFC tools to repair these files by accessing the Terminal (admin) and executing the commands DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth and sfc /scannow.