Reducing runtime memory in Windows 8

jjsbasmt

Senior member
Jan 23, 2005
485
0
71
Thanks, Chiefcrowe, I've been running Win8 Delvp for a few weeks now and appreciate any good info to read about the OS. I'm getting familar with it on a P4 3 GHz with 4 GB RAM. Very pleased with the speed so far.
 

Modelworks

Lifer
Feb 22, 2007
16,240
7
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When assessing the contents of RAM in a typical running PC, many parts of memory have the same content. The redundant copies of data across system RAM present an opportunity to reduce the memory footprint even for services and OS components.

Memory combining is a technique in which Windows efficiently assesses the content of system RAM during normal activity and locates duplicate content across all system memory. Windows will then free up duplicates and keep a single copy. If the application tries to write to the memory in future, Windows will give it a private copy. All of this happens under the covers in the memory manager, with no impact on applications. This approach can liberate 10s to 100s of MBs of memory (depending on how many applications are running concurrently).


This might seem good from a memory usage point, but for security this will be a major target for malware. Now I don't need to worry about injecting code into another process to cause damage, I can attack the block of memory windows is using that all these processes share and infect them all.

I am seeing a lot of changes that are being made in the area of memory saving at the expense of security. Memory is not the concern it once was and their targeting of tablets is the main excuse for doing this, I really don't like where this is heading.
 
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HeXen

Diamond Member
Dec 13, 2009
7,838
39
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i liked hearing this part as i read that same article linked.

NOTE: For Windows 8, a clean install also contains the extended Windows Defender technology, which, for the first time incorporates complete antimalware functionality – also optimized for memory and resource use per Jason’s blog about protecting you from malware. (This functionality does not exist on a clean install of Windows 7 where we would recommend that you add security software).