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I'm curious of everyone else's PERFORMANCE.
Win11 has become a very tough nut to crack (compared to XP, 7, and 10).
So far, this is where I'm at (just after startup, base OS, no additional apps installed).
Up time is misleading as it was "hibernating" over night.

Observations - "Normal" install had over 140 processes running, roughly the same memory, but idled along at between 4% and 12%!
Goal - at IDLE setup should be 0% to 1%, no higher, and RAM in my Win10 at idle is only 0.5 GB to 0.7 GB.

Oddity - One of my experiments had Win11 at 1.6 GB to 1.8 GB RAM, but process count was in the 80s.
Had process count all the way down to 54 to 56 but RAM actually increased to 2.9 to 3.1 instead of decreasing.

I've kind of accidentally stumbled into a "Eureka Moment".
I've been focusing on getting all drivers to be recognized in Device Manager.

EUREKA !!!
Linux doesn't have drivers for all of these devices !!!

I'm getting MUCH better performance metrics by INTENTIONALLY *not* loading some of the drivers that Device Manager is asking for.
Maybe I should have known that, lol, but now it's kind of clear as to just "why" some Linux platforms outperform some Windows platforms.
I still maintain that a PROPERLY TWEAKED config of Windows is capable of a LOT more than that can be done from Linux.
But I'm young and still learning, lol.

Linux has drivers, but they are mostly part of the kernel so you don't see them,
often however they are maintained by Linux developers, not companies who make hardware

My two largest drivers are display/graphics drivers.
I'd expect them to be large and I need them in order to use an external bigscreen.

Third largest, and very close to being second largest, is a driver specifically called "AMD AI Neural Processing Unit".
This one had a significant affect on idle RAM and CPU utilization.

I axed it and also axed "HP Support Assist", "HP Power State Notification", "AMD Crash Defender", "AMD Noise Suppression", "AMD Security Accelerator", two "AMD Windows Driver Framework" 'sensors', and two "AMD Power" 'services' and everything seems to be working MUCH FASTER than "with" these drivers.

I haven't ran any real "benchmarks", I'm going by OS-only nothing-installed idle RAM, CPU, threads, handles, and processes.
This is how I always did Win10 2016 but 2016 isn't working on this HP Envy x360 AMD Ryzen 5 laptop.
I am having good success with Win10 21H2 - which is a bit of a godsend that everything is working and I won't have to run Win11.

I start at about 1,8 GB RAM consumption after login on fresh boot on Win11 23H2, about 130 processes. RAM could be lower, but that's including some software I added to startup, AIMP, Alcohol 120%, KeePass, DxWnd, some background stuff; OpenShell, 7+ Taskbar Tweaker, ExplorerPatcher, T-Clock Redux and QTTabBar are all loaded into Explorer, the latter pulls in .NET Framework as well. Link Shell Extension is another shell extension, then there's also TortoiseGit.

1,8 GB tends to climb up to about 2,1 GB on subsequent logins.

I start around 600mb (out of 32gb) after login on a warm boot (Win7 Updated V5 w/ SecondSystem). Normally however (Teams, r3dfox and Discord open, maybe VSCode and VMware) i'd get 7-12gb used. I want to ideally get CPU usage lower though as that is my main stress point.

It's been a very long time since I have ran Win 7 but I do have an install disk for it around here somewhere.
I guess I'm a bit reluctant to even try it on my newest laptop (AMD Ryzen 5).
I need DRM-capable browser (all tv's in the house are connected to computers and everything is streamed).
I would have no tv if it weren't for streaming apps.
Been there, done that. Once lived without a tv, in an era before mobile phones. No need to do that again.
I kind of really like streaming all entertainment viewing and not having a "tv", per se.
But again, DRM is a bit of a must nowadays. So I can't really see ever dropping back to below Win10.
But for now, hoping to *NEVER* need Win11. Time will tell...

99% of what I watch is also streamed from my browser(s) and its not easy but I can not afford cable.

I don't look at it as an "affordability" aspect.
I used to have three paid-for commercial-free streaming platforms.
Only did that for one year.
I learned very quickly that what happened (at least for me) was that I would binge-watch on ONE of those three.
And the other two wouldn't get touched until I was all the way through whatever I was binge-watching.
Would always be MONTHS (plural!) of watching ONE platform.
Then roll over to one of the other two and watch that ONE for MONTHS (plural!)
So I now make certain to only ever pay for ONE AT A TIME.
Keeps me from feeling "wasteful" for paying for three (and thinking I needed five) but only ever watching ONE.
So "steer into the skid" and only pay for one

If it weren't for DRM, I'd still be running XP with a startup of only 57mb and a process count of only 13 (14 if you include Task Manager to grab a screencap).

The-10-Pen wrote: *

21 Nov 2025, 10:52

If it weren't for DRM, I'd still be running XP with a startup of only 57mb and a process count of only 13 (14 if you include Task Manager to grab a screencap).

2025-11-21_5-50-27.jpg

Instead of dealing with DRM, you could always just pirate stuff instead.

LOL

I suppose so. But there are other reasons that Win10 has *gained me* over XP that I don't want to revert backwards.
I really feel now that clinging onto XP was basically akin to turning down a better job because it would disqualify government assistance.
I say that sarcastically to "paint a picture". XP really really REALLY was just "holding me back". This isn't 1990 anymore.

I was a die-hard XP user until just over a year or so ago, roughly.
When it turned into a full-time job just to keep XP able to "do" stuff, that's when I finally ditched it.
From what I see on the few forums that I frequent, Win7 is just as much of a full-time job.
So... "No thanks! Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt."

The-10-Pen wrote: *

21 Nov 2025, 12:13

LOL

I suppose so. But there are other reasons that Win10 has *gained me* over XP that I don't want to revert backwards.
I really feel now that clinging onto XP was basically akin to turning down a better job because it would disqualify government assistance.
I say that sarcastically to "paint a picture". XP really really REALLY was just "holding me back". This isn't 1990 anymore.

I was a die-hard XP user until just over a year or so ago, roughly.
When it turned into a full-time job just to keep XP able to "do" stuff, that's when I finally ditched it.
From what I see on the few forums that I frequent, Win7 is just as much of a full-time job.
So... "No thanks! Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt."

As a W7 user (at least currently), it's definitely not a "full-time job". Getting everything sorted out after a clean install took a fair bit longer than on W10, but after that I've had next to zero compatibility problems to sort out. I also previously used W8.1, and it was a similar ordeal, albeit with a bit of additional hassle with installing my graphics drivers (because they officially don't support 8.1).

Win7 is actually one of the reasons that I stuck with XP for so long.
My eye vision is so great that Win7 gave me migraines due to my vision seeing red and green dancing pixels in the corners of fonts.
It was a real thing! It didn't just affect me. Not everybody can see them.
Maybe there is a fix for it that I never discovered during my short time with Win7.

The-10-Pen wrote: *

21 Nov 2025, 12:24

Win7 is actually one of the reasons that I stuck with XP for so long.
My eye vision is so great that Win7 gave me migraines due to my vision seeing red and green dancing pixels in the corners of fonts.
It was a real thing! It didn't just affect me. Not everybody can see them.
Maybe there is a fix for it that I never discovered during my short time with Win7.

Perhaps that's related to ClearType font smoothing? XP uses greyscale font smoothing by default instead, but since Vista, ClearType has been enabled by default. You can quite easily disable ClearType and go back to either greyscale smoothing or no smoothing.

Again, been there, done that. Didn't work.
You also have to couple not only the OS font rendering but the whole evolution of GDI/DirectWrite/etc in web browsers themselves.
Couple all of that with MY need (it will not be everybody's need) for DRM-CAPABLE and XP and 7 are just plain "dead on arrival" these days.

XP is like a full time job to keep going and finding crazy browsers that work one moment and not the next. I'm just hanging in there with my ancient machines until they quit because its not worth updating to 7 IMO because we still have to make it work in 2025. It is a headache and I have to use linux on DVD to enjoy my devices as much as possible. Regrettably. the association would prefer all clients to be on a tablet and I'm the only one that is allowed to have a PC and Printer here. I'm allowed to keep one in the closet but I can not have both going and the 2nd one is a VERY old Dell that is basically useless to me other than for nostalgic purposes. Also using XP in general is nostalgic but a PITA; honestly.

Correction: Most all here are on a smart phone and I don't own a smart phone - no PC or tablet at all.