Windows doesn't run "just fine" on 4 GiB of RAM. I had a laptop with 6; Windows 10 became barely usable. If you want to run one, small, program at a time I think you'll be ok. Forget about web browsing; you'll get one tab and it'll be slow.
Agreed. Windows 10/11 can run just fine on 4GB of RAM. You just can't run anything inside of Windows 10/11 with 4GB of RAM.
The last version of Windows that felt like 4GB of RAM was performant for me with applications was Windows XP. Not that every computer running the 32-bit edition of Windows XP could even see/utilize a full 4GB of RAM properly, but at least it was fast.
I ran a Windows 7 system with 3GiB as a gaming machine and it was just fine. Windows 7... the last Windows release that was acceptable-ish. Memories...
A lightweight Linux desktop can keep a decent amount of browser tabs (using Firefox; avoid Chrome) on 4GB RAM if you set up compressed RAM properly. It's not foolproof like 8GB would be, but it's absolutely fine for casual use.
2015 laptop, spinning rust. Nevertheless, it was at least somewhat acceptable at purchase, but crapware installed with successive system updates brought it to a standstill. An SSD might've helped, but not by much. I wiped it and put Kubuntu on it to give to my wife, for whom it ran acceptably. She gave it back when she got a shiny new MacBook Air.
A SSD would have made an absolutely massive difference.
Source: I have clients that still have 2nd/3rd gen i5 systems running 3-4 GB of RAM with Windows 10 and they're tolerable solely thanks to SSDs. Swapping that much on a hard drive would just be painful to use.
Nobody should be interactively using a computer post-2018ish (whenever SSDs fell below $1/GB) that's booting and running primary applications off spinning rust. They're perfectly fine for bulk storage drives but anyone waiting for an operating system booting off one has wasted enough of their life in the last year to have paid for the SSD. Companies that wouldn't spend $100 on an upgrade are literally throwing money away paying their employees to wait on a shit computer.
