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Windows 11 Weather App Burns More Than 1GB of RAM and Shows Embedded Ads

The app runs as an MSN web wrapper that spawns multiple Chromium processes, increasing memory pressure on lower‑RAM PCs and undercutting Microsoft’s efficiency goals.

Overview

  • Sunday’s tests by multiple outlets found the built‑in Weather app commonly uses more than 1.2 GB of RAM and can spike to roughly 1.5–1.6 GB during interaction.
  • Task Manager shows the app is rendered through Microsoft’s WebView2 and spawns several Chromium subprocesses, which drives the larger memory footprint compared with native apps.
  • The Weather interface includes sponsored tiles and ads drawn from MSN content, which are embedded alongside forecast cards rather than separated as optional promotions.
  • On systems with 8 GB of RAM the app can meaningfully raise memory pressure, force heavier page‑file use, and slow responsiveness for everyday tasks.
  • Microsoft has said it plans to move inbox apps to native WinUI and to tune WebView2 for efficiency, but there is no public timeline or confirmation that MSN Weather will be rebuilt or stripped of ads.