Windows 11 New Media Player Uses 3.5x More RAM, Charges for Popular Video Codecs

Once that was cleared up, the conversation settled on two things. First, the codec issue is mostly a patent and licensing mess, not a technical inability to decode video. People pointed out that open source codec code does not solve patent exposure, and that Microsoft may be avoiding royalty and pool disputes rather than saving engineering effort. Second, the memory number only looks trivial if you view it in isolation. Plenty of people said 300 extra megabytes on one app is not what hurts. The problem is that Windows now has this kind of overhead across many built-in components and background processes, so the cumulative effect is very real on 8 GB and even 16 GB systems, especially for developers already running IDEs, compilers, browsers, and emulators. A recurring frustration was that Microsoft no longer seems willing to model what good Windows software should look like. Several commenters argued that if even Microsoft ships heavy, awkward desktop apps and nickel-and-dimes users on common codecs, it signals to everyone else that native polish and efficiency no longer matter on Windows. The practical upshot was blunt. Most people who care already route around the default stack with VLC, mpv, MPC-HC, MPC-BE, or SMPlayer, and the built-in player survives mostly as a box-checking app rather than something power users trust.