How To Enable Or Disable Memory Compression In Windows 11

Memory compression, which debuted in Windows 10, is a method that allows your RAM to expand more freely, keeping your machine from slowing. Memory compression is a memory management model that helps to keep more memory on your storage medium than you could otherwise. This has a direct positive influence on your PC’s performance and helps it to execute jobs more quickly. So, in this article, we will learn how to enable or disable memory compression in Windows 11.

Memory compression is enabled by default in Windows, but you may deactivate it if you just want. However, what precisely does it accomplish, and should you disable it in the first place? Let’s look into this functionality a bit more closely.

What Else are Windows Page Files?

Prior we dive into memory compression and its usefulness, let us just define a key term connected to it: page files.

Page files are unnoticed system resources that Windows keeps on secondary storage, which is often your local disc. They hold data that your RAM (physical memory) does not require right away. Because your computer will store data in page files when your physical memory is full, page files act as a form of auxiliary RAM.

You will discover that your machine is substantially sluggish without page files, or that it regularly breaks, freezes, or misses data.

As the system won’t have anything to keep the temporary necessary data to keep operating your activities, they may even meet the same end. In contrast, page files eliminate the requirement for manual memory freeing.

Paging, a procedure that involves storing data on the storage device and retrieving it, might, however, slow down your computer. The reason for this is that reading data from a hard disc takes far longer time than reading data from RAM.

Here, the role of Memory compression comes into play and can help in situations like those.

Verify the current status of memory compression right now

First of all, it is important that you are aware of the state of your system’s memory compression before deciding to activate or deactivate it.

For this, you need to click the Start Menu and enter Task Manager to get started. Next, you have to tap the “Task Manager” item in the search results to launch it.
On your keypad, you may also activate it by simultaneously pressing the Ctrl, Shift, and Esc keys.
Now, your next task is to select the ‘Performance’ column from the Task Manager window. After that, pick the “Memory” box from the left sidebar and find the “In Use” memory option next.
If find “Compressed” memory active, you will be able to evaluate it in the quotation.

Furthermore

Utilizing the Terminal software on your Windows pc is an additional approach to determine if memory compression is activated or not.

Click the Start Button and input Terminal to use Terminal to verify the status of memory compression. Next, to access the “Terminal” window from the search results, right-click on it and select “Run as administrator” from the context menu.
Then, execute the code shown below in the Terminal window by pressing the Enter key on your computer.

Get-MMAgent

Finding the “Memory Compression” checkbox from the results in the Terminal window is the next step. If the fields show “True,” indicating it is active, and if they show “False,” compression is not.
It is time to activate or deactivate memory compression on your computer now as you’ve determined how it is currently configured.

To enable or disable memory compression, utilize the Terminal widget

By utilizing the Terminal tool, a simple command may be rapidly used to enable or disable the Memory Compression function.

To do this, first, visit the Start Menu and enter “Terminal” to look it up. Secondly, to start the “Terminal” item from the search results, right-click on it and select “Run as administrator” from the menu that appears.
If you really want to activate memory compression on your computer, run the following command from your keyboard, then hit Enter.

Enable-MMAgent –mc

To implement the modifications, you must reboot your pc from the Start Menu.
If you want to deactivate memory compression on your computer, enter the following command into your keyboard, then press Enter.

Disable-MMAgent –mc

To implement the modifications, reboot your computer from the Start Menu after that.

Also when running many tasks at once, Memory Compression should only be turned off when the CPU use is nearer to 100% and the RAM consumption is less than 60%.

How does PowerShell activate memory compression?

You can activate memory compression on your machine manually using PowerShell if it isn’t already On. First of all, you need to type “PowerShell” into the search window after pressing the Win Key. Hit Run as Administrator when you see the PowerShell application in the search results.
To execute the command, type Enable-MMAgent -mc and then you have to press Enter.
Launch PowerShell once more as administrator, type Get-MMAgent, then hit Enter to verify if the command was successful. Look at the MemoryCompression field; if the condition is True, the compression was successful.

How can I use Powershell to disable memory compression?

Given how crucial memory compression is, there could be circumstances in which you would like to turn it off. Whenever your system is limited on physical memory, for instance. Then compressing data might slow it down because it canuse some computing power.

Launch PowerShell as an administrator, type Disable-MMAgent -mc, and your memory compression will be turned off.
The value of MemoryCompression will now be False when you perform the Get-MMAgent command, indicating that you have properly disabled it.

Conclusion

You now understand what memory compression is, why it is essential. This articles guided you how to activate memory compression, and how to stop it if necessary.

Furthermore, because memory compression frees up more RAM for use, we don’t recommend deactivating it. It assists you in avoiding the multitude of issues that might occur when your physical memory is overloaded. In particular, the capability spares your computer from having to keep files in secondary storage that it would otherwise need to access right immediately.