Open Process Supervisor in your Home windows PC proper now and likelihood is you will see apps like Discord, Slack, or Groups sitting on the prime of the reminiscence listing, even when they are not lively. It isn’t a bug of their code, and it is not as a result of your PC is previous. It is actually the consequence of greater than 30 years of decisions on how Home windows apps are constructed.
Microsoft has rewritten its really useful app improvement framework at the least seven occasions for the reason that ’90s, in response to longtime Chromium engineer Dominic Denicola in a current trending weblog publish. Every new framework, he mentioned, was deserted earlier than builders may actually dig in and create a steady system. The result’s that many trendy Home windows apps are web sites dressed up as native apps utilizing a framework known as Electron, which finally ends up bundling a full copy of the Chromium browser engine into each app like this. It prices customers RAM, battery life, and responsiveness with every put in app.
Microsoft’s framework graveyard
What every pivot value
Tashreef Shareef / MakeUseOfCredit: Tashreef Shareef / MakeUseOf
The core drawback right here is framework churn. As Denicola factors out, the Home windows dev stack has fractured throughout a ton of tried coding revolutions, from Win32 C APIs to MFC, to WinForms and WPF, to WinRT XAML and UWP XAML, to WinUI 3. With every new begin, builders want to start once more, at the least till the framework was deserted or added into one thing new.
That is not only a problem, both. Every time Microsoft pivoted, there was a complete bunch of apps caught with the deprecated platform, leaving devs with no secure basis to construct on long-term. Former Microsoft CTO Jeffrey Snover calls it a systemic failure, and the ensuing present scenario a “boof-a-rama,” i.e., sensible folks doing dumb issues. The know-how, he argued, wasn’t ever unhealthy, per se, however ended up being deserted on account of inside politics, untimely pivots at developer conferences, and complicated enterprise methods that left devs out within the chilly.
“Just a few years in the past I used to be in a gathering with builders and somebody requested a easy query: ‘What’s the proper framework for a brand new Home windows desktop app?'” Snover wrote within the weblog publish. “Useless silence. One particular person urged WPF. One other mentioned WinUI 3. A 3rd requested if they need to simply use Electron. The assembly went sideways and we by no means did reply the query. That silence is the story. And the story goes again thirty-plus years.”
The .NET hole that is nonetheless not mounted
Home windows 11 ships with .NET 4.8.1, however builders want .NET 10
picture credit score – self captured (Tashreef Shareef) – No Attribution Required
Denicola’s most concrete subject is with the .NET model drawback. In 2026, the present model of .NET is 10, however even the newest variations of Home windows 11 solely ships with .NET 4.8.1 preinstalled. That creates an issue for devs and their customers. When customers obtain any app made with the trendy runtime, Home windows forces customers to obtain .NET 10. The choice is for builders to bundle your entire .NET runtime contained in the app binary, which will increase the file dimension. Denicola makes use of the instance of a small utility he created that finally ends up virtually 10 MB because of the bundling of the entire digital machine, rubbish collector, and customary libraries.
Why, then, does Microsoft not simply ship .NET 10 with Home windows 11? Ioic Sharma, a developer in a dialogue thread says it clearly: “Home windows bundles .NET 4.8 because it’s bug-for-bug appropriate with legacy apps.”
This is smart on the floor, nevertheless it leaves trendy builders in a bind with no clear decision.
Why builders turned to Electron — and what it prices you
You are secretly working Chrome for every app
And not using a steady native path, builders attain for Electron, a framework that permits you to construct apps utilizing net tech like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript after which ship them like standalone packages. It makes improvement quick, works on Windoes, Mac, and Linux from the identical codebase, and simply avoids the entire WIndows framework subject.
The catch is that every Electron app has its personal JavaScript engine, GPU renderer, networking stack, audio pipeline, and sandboxed subprocesses. Every app opens like a full browser. That is the place all of your RAM goes, as every Chromium browser occasion provides to the load in your PC. Discord tried to unravel this identified subject with an auto restart when the app hits 4 MB RAM.
You probably have Discord, Groups, Slack, and Visible Studio Code, you are principally working a number of situations of the Chromium engine on the similar time, every consuming an alarming chunk of RAM. That is not all, both. Your CPU and battery life, to not point out working hotter, are all outcomes of this improvement value.
Nonetheless, we won’t blame builders. Electron is so ubiquitous as a result of it at lest offers them a predictable goal that helps remedy the fragmentation drawback.
Is Microsoft doing something about it?
Type of
Copilot in Home windows 11Credit: Kanika Gogia / MUO
In January 2026, Microsoft introduced the Home windows App Improvement CLI (winapp), a brand new open-source commanmd line instrument created to simplify the event lifecycle of Home windows apps throughout a variety of frameworks and toolchains. It helps with the present tooling subject, however not the underlying framework fragmentation. This is hoping that Microsoft’s guarantees of enhancing issues like scaling again Copilot and fixing RAM optimization will even assist.
What this implies for you
If nothing else, understanding about Electron apps will assist you determine why your RAM utilization is spiking and beginning up slowly. Simply shopping for extra RAM or getting a greater battery will not repair the underlying trigger, both.
For now, you possibly can choose browser variations of apps for informal use (Discord and Groups work nice on the internet), examine which of your apps are Electron based mostly, and handle your background permissions. An actual repair wants to incorporate Microsoft committing to a steady platforme, although the final three many years have proven an incapacity to take action.
