Windows 11's New Media Player Uses 3.5x More RAM and Charges for Popular Codecs

Microsoft's new Media Player in Windows 11 has come under criticism after independent testing found it consumes far more memory than the classic Windows Media Player it replaces, while also moving some widely used video codecs behind paid add-ons.

3.5x more memory while idle

According to tests published by Windows Latest, the modern Media Player holds around 377MB of RAM when idle, compared with roughly 103MB for the legacy player — about 3.5 times as much memory for a process that is doing nothing. The same measurements show that opening a local video file has also become slower: startup time grew by roughly 50%, from about two seconds with the old player to around three seconds with the new one.

Neither figure is dramatic on a machine with 16GB of RAM, but on budget laptops and tablets with 4GB or 8GB, a few hundred megabytes of background overhead is a measurable share of the system's available memory.

Codecs behind a paywall

The performance gap is only part of the story. Microsoft now sells HEVC (H.265) playback through the paid "HEVC Video Extensions" package in the Microsoft Store, so users have to buy an add-on to play files encoded in that format in the built-in player. Microsoft has also confirmed that Windows 11 version 24H2 removes the built-in AC-3 (Dolby Digital) codec, which means the new Media Player on those systems cannot play AC-3 audio tracks natively.

HEVC and AC-3 both appear in ordinary consumer content: HEVC is used by many phone cameras, 4K streaming services and screen recordings, while AC-3 remains common in DVD rips and older media libraries.

What it means for users

The new Media Player ships as the replacement for both Groove Music and the classic Windows Media Player across Windows 11 PCs. Microsoft still offers the classic player as an optional component, but the modern app is the default choice for most users. Those who would rather avoid Microsoft's paid codec add-ons can use third-party players such as VLC, which bundle their own decoders and do not depend on the operating system for format support.

The episode fits a broader pattern in Windows 11, where Microsoft has moved features into Store-updated apps that can be monetised separately, and where bundled components are removed to cut licensing costs.