[clue] Windows 7 memory usage - anyone got true facts?

[Bruce Ediger]

At work, there's a pilot project to upgrade to Windows 7 (and IE 9,
we're currently stuck on IE7).  My group's pilot project designee
had to upgrade her laptop to 4 *Gigabytes* RAM to be able to run
Windows 7 and some applications.

Since it's impossible to get true answers at work, what exactly does
Windows 7 do with 4 *Gigabytes* RAM?  My current laptop, an elderly
HP/Compaq N8000, has 2 Gig, and it just doesn't ever swap, as near as I
can tell, unless I deliberately write a program to allocate all memory.
What does Windows 7 do that's so special?  Is there any other answer
than "We upgrade because Microsoft tells up to"?

On a software engineering note, how does Microsoft (the development
staff) deal with the code base that uses that much memory?  That size
code base has to be exhausting to maintain - how do they counteract
the human tendency towards shortcuts and quick fixes?

Signed,
Befuddled in Denver