Hobbes: “Actually installing the OS takes up a fair bit of memory. If you want to reduce it, you can reinstall and do a custom installation, disabling some of the superfluous features.”
This is fundamental error with people who use computers.
“Memory” does not equal Hard Drive Space. What you should have described was “Hard Drive Space” and not “Memory.”
“Memory” is what the computer uses to “think” and it’s what give it more “room” and “speed” to “think” things.
Hard Drive Space gives the computer capacity to store and “remember” things. It is usually this “remember” concept that makes people use the “Memory” label when talking about what should actually be referred to as “Hard Drive Space.” It’s a common mistake! :)
When I teach people about computers and how they operate, I use this analogy:
Think of your computer’s memory as a post-it note pad that has a self destruct mechanism built into it. Every time you write a post-it note and stick it somewhere, it has a built-in meter and off-switch detector, and when the system switches off or the meter reaches a certain point, the post-its that were written up to that point go “POOF” and no longer exist.
Think of your Hard Drive as a large-capacity, self-replicating notepad that you write on with a pencil and remove things with an eraser, which also has a huge file cabinet to keep your written stuff in. This notepad and cabinet have no expiration time, but have a space limit. You can throw away old stuff that you put in the cabinet, but you have to decide when to do that, or the computer will decide to when it needs to run certain programs, but when you shut the computer off, the cabinet’s contents are still there.
I hope that this makes thing more clear for the poster!