Windows unable to manage memory well enough to support external monitor

I have an HP laptop - HP EliteBook 8 with 32 GB of RAM

If this device uses more than 70% of it's RAM (even 71%) it becomes unable to use any external monitors. I have gone as far as to write a custom tool to identify which "casual" apps I have open which, if closed, will push the laptop unto a memory usage where it will actually be able to use an external monitor so I can close what will help the most. This means that Windows is so poor at memory management that it cannot prioritize the needs of external hardware over some spurious application as to present the user with any display. This is true whether the internal display is available or not. i.e. if I have the clamshell closed, and then connect even a single 2k external monitor, Windows will simply fail to display anything. I should note that this is the second laptop which has performed in precisely the same way - the previous being also an HP from the same product line.

Once I free up enough memory (which is one of those Operating System responsibilities that I have to perform on its behalf for some reason) then I can connect the monitor, then reopen the app which pushed it beyond the 70% threshold. Everything, inexplicably, works fine after that. I can go to 95% RAM usage and it is miraculously able to still use the monitor. Amazing.

Worse still: if I lock the computer and the monitor goes to sleep, I must then open the clamshell, disconnect the external monitor, close the application(s) which pushed it beyond 70%, then reconnect the monitor, close the clamshell, and open the application(s) again. The specifically funny part about this failure mode is that windows actually displays the screen content for a second or two before blacking out the screen - never to return until I take actions to manage the memory in the place of the OS. This demonstrates that there is (or was) an video buffer in memory, but windows simply refuses to now use it.

I often opt to call into meetings which are just 100 feet from my desk because I know that Windows will completely screw up the monitor management and the window layout therein so that I don't want to pay the "Manage Windows for Windows so I can use my monitors and Windows to do work" penalty. This is one major reason I abandoned Microsoft products at home (in favor of Bazzite) and most other people in the office use Macs. It really is that bad.

Maybe this is an artifact of the hardware. Maybe - since this is a corporate-managed resource - this is some kind of IT-nanny-ware-imposed limitation. But, at the end of the day; Windows owns the hardware. Windows, with 10GB of "free" memory, becomes unable to show... you know... any windows. This is simply inexcusable and, frankly, should be an embarrassment to those responsible for Microsoft's core OS team.

It would be easy to blame this on HP; maybe some peculiarity with the product family is causing this. Maybe my organization's IT department has done something apocalyptically stupid to make windows look like a useless buffoon here. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter. My ability to fix this as a non-admin user shows that this is a core Windows problem. Windows owns the memory and windows is failing to manage the memory to enable to me to do work.

Please fix this - and, while you're at it; please start prioritizing the user experience. IT might pay your bills when you give them all kinds of new spy tools, but you're killing the golden goose and looking like a laughing stock while doing it to anyone paying attention. You're moving toward a world where only IT will be the ones paying the bills... then they will look for ways to stop paying that bill. If you make the end-user's experience so poor that they'd rather be anywhere else, IT will follow.