The official system requirements for Windows 11 include a computer with at least 4GB of RAM, 64GB of storage, and TPM 2.0 security. Folks have been finding ways around that last requirement for ages.

But now you can easily avoid the first two as well thanks to a stripped down version of Windows 11 called Tiny11. It runs smoothly on systems with as little as 2GB of RAM and takes up just 8GB of disk space, compared with 20GB for a standard Windows 11 install. Update: Some users have managed to boot the OS on systems with as little as 200MB of RAM, although it doesn’t run particularly well within those constraints.

Tiny11

Tiny11 comes from independent developer NTDEV, who says that the operating system is based on Windows 11 Pro 22H2, but features a number of changes to save space and allow the OS to run well on older or less powerful hardware. NTDEV says it should work with pretty much any computer that can run Windows 10.

For example Windows system files are compressed to save space. A number of apps that are normally pre-installed have been removed and only a handful of apps remain (including accessibility features, calculator and camera apps, the Windows Snipping Tool, and Windows Terminal and PowerShell).

System requirements have also been removed, allowing you to install the operating system on a computer that doesn’t have TPM 2.0 security or at least 4GB of RAM, among other things.

And by default Tiny11 uses local accounts, allowing you to set up a computer without a Microsoft Account. You can use a Microsoft Account if you want, but it’s not required… unless you want to use features like the Microsoft Store or Windows 11 widgets.

You can download Tiny11 from the Internet Archive, or check out NTDEV’s video for an overview of this stripped-down version of Windows 11.  Just keep in mind that one of the things that’s been removed is support for installing major operating system updates through Windows Update – while NTDEV says security updates should work, the only way to install major Windows 11 updates is to install a new build of Tiny11 if and when one is released in the future.

Also, while the software will let you run a stripped down version of Windows 11 on computers that may not meet the minimum system requirements, you might want to proceed with caution if you plan to run any sensitive software on a closed-source operating system that’s been modified by an independent developer. But at the very least, Tiny11 could provide a simple method for running Windows 11 apps in a virtual machine without dedicating much RAM or storage to the task.

via Neowin and @NTDEV_

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31 replies on “This stripped-down Windows 11 version runs on less than 2GB of RAM (and doesn’t require TPM)”

  1. I installed LinuxMint as a dual boot. but didn’t boot into windows 11 for at least 2 months now. and I don’t think I’ll ever go back.

  2. That’s a lot of work for a such crap solution. Just put on your big girl panties and install Linux.

  3. i just installed it and is very laggy even though i have 8gb ram so the part about “It runs smoothly on systems with as little as 2GB of RAM” doesn’t really seems true
    so i reverted back to w10.
    Whatever they stripped out of it might have been esential to the operating system.

  4. Yes, download a modified OS from a stranger on the Internet. Sounds like a great idea! /s

    1. Also describes every single operating system you did not review the source code for. The only person I can think of as the exception is that guy with SerenityOS.

          1. Not even related. Open source wasn’t even part of the original comment.

  5. Windows 11 actually takes 10Gb (mostly assorted drivers and dlls to deal with dll hell, that it periodically cleans up, plus, if its not cheap tablet, most files are compressed), but reserves 8Gb on top for updates. This is how you get 20gb number. Probably guy just disabled this reserve and removed bunded drivers (bundled apps are mostly pretty small).
    I wonder how Android 10-12 manages to take same 8 gigs, given that it does not need to keep drivers for various hardware, and only has resources and native libs for older versions.

  6. Why would you trust using this? Also, is it true an update might break it (minus the updates that break regular Windows installs)? If so, then not a good idea to keep your OS unpatched.

    Is there a real name behind this or it’s just “NTDEV”? If the latter, then that garners a lot of trust. /s

    1. I’m surprised anyone would even use an OS modified by what looks to be an anonymous person.

      I’m also surprised this is being covered by tech media.

  7. I used to use a Tiny Windows 8 build back in the Intel Atom Baytrail days, and later I used a Tiny Windows 10 build on a home theatre PC.

    I found both of them to be really annoying because you were always behind on Windows updates, as an update could ruin your Windows install.

    Also, at the time, there were no existing solutions to get the Microsoft Store working on it, so it wasn’t possible to install some software (at the time that was the only way to get Netflix on Windows, I’m not sure if that’s changed).

      1. If I remember correctly, you couldn’t get HD or 4K content from the Netflix windows app unless you installed it from the store. Again, that may have changed.

  8. Ahh, Windows – the forgotten stepchild of Microsoft’s empire. It’s like they’re saying ‘sure, we’ve got all this money, but fixing our OS? Nah, let’s just make it a gaming platform and call it a day. 😂💻

  9. If only microsoft cared about its own operating system. Windows is sad considering the wealth of microsoft and how little they care about the Os versus the more lucrative gaming industry. Windows is just another gaming platform.

  10. Windows 11 updates probably a no go with this as it would probably break it trying to find non existent files. Did Tiny for Windows 10 ever have a way to be security patched after its initial release? I’m going to install it on an older 10th gen i5 Windows laptop with 4gb’s of ram, and even though it wasn’t supported officially, I still managed to get around the windows 11 restrictions, but I wasn’t happy with the performance. I think this version is worth a look on older laptop or desktop hardware.

  11. I used to have a Window XP install I customized I used that used 11MB of ram after a cold boot.

    1. I reached the bottom (having read the article) to comment on system requirements too : CRAZY NUMBERS! Imagine what a techie from the 80s would say about needing 4GB just for the OS! And is the user experience any better…? No.

      (I’m typing this on a RaspberryPi.)

      1. I tried to go lower. I went as far as removing amd drivers as I was running Intel and removed a number ofother things, but I took a step to far by removing Internet Explorer and it broke windows update.

      2. “Imagine what a techie from the 80s would say about needing 4GB just for the OS [except it’s not because you can run plenty of programs in the remaining space]! And is the user experience any better…? No.”
        Well, let’s see. Multiple programs running simultaneously; background processing not interrupting other programs; multiple, large, high-resolution displays; handling network traffic, without additional hardware, from multiple sources simultaneously, at multiple gigabits per second; enforcing some level of intra-OS security so malware has to use bugs instead of automatically having total access to everything as soon as it executes. Yeah, we’ve got nothing good in the last four decades.

        1. Fair point, made well, but you can still have those things with fewer resources.

    2. fond memories of using nLite to tweak my installation as much as possible…. hope someone could come up with something like that for W10 or W11…

    3. 11MB. That’s pretty good stuff, especially with a GUI. I put RPiOS Lite on a Zero W last year, was impressed to see it using 40M of RAM on login. Didn’t need that ridiculous swap partition on the microSD card after all…

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