Developer NTDEV has managed to squeeze a de-bloated Windows 11 distribution into a 2 GB ISO, which installs into just 3.3 GB disk space. This release, with “a much smaller footprint,” is called the tiny11 core OS. Previously NTDEV seems to have concentrated on pruning Windows 11 to minimize its memory footprint, but their latest boast is that the actual on-disk presence of Windows 11 can also be made extremely compact.
NTDEV revealed that one of the key tweaks to Windows 11 to minimize its storage footprint was to leverage LZX disk (de)compression. A regular Windows 11 install might take up over 20 GB of disk space before you add any of your essential apps and games. That’s about 6x more space than tiny11 core.
The extreme operating system contortionist’s tiny11 distribution was already quite lean, taking up approximately 8 GB of disk space when installed. However, activating the Windows 10+ CompactOS feature squashes OS files using the LZX algorithm with system files decompressed on the fly as required.
Not a Windows 11 or tiny11 Substitute
Significant changes have been made to reduce the OS disk footprint of tiny11 core, affecting: Windows Component Store (WinSxS), Windows Defender, Recovery Agent, Microsoft Edge, and Windows Update. Therefore, tiny11 core “has limited security and NO serviceability.”
With the outlined limitations, NTDEV stresses that tiny11 core is not a replacement for Windows 11 or even tiny11. Instead, it is purposed to be “a quick-and-dirty test bed or development platform.” It may also be attractive for VM-based environments. For this purpose, tiny11 core still offers components to run most (if not all) of the applications designed for Windows, as .NET 3.5 and Internet Explorer core are enabled.
If you are interested in tiny11 core, please make sure to read the above-linked release page. The page provides some install guidance, lists known issues, and requests user feedback for the beta. It shouldn’t take too long to download tiny11 core as the ISO file is also a mini-marvel at just 2 GB.
