Tiny11 is once again the talk of the computing town, with this seriously stripped down version of Windows 11 having been spotted running on a literally miniscule amount of system RAM.
If you missed the release of the final version of Tiny11, it’s a Windows install (which still requires a valid license) with a full load of bloat removed, with much lower hardware requirements than the full (official) version. ) of Windows 11.
Now Tiny11 specs call for 2GB of system RAM (instead of 4GB for the full version), but like Neowin (opens in a new tab) highlighted, the operating system can actually run on a lot less memory than that – just 196MB (which equals one-fifth of a gigabyte, or a bit less, actually).
A regular leaker on Twitter, @XenoPanther, who often shares bits and pieces of Windows, has achieved this feat, but with serious caveats.
It only took 30 minutes of BSOD and another 15 minutes to open Task Manager. I’m impressed that it’s even possible to boot Windows 11 (full desktop) on 196MB pic.twitter.com/hCGnaVPeNTFebruary 6, 2023
Yes, with that amount of memory, Tiny11 didn’t fire up easily, experiencing about 30 minutes of crashing before it hit the desktop. And then once on the desktop, it took 15 minutes to open Task Manager, which is clearly ridiculous.
Analysis: a hugely impressive feat – but proceed with equally important caution
The point here, however, is that even loading Windows 11 onto such a pitiful amount of RAM shows that Tiny11 really is lightening the footprint of the operating system massively.
It will certainly run well on 2GB, and no doubt it will run about even less, although you obviously don’t want to run it with 200MB. No, unless you like waiting half an hour for something happen (and no doubt crash if you try to do more than just open a simple panel like Task Manager).
Tiny11, however, comes with its own caveats, as we discussed earlier. Namely, this is a modified ISO for Windows 11, and we don’t know exactly what’s in this installer package. Not that there’s probably anything fishy – we hope so – but we can’t know for sure. And we also have to consider that the ISO also removes some of the security measures for Windows 11 (dropping that TPM system requirement, for starters, opening up the OS to many more PCs and older systems).
So, there are some risks you run into using this Windows 11 alternative, and keep that in mind if you decide to take the plunge. Another limitation is that you can’t get any other Windows 11 updates either – except for security patches, this means that new features won’t be incorporated into your system’s installation. operation.
