Looking for a lightweight Windows 11? Tiny11 is the answer

You can now run Windows 11 on low-end laptops/computers

by Rafly Gilang

Rafly is a journalist with growing experience, ranging from technology, business, social, and culture. A holder of the Romanian government scholarship, his writing has been published in several… read more

Published on February 7, 2023

Fact checked by
Vlad Turiceanu

Passionate about technology, Windows, and everything that has a power button, he spent most of his time developing new skills and learning more about the tech world. Coming… read more

Developer NTDEV released tiny11 earlier this week, a de-bloated version of Windows 11 that runs on almost every PC/computer with low-end specifications. 

Based on Windows 11 Pro 22H2, tiny11 runs smoothly on 8 GB installation with just as little as 400 GB of RAM, in comparison to Windows 11’s standard of over 20 GB storage. Some user even reported tiny11’s installation under 200 GB, albeit slow.

You can do a clean installation with a USB stick with third-party apps like Rufus to make bootable, non-bootable, and FreeDOS drives.

How big is Windows 11?

The original version of Windows 11 requires at least 64 GB of storage and 4 GB RAM. It can be a complete disadvantage for older PCs. 

As noted on Microsoft’s official website, here’s the minimum specification of Windows 11.

• Processor: 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster with two or more cores on a compatible 64-bit processor
• RAM: 4 gigabytes (GB) or greater.
• Storage: 64 GB* or greater available storage is required to install Windows 11.
  • Extra storage space might be required to download updates and enable specific features.
• Graphics card: Compatible with DirectX 12 or later.

A reliable internet connection is also necessary to download, but if you’re running on a slow bandwidth or the installation comes at a slower pace, we recommend you check these tricks. 

What is the downside of tiny11?

To get this working, however, NTDEV has to cut off several features that require a lot of space. 

Designed to bring life to old computers, tiny11 removes Windows Component Store (WinSxS) and disables installation of new features or languages. While it’s not serviceable, the system still supports .NET, drivers, and security definition updates, which can still be installed from Windows Update. 

Additionally, the developer discourages installation on PCs that are powerful enough to run Windows 11 by default, as it’s done previously with tiny10 and Windows 10 in the past. 

“While I can understand that installing modified versions of Windows can pose a security risk, I can assure you (and you can obviously check for yourself) that the image doesn’t have anything from external sources added to it”

Have you tried running Windows 11 on lower-end PCs? Let us know in the comment!