What Is Tiny11
Tiny11 is, as the name suggests, a cutdown version of Windows 11 specifically designed to run on low-spec computers and bypass the TPM and Secure Boot requirements. Tiny11 is available as an ISO created by independent developer NTDEV who has stripped out many of the default apps, including the Edge browser, to produce a lightweight Windows 11.
“Based off of Windows 11 Pro 22H2, tiny11 has everything you need for a comfortable computing experience without the bloat and clutter of a standard Windows installation. It just uses around 8GB of space compared to the 20+GB that a standard installation does”
Differences Between Tiny11 And Windows 11
Tiny11 is based on Windows 11 Pro 22H2 so, obviously, the core functionality remains pretty much the same. The major difference is in the resources each uses with Tiny11 requiring less disk space and resources. The developer has significantly reduced the number of background processes by excluding a bunch of unnecessary apps, such as Teams and Edge. However, the Microsoft Store has been retained so, if users want to install any missing apps (including a browser), they can do that via the Microsoft Store.
Another difference between the two is that the default account for Tiny11 is a Local Account, whereas Windows 11 insists on a Microsoft account. According to the Tiny11 webpage, the second (latest) release of Tiny11 now includes the Component Store, so updates, new features, and languages can be added.
How To Download Tiny11
- Go to: Tiny11 By NTDEV
- You’ll see DOWNLOAD OPTIONS (on the right-hand side)
- NOTE: Apparently the ISO download is slow so best to use the Torrent link if possible
- Tiny11 requires a genuine license key for activation
Is Tiny11 Safe?
It’s important to note that Tiny11 is the personal project of a single developer and Microsoft does not recognize nor support this cut-down version of Windows 11. So, there has to be an element of trust and safety concerns. Even in the absence of any malicious intent, there still remains the chance that stripping out certain elements could inadvertently have a detrimental effect on overall security.
I would definitely advise against installing Tiny11 on a main machine – not even on a separate internal drive. That said, I suspect Tiny11 is primarily targeting hobbyists so, if you have an older or spare machine on hand, it could be a fun project to install Tiny11 and give it a try.
Let us know your thoughts via the comments.
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Mr Jim
I am downloading the ISO, will try this on an old Acer desktop, that is being used as an dust-catcher. It is running Windows Vista Basic, I will pull the drive and use a mew drive for the install. If it works, the machine will then have Debian Linux
installed.
Cool. Let us know how it goes please Daniel.
Mr Jim
I have Tiny W11 installed and running on my Dell
XPS L702X laptop!!! For myself, it is working well!!
Would you want a topic in the forum, on Tiny W11?
Mr Jim
You might want to update that link for the ISO download for Tiny W11, it is taking me to a webpage with an inappropriate content warning.
https://archive.org/details/tiny-11-b-2no-sysreq.iso
This link will take one straight to the Tiny W11 download.
I did not wish to see what was inappropriate!!!
The link still works fine here Daniel. That said, the link you’ve provided leads directly to the downloads which is much better.
I’ll update the article accordingly, thanks Daniel.
P.S. There is zero inappropriate content. The site is hosted by archive.org but does not relate to anything associated with archive.org, that’s why the warning. A bit silly really. The “inappropriate” content is actually Tiny11 screenshots.
“Tiny11 requires a genuine license key for activation” – what is that about – does it need to be purchased? Please advise. Thank you.
Hey Frank,
Not 100% sure myself mate but I believe it means that, for automatic activation, Tiny11 must be installed either as un upgrade to an existing Windows 10 machine or on a machine that has already had a Windows 10 operating system installed and activated at some time. If neither of those conditions apply, then I guess a license must be purchased.
Bear in mind though, that you can run Tiny11 without activation.
I am now running Tiny11 on a Dell Latitude E5430 that had a W10 installation on it. It is a Core i7-3520M cpu with 8 gig of DDR3 RAM and a SSD. I removed the old SSD, put in another one and did a clean install of Tiny11 beta2.
It is really amazing how well this works! Without all the bloat, when you do install a program, it becomes the default and all the files associated with it are set to default. I have installed MS Office 2010 without issues. My only hiccup with it was trying to get Windows Photo Viewer to work. I guess the programmer stripped it out of the registry, because the .reg file I use to activate it in W10 doesn’t work in Tiny11.
I’ve run the updates which worked seamlessly and much quicker than in regular W11.
Everything just works with no theatrics. All my usual tweaks for the OS worked fine except for the photo viewer.
I’m very impressed! Thanks for mentioning it in your column.
BTW, with the previous W10 install, the Tiny11 activated with no problems.
Thanks Ken for that valuable information, appreciated.
Can Tiny 11 work on a 32 bit computer?
Hey Wayne,
Sorry, but I suspect not. Tiny11 is based on the latest Windows 11 build and, seeing how Windows 11 doesn’t support 32 bit, I reckon it’s most likely that Tiny11 won’t either.
No!!! It will boot but it will not install, tried it on one of my old 32bit PC.
I have been using Tiny 11 for a few weeks now,on my laptop, and it has exceeded my expectations. I have even installed Tiny 11 on one of my desktop PC,s, and it really flies with 32G of ram. Even have VirtualBox installed, running an XP VM.
Thought I would give an update on Tiny W11!!!
Had Tiny W11 installed on my Dell XPS laptop, and all was well until a recent feature update, that would never install. I do not know, but this may be one way MS will weed out unsupported W11 installs.
Anyhow, I saved my data, wiped the drive and the laptop is now happily running Ubuntu 22.04 LTS.