With the release of the final version of Windows 11Microsoft has significantly raised the minimum requirements for installing the operating system.
To install and use Windows 11 you need at least 4 GB of RAMa system equipped with a TPM chip that must be enabled by BIOS UEFI, Secure Boot function equally active, a 64-bit processor supported by Windows 11.
Windows 11, in fact, is not compatible with Intel processors prior to Kaby Lake (eighth generation, number “8” as a prefix in the model code) and with previous AMD CPUs i Ryzen 2000.
We have seen that the limitations imposed by Microsoft they are only superficial restrictions because Windows 11 also works on systems that are 12 years old and since, with practically no effort, it is still possible to install Windows 11 on a non-compatible PC.
It is Microsoft itself that has confirmed that among the ways to install Windows 11 there are those that allow you to pass the checks minimum requirements and compatibility. The Redmond company’s technicians added that copies of Windows 11 installed on incompatible machines may at some point no longer receive updates through Windows Update: to date and up to the time of writing this article, this has never happened.
Lightweight version of Windows 11: how to create it in minutes
Despite the rather strict requirements that Microsoft has decided to impose, Windows 11 can work even on systems just equipped with 2 GB in RAM. To demonstrate this, the creator of Tiny11, a compact version of Windows presented as file ISO I know.
In presenting the project, we also highlighted the main critical issues of Tiny11starting from the fact that the material still comes from non-Microsoft servers, which the user has no way of verifying which components of system are removed from Windows 11 and that there is no way to customize the contents of the ISO file.
What the Tiny11 Builder script is and how it works, to customize any version and edition of Windows 11
The author of Tiny11 made a simple scriptbaptized Tiny 11 Builderwhich allows users to create a lightweight version of Windows 11starting from the official ISO images downloadable from Microsoft servers.
After more than a year of “break”, Tiny11 Builder returns in an updated and improved version. On the project’s GitHub repository, there is a script suitable for everyone, usable with any version of Windows 11 (not just specific builds), regardless of the edition, architecture and language chosen.
To create your own customized version and super compact Windows 11, just follow a few simple instructions:
1) Download the Windows 11 ISO in Europen in its most updated version or download the latest preview release of Windows 11 with UUP dump.
2) Use a Windows 10 or Windows 11 system to set up the contents of the ISO: Just double click on the file name. Write down the drive identification letter assigned by Windows to the contents of the ISO image.
3) Create the folder c:\tiny11builder and save the contents of the Zip archive which can be downloaded from this page by clicking on Code (green button) and finally up Download Zip.
4) Press Windows+X then select Windows PowerShell (amministratore) or Terminal (Admin).
5) Type cd c:\tiny11builder then issue the following command in the PowerShell window (answer Y, “Yes”):
Set-ExecutionPolicy -Scope CurrentUser -ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted
6) Write .\tiny11maker.ps1 followed by pressing the Enter key, to start the Tiny11 Builder script. When the security warning appears, press V and Enter again.
7) When the window with the sentence appears Please enter the drive letter for the Windows 11 image, type the drive letter corresponding to the virtual drive in which the contents of the Windows 11 ISO have been mounted (previous point 2). Don’t indicate a colon. As can be seen in the figure, in our case we simply specified E.
8) Select the edition of Windows 11 contained in the ISO file you want to lighten. Since in our case we want to obtain alight ISO image of Windows 11 Pro, we specify 5 and press Enter.
From this moment on you must never interrupt the execution of the script.
9) Lo script tiny11builder does not require further intervention: after a few minutes of waiting, it generates a new one Windows 11 ISO file stripped of all system components deemed useless and with a series of automatically applied customizations. The file tiny11.isocontaining the lightweight version of Windows 11, is located in the same folder c:\tiny11builder.
10) When the message appears Creation completed! Press any key to exit the script, just press a key to close the script execution window. The batch tiny11builder automatically deletes both support folders and cleans them up.
The ISO file thus obtained can be used to install Windows 11 in a compact version on physical and virtual machines.
How the script that lightens Windows 11 works
By opening the batch file tiny11maker.ps1 with a normal text editor, it is possible to check the interventions that are automatically applied to the contents of the Windows 11 ISO.
After the Write-Host line "Mounting complete! Performing removal of applications..."the PowerShell routine uses the DISM command to mount the contents of the file install.wim di Windows 11.
Always using the system package management offered by Microsoft DISMthe script deletes the following components:
- Clipchamp
- News
- Weather forecast
- Xbox
- GetHelp
- GetStarted
- Office Hub
- Lonely
- People App
- PowerAutomate
- ToDo
- Wakes up
- Mail and Calendar
- Feedback Hub
- Maps
- Sound recorder
- Your phone
- Multimedia player
- Quick assistance
- Internet Explorer
- LA57 support
- English-US OCR
- Vocal recognition
- Text-to-Speech for English-US
- Media player (old version)
- Tablet PC Math
- Windows 11 Wallpapers
- Browser Edge
- OneDrive
If you don’t want to remove some of the components mentioned, just delete the corresponding lines from the script. For example, to avoid thedeleting OneDrive and Edge just delete the lines between from the script Write-Host "Removing Edge:" e Clear-Hostimmediately before Write-Host "Loading registry...".
The following steps, starting from row echo Bypassing system requirements(on the system image) provide the following:
- Make Windows 11 installable on any system (bypass all Microsoft requirements)
- Deactivating Microsoft Teams
- Disabling Microsoft’s automatic installation of potentially useless apps
- Enabling local accounts in the installation procedure
- Deactivating Reserved space
- Disable chat icon
If you want, with a little effort, you can add the further changes that we have foreseen in the article in which we explain how to speed up and optimize Windows 11.
The changes to the system registry are applied by virtually loading the contents of the registry onto the local system and then subsequently applying the changes to the contents of the registry contained in the ISO file. It’s the same concept we used in the article on how to change a forgotten password in Windows 11.