Windows 11 ballooned to nearly 30GB of install space in recent years. While 30GB is not huge, considering 1TB of storage is the default on most mid-level laptops and computers, it's hard to ignore the waste of storage space. Microsoft includes multiple OS features and elements that you won't ever launch or use, and it creates a need for more storage space with each version update. Tiny11 is a project by NTDEV, a developer who tries to shrink Windows to a more modest size by discarding less-used features, Windows components, and bloatware.

I decided to check the recent version of Nano11, a project by the same developer, which tries to squeeze the ISO file more than usual. It was an interesting experiment that made Windows 11 install in single-digit gigabytes (an impossible feat) and run in lean mode without its nasty demands.

Windows 11 needs pruning

Too much clutter ships by default

The Windows 11 install is always a painful experience, but I don't want to go into details of that now. After you reach the desktop, a lot of bloatware awaits you in different OS areas. The Start menu has multiple app icons that download once you start clicking on them. Copilot and Widget board wait for you on the Taskbar, while several Microsoft-developed apps come preinstalled. Then there are countless drivers, services, and OS elements contributing to this space encroachment.

It's not a pretty sight when you boot into a mainstream operating system, especially after braving through countless OOBE setup menus, which delay the process. The OS takes up nearly 30GB of space now, with ISO files reaching the 6GB mark, all for serving bloatware. But Nano11 can trim all of these elements from the ISO file, preventing it from reaching the installation phase.

Nano11 makes it possible

A very lean version of Windows 11

Tiny11 focuses on removing preinstalled apps like Microsoft Edge, OneDrive, Clipchamp, News, and similar ones that you rarely use or have an alternative for. It doesn’t just stop there, and removes Windows Store components, Windows Update, and WinRE (Windows recovery environment). Still, Tiny11 is generous, as you get to keep Windows Defender and a few more things.

Nano11 is aggressive with its approach and removes more elements, including drivers, system services, BitLocker, and even language packs. The GitHub page boldly claims that the resulting Windows image is unserviceable. You won’t get any update support from Microsoft, and you are pretty much on your own after that.

I downloaded the Nano11 copy, which uses version 25H2 as its base. 25H2 is more of an incremental update with very few new features, and the ISO is from last year. It’s possible to build a customized version with the nano11builder PowerShell script, but I wanted to check what the developer version offered. I installed it on a 2GB RAM, 2 CPU virtual machine, and unpacking the files didn’t take long. I forcibly installed it on a Windows 10 machine, and the setup didn’t give me a TPM or Secure Boot warning.

However, the ISO file didn’t remove the requirement of a Microsoft account like Rufus can, and I had to sign in with one of my VM accounts to complete the setup. It tried installing updates, but couldn’t do so during the setup like the normal installer can.

Stepping into a different Windows 11

Nano11 works wonders

The Nano11 copy of Windows 11 greets you with a blank desktop without any wallpaper. There are a couple of Taskbar icons for the Microsoft Store and File Explorer, along with the usual ones. No Copilot or Widget board is there to encroach on space, and the Start menu has just two pinned apps, File Explorer and Settings. Even the app list has just a handful of apps, including the Terminal and Snipping Tool.

A glance at the C drive properties revealed that the OS uses only 9GB of storage space after installation. So, it uses nearly 70% less storage space than the default installation. The Windows folder uses 6.54GB, a major chunk of the total used disk space. Since there are fewer background services, Nano11 uses almost 1GB of memory in the idle state. That’s a huge difference if you compare it to my daily driver, which uses about 4GB with a couple of startup apps like Flux and Nvidia.

Removing Edge sounds like a good riddance in the initial stage, but you are now stuck with a Windows OS that lacks a browser. Fortunately, Nano11 retains useful CLI tools like Winget, a package manager tool that can help install a browser. I quickly added Chrome, and that reduced the storage space by 800MB. Still, the browser managed to launch and work on 2GB of memory, although running a movie trailer in a YouTube tab shot up the memory usage to about 80 percent.

It made me realize that while I can force a modern OS to run with constrained system resources, 4GB or more memory is critical to using apps and browsers. Nano11 makes it possible for Windows 11 to work on low-end systems, but that comes at a cost.

You cannot update your copy of Windows 11, and that leaves you in a poor security state. I tried using the Check for updates button in the Settings, but it didn’t do anything. Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) is also missing from the picture, and that’s a problem. You have to keep a Windows 11 Recovery USB ready for troubleshooting.

The dev urges skipping using it as a main system and mainly using it for either development or as a non-serious system. So, you can use it for browsing, reviving old systems, and playing games that your hardware allows you to, without worrying about Windows 11's resource requirements.

Shrinking Windows 11 feels nice

NTDEV’s ISO files show that trimming down Windows 11 features is possible. It comes at the expense of losing some critical features in Nano11, but Tiny11 is much better if you don’t want to lose recovery tools and some drivers. I didn’t have any audio issues on the virtual machine, but you might find some if you install it directly on a system. Refrain from using it for anything confidential or personal, as it doesn’t get any updates.