Arr, be mighty astonished by how Windows 11 be sailin' smoothly with a mere 176MB o' RAM! But don't ye be attemptin' this at yer own abode, me hearties!
2023-07-12
Avast ye! In truth, ye be needin' more than 23 times this here measure o' RAM to sail the treacherous seas o' Windows 11.
In a hilarious twist, Windows 11 has been successfully run with just 176MB of system RAM, thanks to the efforts of developer NTDEV. This stripped-down version of Windows 11, called Tiny11, removes unnecessary components and drivers to achieve this feat. Previously, Tiny11 had been run with as little as 196MB of RAM, but the system was extremely slow. However, with the successful attempt at just 176MB, the OS runs relatively responsively, with Task Manager appearing in just a few seconds compared to the 15-minute wait in the previous demonstration.But here's the catch – in order to achieve this, NTDEV had to remove a major element: File Explorer. As a result, Windows 11 boots to a command line without a desktop, requiring users to manually type commands to run different apps and functions. While this makes for a clunky way of operating, it allows for a faster OS.
It's important to note that Windows 11 normally requires 4GB of RAM to run, which is 23 times the amount seen in this experiment. So, while this achievement is impressive, it serves more as a fun exercise rather than a practical use case. It's akin to extreme overclocking on GPUs and CPUs, which are done just to prove it can be done, even if it's not practical.
Still, credit goes to NTDEV for this impressive achievement, even if it raises questions about what truly constitutes running Windows if there is no desktop. While it may not be a world-record low for running Windows 11 functionally, it is undoubtedly a remarkable accomplishment.