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Developer NTDEV has broken new ground by successfully running Windows 11 26H2 on a system with a mere 128MB of RAM, a mere 3.1% of the operating system's recommended minimum. In a demonstration shared via YouTube, the developer managed to boot the latest Windows 11 edition on a highly stripped-down installation, allowing the Desktop, File Explorer, the Start menu, and even the classic Notepad app to operate.
Despite this remarkable accomplishment, the developer admits the system's performance is painfully slow, positioning this as a purely technical experiment rather than a viable solution for running Windows 11 on older hardware. Notably, Microsoft's official specifications state that 4GB of RAM is the minimum requirement for Windows 11.
The developer has not disclosed the specifics of the hardware modifications, but this project is part of a series of experiments in creating lighter, more efficient Windows installations. This isn't NTDEV's first foray into this territory; in 2023, they managed to get Windows 11 running with just 176MB of RAM. That earlier experiment involved extensive trimming of system components, drivers, and background services, but it utilized an IDE storage interface, which reduced the number of drivers required.
The developer also showcased a different experiment last month, where they compressed an entire Windows 11 installation into a CD-ROM-sized ISO file, using their upcoming Pico11 tool. This compressed version, created by the developer, successfully booted into a desktop environment and ran basic applications like Calculator, Settings, Notepad, and Paint on a virtual machine with 4GB of allocated RAM, using around 883MB.
Such experiments provide a fascinating insight into the extent to which Windows can be trimmed down while still retaining some of its core functionality. However, they are primarily intended as technical demonstrations, highlighting Microsoft's operating system's limits rather than offering practical alternatives to a standard Windows installation.
Written by urgent.news from Tom's Hardware's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
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- Developer manages to run Windows 11 26H2 with just 128MB of RAM, just 3.1% of recommended minimum — stripped-down installation can access Desktop, File Explorer, and Notepad tomshardware.com
- Windows still uses drive letters from the 1980s, and Linux's single file tree shows what we could have had xda-developers.com
