Imagine that you have a Windows 11 license and you want to use the operating system on your new computer. The first thing you would do would be: Download ISO image from the Microsoft website and then create installation media on a USB drive with sufficient storage space or use a DVD.

The size of the system is approximately 6.3 GB. This is a file that contains everything you need to run Windows 11 and even lets you choose between different editions (Home or Pro, for example). What if you could drastically reduce image size? Someone tried this.

6.3 GB to 100 MB

NTDEV, a well-known developer in the world of operating systems, managed to reduce the ISO size of the Windows 11 installation. 6.3 GB to 100 MB. We are facing a remarkable decline. However, to carry out this interesting experiment, NTDEV had to make some sacrifices.

Since it is technically impossible to reduce the installation size of Windows 11 without losing functionality and features, the developer has followed exactly this path. In other words, it eliminated almost the entire system, leaving only what was needed to run in the minimum version.

Conclusion? A text-only Windows 11. The system is still Windows 11, but no longer graphical user interface and hence most of the files associated with it. The simplified version of the system takes up approximately 2 GB of disk instead of the 64 GB of storage of the regular version.

According to NTDEV, although users have to do everything with typed commands and cannot launch programs, the system can still perform many tasks. This experience would be like going back decades, to a time when the graphical interface as we know it today did not exist.

Images: NTDEV | Sunder Muthukumaran

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