- The developer of Tiny11 has released Nano11 Builder
- This allows for a seriously small Windows 11 installer to be cooked up
- Some core components are stripped out, though, making this unsuitable for the average PC owner
Tiny11 – the tool that facilitates a seriously streamlined installation of Windows 11, trimmed of all Microsoft’s bloat – just got even tinier.
Tom’s Hardware picked up on the release of Nano11 Builder by the developer, NTDEV, which boasts that it’s possible to put together an installation file for Windows 11 that’s up to three times smaller than a standard Windows 11 image.
Nano11 can be used to produced a miniaturized take on any Windows 11 version, even test builds such as Windows 11 25H2 (which is now very close to the release of the finished version).
How does the tool work? It’s a PowerShell script which can be used to trim out a whole swathe of Microsoft’s apps from Windows 11 – which Tiny11 also does, but Nano11 goes a lot further than that, cutting out core system components too.
The latter includes Microsoft Defender, Windows 11’s drivers, BitLocker, biometrics, and “most system services” – oh yes, and Windows Update.
At this point, you’re likely thinking: wait a minute – we won’t get any security or feature updates without Windows Update, right?
That’s correct, and the installation of Windows 11 that results from using Nano11 won’t get any updates or be serviceable in any way. As NTDEV explains, “you cannot add languages, drivers, or features, and you will not receive Windows Updates” – so as a result, Nano11 is not intended to provide an operating system for your daily driver PC.
So, while NTDEV describes this tool as Windows 11 with “all the essentials, none of the fluff”, that’s not entirely true – some of what many would regard as the essential bones of the desktop OS have been removed here.
Analysis: small beyond belief, but not so perfectly formed
Okay, given all that, what’s the purpose of Nano11 exactly? It’s for concocting a Windows 11 installer that can be set up in a flash, with an installation taking just five minutes (approximately) because so much has been stripped out here.
As noted, though, precisely because so much is jettisoned in this streamlining process, the resulting take on Windows 11 is only for use in testing or development, and best suited to a VM (virtual machine) install. In short, for the average person, this isn’t going to be of any real use, and it’s more of a curiosity than anything else (not for the first time).
What it does illustrate, however, is just how much Windows 11 can be slimmed down – and how Microsoft does inflate the operating system with a bunch of apps that not everyone wants.
One of the notable cuts applied by NTDEV is to dump OneDrive integration and Microsoft Edge – and there are more than a few people out there who would love to have that option when installing Windows 11. (And yes, it is possible to remove Edge in Europe – and you don’t get Microsoft’s plentiful Edge-related nagging, either – but this isn’t the case elsewhere, sadly).
For the average PC owner, if you want a trimmed-down Windows 11, you can try Tiny11 which recently got a new version of its builder tool.
