Windows 11 26H2 Boots on Just 128MB of RAM — 3.1% of Microsoft's Minimum

Windows 11 26H2 has booted on a machine with just 128MB of RAM — 3.125% of the 4GB minimum Microsoft officially requires. NTDEV, the developer behind the well-known Tiny11 project, demonstrated the result in a YouTube video, and the heavily stripped-down installation does more than merely start. It loads the Desktop, opens File Explorer, reaches the Start menu, and even runs the classic Notepad app.

That's the headline. The fine print is speed.

The developer readily admits the system is "painfully slow," which pushes this firmly into the territory of technical experiment rather than a practical route for reviving old hardware. Nobody should expect a daily driver here. What the demo proves instead is a point about software bloat: how much of a modern operating system can be carved away before the core stops working at all.

What exactly runs on 128MB?

According to the video, the essentials survive. The boot sequence completes, the Desktop environment appears, and File Explorer functions. The Start menu opens. Notepad — long the baseline test of "is this OS actually usable" — launches and runs.

What NTDEV has not shared is a detailed breakdown of every component, driver, and background service removed or disabled to hit the 128MB figure. The project builds on years of experimentation with stripped-down Windows installations, so the developer's toolkit for gutting the OS is well-practiced rather than improvised for this one stunt.

How does this compare with earlier attempts?

This isn't NTDEV's first assault on Windows 11's hardware floor. In 2023, the developer got the operating system running on 176MB of RAM by extensively trimming system components, drivers, and background services. That earlier build made trade-offs the new one appears to avoid: it relied on an IDE storage interface to cut down the number of drivers required, and it sacrificed the standard Windows desktop environment altogether.

The new 128MB result, by contrast, keeps the familiar desktop. Progress, of a sort — 48MB shaved off while restoring the interface most users actually recognize.

There's a second, related experiment worth noting. Last month, NTDEV showcased a build that squeezed an entire Windows 11 installation into a CD-ROM-sized ISO file. That experimental image, created with the developer's upcoming Pico11 tool, weighs in at exactly 699,811,840 bytes — roughly 667MB — and retains a functional Windows desktop. It boots into the desktop environment and runs basic applications including Calculator, Settings, Notepad, and Paint. The test ran on a virtual machine with 4GB of allocated RAM, with the OS consuming around 883MB once loaded.

Do these builds have any practical use?

Honestly, not much — and that's not their purpose. These experiments showcase how much of Windows can be stripped away while core functionality survives. They explore the limits of Microsoft's operating system rather than offer practical alternatives to a standard installation.

The trade-offs are severe. Removing essential components, drivers, and background services buys memory headroom at the cost of reduced functionality, compatibility issues, and the severely degraded performance NTDEV openly acknowledges. An OS that needs minutes to open Notepad answers a curiosity, not a workload.

For hardware watchers, the significance is different. Every time the floor drops — 176MB in 2023, 128MB now — it quantifies how much of Windows 11's official 4GB requirement is convenience rather than necessity. Microsoft's minimum spec reflects the experience the company wants to guarantee, not the absolute resources the kernel and shell demand.

Whether NTDEV pushes below 128MB next, the trajectory suggests the Pico11 tool and its successors will keep probing that boundary — one stripped service at a time.