From the thread [0] -
> This was more of a fun proof of concept rather than something usable. Virtually nothing can run due to critical missing files such as common dialog boxes and common controls.
[0]: https://x.com/XenoPanther/status/1983579460906487835?t=7jLSz...
If it can't run Windows 7 software, is it really Windows 7?
A question that will truly haunt philosophers for centuries to come
If one replaces a few EXEs and DLLs at a time, at what point does it become Windows 11 ?
When you need to buy new hardware to boot it.
It almost certainly can run basic CLI apps linked only to kernel32.dll
Or perhaps applications that just need input and a framebuffer?
If this was a linux container, it would be a base image.
I wonder if this could be used to cobble together some duct-tape windows-7-based firecrackers vm thing.
Windows containers are a thing, and MS has "Nano Server" base image.
Back in the day, MS did even release Nano Server as a standalone OS, from what I gather it was generally <500MB. Pretty decent for a Windows you could actually run applications on.
> Windows containers
Are people using these in production? I assume so, with libvirt handling them on k8s for a vmware transition option.
Although I don't manage those, I've seen them at work. Running on EKS Windows nodes, for dotnet and SQL Server loads.
Yes, if by people you include Azure in-house engineering teams
I will allow it, once.
Is a working top notch OS and you can do a lot with this bare minimum actually.
Yes. If you compile just enough linux kernel to just boot and launch a statically compiled init, it’s still linux.
Similarly, this is still windows 7.
Linux is a kernel, Windows is an OS; I don't think the same limits apply. [A static init dose not a Distro make]
From what I have seen in System V init, I definitely needed a dose of a better init.
The post you are replying separately mentioned both the "linux kernel" and "linux" so the "Linux is a kernel" pedantry feels misplaced here.
Besides this old debate is pretty silly because I doubt anyone could propose (and get a majority of us to agree on) a formal definition of an operating system that would allow us to unambiguously say "that's an OS competent", "that's an OS", and "that's just software that ships with the OS" across a suite of OS's.
Disagree.
"Windows 7" brings a lot of connotations, including the ability to run Windows 7 software. Without that what makes it different to Windows XP?
>"Windows 7" brings a lot of connotations
Sure but are those connotation consistent across people (this thread would tend to say no)? If not, that is essentially the core of my argument that nobody agrees on what "OS" means.
Both can be true: a majority of people agree that the is a difference between a 69MB boot and Windows 7; whilst no two people agreeing exactly where to draw that line.
Ah, good ol’ Windows Theseus
windows xp can run software for windows xp.
Unrelated. Maybe that’s why 69MB of Windows 7 cannot do much, while Linux can run multiple appliances. I’m purposely being sinister here for the fun of it.
You should tak a look at busybox
Windows 7 couldn't run Windows 7 software either.
> common dialog boxes and common controls.
Ah, makes me reminisce installing Office 6.0 on Windows 3.1 and getting "3D" dialogs, from ctl3d.dll
This post has screenshots of the dialogs: http://www.win3x.org/win3board/viewtopic.php?t=14706
There used to be a much bigger scene around custom Windows installs and I hope it gets resurrected if/when the ability to create local accounts goes away. The desire for a tiny install is pretty niche at this point but I could see demand going up to preserve local accounts.
Or perhaps that won't be necessary because certain enterprise customers will insist on local accounts and it will be easier for pirates to just tap into that install path? One way or another, if/when local accounts go away I hope there's some option to work around it.
It still exists, and it's gotten way more reliable than in years of yore. Check out ameliorated, and its derivative projects, reviOS and Atlas OS.
There's also projects that modify a system less deeply, like Sophia Script.
These days the default windows install is so garbage that I have little issue running semi-open source customizations like these.
Do any enterprise use local accounts? I guess for airgapped?
I don't know, but I was thinking/hoping maybe the code for local accounts has to live on if at least any enterprise customers demand it.
Why not just invest in Wine?
Why even do that? I don't want a better Windows than Windows so I can run Windows programs on my not-Windows computer.
I want Linux software, instead.
(I'm old enough to have once had a "better Windows than Windows" experience, with OS/2 Warp -- ~30 years ago. It was a very nice system that completely failed to thrive, with many back then blaming its quite good Windows compatibility for that failure.)
Wine won‘t give you a full Windows GUI / desktop environment. That’s the main draw for using Windows non-professionally, besides gaming and the software/hardware ecosystem.
I use Linux daily as a server/VM and hate using Windows as a server, but I've never been happy enough with alternatives to Windows as a desktop when I've tried them.
Or ReactOS...
If AI had 1/10 of the promise it's marketed to have, I'd have faith in react OS actually catching up.
I had a bootcamp partition with TinyXP installed on every Intel Mac that I owned.
Whats the barebones usable version of windows 7? Tiny7?
Reminds me of when I first started learning computers, there was a version of Windows 3.11 that fit on a single 1.4M floppy. Some of them fit even more stuff by uncompressing the floppy into a ramdisk.
You could even make your own, starting with the file manager from Windows 3.1 and some files from a Windows 95 CD (the installer for 95 ran a stripped down 3.1)
Will it still be able to run malware properly? :)
Windows 98 takes ~200Mb after a clean install Windows 95 takes ~50Mb after a clean install
I remember paring down Win98 to 17Mb. And pretty much everything still worked!
There is Recycle Bin and Folder icon. What a waste of space!
With some GDI (?) patches, I'm sure they could get rid or slim down some DLLs with resources ;)
Side note.... one thing I wish all cloud provider websites would provide is a recycle bin in the GUI. its far too easy to bulk delete resources, and the cost of a misclick/tampermonkey script bug occurring while doing so can result in a huge qmount of time spent on restoring your service.
I wish Amazon making an unbridled billions per year, would make an actually usable and halfway decent web console.
Okay fine. They have a lot of services and that would be hard. I'll be happy with ec2, S3, and the other core services.
If they use webdav just use rclone or cadaver.
They want you bulk uploading resources, not deleting.
Pallet shifts save so many bytes!
Is it just a minimal set of unmodified files and Windows will gracefully degradate to this? Or did he need to patch everything to be able to strip it down?
Assuming that one could get a functional networking stack up, could running `sfc /scannow` fix all the missing pieces, similar to a netboot deployment of Linux?
You'd probably need DISM.
DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /RestorehealthI'm fairly sure you need Windows Update components for that
What would be a use case for this? Or is it for the challenge?
I think it's just a really cool flex
What is it that we use these days that wants small stripped down OS images that we talk about for days and days and days on hacker News?
Squares? Pigeon holes? Cookie jars?
Oh I remember VMs pods and containers
What's the smallest Linux distribution with a graphical desktop?
Tiny Core Linux at 23 MB
I have experimented with Tiny Core Linux + Wine, that netted around 100 MB, would be a good starting point for running Windows software on a minimal OS. Certainly would run more software than any Windows cut and shrunk to that size.
Damn Small Linux is 50Mb, and comes with fluxbox, so already beats this version of Windows - but I expect there's some smaller distros.
Nice
Came here for this.
Umm, I don't want to nitpick, but what's the purpose of releasing a hotpotch shell of an OS, that doesn't work in even basic functionality?!
Meanwhile Tiny7, Tiny10, Tiny11 entered the chatroom..
And though they are 10x+ bigger in size, they are still barebones Windows OS (without all the clutter that Micro$oft tends to overload on Windows releases these days; I am looking at you Mr.Copilot) that work well for most use cases.
I personally used Tiny11 to set up my home PC, it is compact and usable.
Complaining about "purpose" on a website dedicated to hackers, who famously do things on whims for fun, seems slightly futile.
There are an alarming number of people on this site who seriously believe that anything done purely for fun is a waste of time.
They'd annoy me if I didn't feel so bad for them. They're the types who will lament on their death bed that they didn't allow themselves to do more things for enjoyment.
This is impressive and it also kind of demonstrates how bloated Windows really is. You can fit a ton more functionality into even 1MB.