[HN Gopher] I have released a 69.0MB version of Windows 7 x86
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I have released a 69.0MB version of Windows 7 x86
Author : rvnx
Score : 130 points
Date : 2025-10-30 18:05 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| op00to wrote:
| Nice
| 0xd3af wrote:
| Came here for this.
| thunderbong wrote:
| 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...
| happymellon wrote:
| If it can't run Windows 7 software, is it really Windows 7?
| ronsor wrote:
| It almost certainly can run basic CLI apps linked only to
| kernel32.dll
| znpy wrote:
| 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.
| zokier wrote:
| 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.
| esseph wrote:
| > Windows containers
|
| Are people using these in production? I assume so, with
| libvirt handling them on k8s for a vmware transition
| option.
| nikanj wrote:
| Yes, if by people you include Azure in-house engineering
| teams
| tecleandor wrote:
| Although I don't manage those, I've seen them at work.
| Running on EKS Windows nodes, for dotnet and SQL Server
| loads.
| znpy wrote:
| 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.
| ZiiS wrote:
| Linux is a kernel, Windows is an OS; I don't think the same
| limits apply. [A static init dose not a Distro make]
| znpy wrote:
| You should tak a look at busybox
| bragr wrote:
| 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.
| happymellon wrote:
| 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?
| exe34 wrote:
| windows xp can run software for windows xp.
| bragr wrote:
| >"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.
| ZiiS wrote:
| 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.
| itopaloglu83 wrote:
| 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.
| larodi wrote:
| Is a working top notch OS and you can do a lot with this bare
| minimum actually.
| bhaney wrote:
| A question that will truly haunt philosophers for centuries
| to come
| zepolen wrote:
| Windows 7 couldn't run Windows 7 software either.
| netsharc wrote:
| > 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
| SoKamil wrote:
| There is Recycle Bin and Folder icon. What a waste of space!
| lazystar wrote:
| 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.
| brazukadev wrote:
| They want you bulk uploading resources, not deleting.
| anthk wrote:
| If they use webdav just use rclone or cadaver.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| 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.
| bombcar wrote:
| Pallet shifts save so many bytes!
| gdulli wrote:
| 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.
| tapoxi wrote:
| Why not just invest in Wine?
| gdulli wrote:
| 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.
| ssl-3 wrote:
| 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.)
| ayaros wrote:
| Or ReactOS...
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| If AI had 1/10 of the promise it's marketed to have, I'd
| have faith in react OS actually catching up.
| layer8 wrote:
| 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.
| mid-kid wrote:
| 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.
| ZiiS wrote:
| Do any enterprise use local accounts? I guess for airgapped?
| gdulli wrote:
| 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.
| sharkjacobs wrote:
| I had a bootcamp partition with TinyXP installed on every Intel
| Mac that I owned.
| etaioinshrdlu wrote:
| This is impressive and it also kind of demonstrates how bloated
| Windows really is. You can fit a ton more functionality into even
| 1MB.
| striking wrote:
| https://xcancel.com/XenoPanther/status/1983477707968291075
| MaiSck wrote:
| What would be a use case for this? Or is it for the challenge?
| pizlonator wrote:
| I think it's just a really cool flex
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| 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
| wingmanjd wrote:
| 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?
| ronsor wrote:
| I'm fairly sure you need Windows Update components for that
| shakna wrote:
| You'd probably need DISM. DISM.exe /Online
| /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth
| vee-kay wrote:
| 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.
| embedding-shape wrote:
| Complaining about "purpose" on a website dedicated to hackers,
| who famously do things on whims for fun, seems slightly futile.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| 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.
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| What's the smallest Linux distribution with a graphical desktop?
| shakna wrote:
| Damn Small Linux is 50Mb, and comes with fluxbox, so already
| beats this version of Windows - but I expect there's some
| smaller distros.
| watermelon0 wrote:
| Tiny Core Linux at 23 MB
|
| http://www.tinycorelinux.net/downloads.html
| Grom_PE wrote:
| 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.
| anthk wrote:
| MuLinux did that in 2004.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MuLinux
|
| Also, it looks revived:
|
| https://ptsource.github.io/MuLinux/
| janci wrote:
| 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?
| souenzzo wrote:
| Windows 98 takes ~200Mb after a clean install Windows 95 takes
| ~50Mb after a clean install
| cyberax wrote:
| I remember paring down Win98 to 17Mb. And pretty much
| everything still worked!
| asadm wrote:
| Whats the barebones _usable_ version of windows 7? Tiny7?
| alnwlsn wrote:
| 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)
| sys_64738 wrote:
| Will it still be able to run malware properly? :)
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(page generated 2025-10-30 23:01 UTC)