Windows 11 CD-ROM build: 699 MB and it actually boots

Remember when an operating system came on a shiny disc you could hold? Someone just brought that back, with the least likely candidate imaginable. A Windows 11 CD-ROM image now exists: 699,811,840 bytes, a hair under 700 MB, and it boots to a working desktop. Not a slideshow. Not a bootloader that says “hi” and dies. An actual Windows 11 with Notepad, Paint, Calculator and Settings.

The person behind it is NTDEV, the developer you may know from Tiny11, the stripped-down Windows builds that have been quietly annoying Microsoft for a couple of years. This time the project is called Pico11, and it’s not released yet. What exists is a YouTube video titled “I made Windows 11 fit on a CD – pico11” and a lot of raised eyebrows.

How small can a Windows 11 CD-ROM build actually get?

For perspective: a stock Windows 11 ISO from Microsoft weighs north of 6 GB these days. Pico11 is roughly one tenth of that, while still being recognisably Windows 11. NTDEV describes it as “a proof of concept I put together to see how small I could make a Windows 11 ISO while keeping a working desktop and a few familiar apps.” Mission accomplished, I’d say.

The recipe isn’t fully documented (the tool isn’t out), but the general idea is close to Tiny11 Core: rip out Windows Update, servicing, recovery, and everything else that lets the OS maintain itself. Once you accept that the system will never update again, a lot of fat disappears. The running VM was given 4 GB of RAM and sat at around 883 MB in use, which is less than my browser needs to show a single Reddit thread.

There are a few quirks. Task Manager, as NTDEV puts it, “might look a little older than you remember.” It’s a lighter, older build, possibly lifted from Windows 7, and they aren’t saying where it came from. The rest of the apps behave: “Calculator and Settings still open, Notepad saves files, and Paint still lets me draw questionable logos.”

Please don’t install this on your mum’s laptop

I’ll be the boring one for a second. A Windows without servicing is a Windows without security patches, forever. NTDEV says it clearly: this is “an experiment, not a replacement for a normal Windows installation.” It’s a party trick, in the best sense of the term. It’s also a very pointed demonstration of how much of modern Windows is scaffolding, telemetry, Store plumbing and recovery machinery rather than, you know, the operating system.

What I find useful here isn’t the CD. It’s the argument. Every time Microsoft explains that Windows 11 needs TPM 2.0, 64 GB of storage and a recent CPU, someone like NTDEV shows a working desktop in 700 MB on hardware from the Obama years. The requirements are a product decision, not a law of physics.

The good news for tinkerers: NTDEV is working on folding the Pico11 tricks into the Tiny11 builder on GitHub, so you’ll eventually be able to cook your own micro-Windows from a legitimate Microsoft ISO rather than downloading a mystery image from the internet (please don’t do that either).

Windows 11 on a CD-ROM. Now all we need is a PC that still has a drive to put it in.