I have been using Windows Thin PC as my main Windows virtual machine system for a long time, because it is light enough and only needs 1GB RAM and 3GB disk space to use. There is an advantage and disadvantage there, both because it is based on Windows 7, advantage is there is no Microsoft Defender, disadvantage is Windows 7 it is no longer supported by many software, and because it is 32-bit, there are many limitations. I am looking for the next lightweight system officially released by Microsoft, my host system is already LTSC, so it does not make me feel very light (maybe because I have never used heavy Windows 10 lol). I am considering Windows Server 2025 Core + GUI, is it a good idea? Or any recommendation? I really hope it can run with 2GB RAM and 5-8GB disk. Any 3rd party modified ISO is not considered, unless it is possible for me to trim it myself. My host is Windows 11 LTSC 24H2, so I post it here, hoping it is not posted in the wrong forum.
Your incorrect assumption here is that (iOT) Enterprise 2024 LTSC is "lighter" then normal WIndows 11. Older LTSB versions, like the 2016 LTSB only run lighter because it doesn't use as much resources as the most modern builds, but in the time of 2016 LTSB normal non LTSB SKUs got the same benchmark results, same for the 2019 and 2021 LTSC builds. Not having UWP apps doesn't make it faster by default.
I just don't like bloatware and want to have absolute control over telemetry. But is there a truly lightweight Windows out there? For Hosts.
Some weeks ago I tested win7, 8, 10, 11 and its multiple versions but just comparing the resource usage (RAM, HDD, running processes). Windows 8.0 home is by far the lightest of them all once you disable Defender, followed by Thin PC, but you will have most of the same compatibility issues. Win8.0 is also before Microsoft injected their telemetry crap and bloat on their OSs. If you want to have the best compatibility, you'll have to stay with Windows 10+ and the resource usage is always very high for a small VM when compared with Thin PC. To save disk space on Windows 8+ VMs, disable hibernation (powercfg -h off). Home editions tend to be lighter than LTSB/LTSC. Same is valid for Win11 Home vs IoT Enterprise.
Thanks for the info, before this I couldn't imagine that the Home editions would be any lighter, but they would lack Group Policy and the Remote Desktop Client. Many software have set the minimum version to Windows 10, so I think I have to use Windows 10. Also, do you recommend Windows Server? I am downloading Windows Server for testing.
Consider using a 32bit Windows 10 build if the software that you are running has 32bit versions and you are only allocating <4GB of RAM for the VM. 32bit builds are a bit lighter both on RAM and disc space.
2GB is feasible, if you do not intend to use UWP apps or MSA, but 8GB, not really. Mine trimmed OS takes 2.5GB with MSA and 30GB (24H2 GA grew by +10GB), you could use lzx compression to get it down to ~15GB though.
Hi, I am not sure which applications you are planning to run on those VMs but with my Windows 11 24H2 host, Windows 11 24H2 guest runs fine with 2GB vRAM and without any extra trimming. The Guest OS is at it is from clean installation. Browsing tasks are working fine with multiple tabs while the page file set to auto. However, the typical vDisk size is around 20GB Thanks
Indeed, my 65GB partition reaches it's limit during a clean install, leaving my with 3GB free space, but that is because setup downloads updates during install, loading an image to VM would solve this though.
You can use Dism++ https://forums.mydigitallife.net/threads/dism-new-windows-utility.59389/ to compact the OS, remove unnecessary files, and much more. Also disable the pagefile.sys and hiberfil.sys