Nano98: Windows 98 that boots and runs under 5MB (2003)

Re:Nano98: Windows 98 that boots and runs under 5MB (2003) by ntauthority on Monday September 20, 2021 @07:30AM (#28592604)

With Windows being componentized, this is often a lot easier than it used to be - there's official minimal editions like the forgotten Nano Server (or an attempt at remaking it like remin-core: https://github.com/replisys/remin-core), IoT, Factory OS and whatnot, but even adding the legacy GUI subsystem you can get somewhat small when building Windows PE variants like used for the default setup/recovery images.

At least a few years ago some of this trend was still alive making little PE images that could almost be used for real desktop use on sites like reboot.pro and other spin-offs, though it seems to be a lot less mainstream than the piracy heydays during the XP era.

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Re:Nano98: Windows 98 that boots and runs under 5MB (2003) by easton on Monday September 20, 2021 @09:38AM (#28593651)

Factory OS is pretty interesting because it can run any Win32 app (outside of a hypervisor) via a container, something you couldn’t do with WinPE as often there were too many libraries missing to get something like Chrome running.

I wonder if they’ll ever use it to replace WinPE. They’ve had the same installer since Vista, and it probably needs a redo (it still takes forever to install Windows).

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