Installing Tiny11 onto Win10

[iGPR3]

I'd like to upgrade from Windows 10 to Tiny 11 for the faster responses and smaller install size, but have a couple of questions.

 

1 - I would need an activation code, so I wondered if I would need to upgrade to the official Windows 11 to get a key, or could I simply use my current Windows 10 key by using an app called ShowKeyPlus and use that Windows 10 key instead? 

2 - I don't have any large drives to backup my installation to (my pc has 2TB total storage of which I'm using 1.6TB). If I were to back my installation up to an ISO file, would that work instead? If not is there another way? I thought that I could possibly uninstall some games to free up some space and, so that I could copy everything from one drive to the other to use as a backup (I have 2x 1TB drives - an M.2 SSD and a HDD).

3 - Finally, will I be able to transfer the different users over with that as well, as I have an admin user and a non-admin user on my pc?

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance.

[Zando_]

28 minutes ago, iGPR3 said:

I would need an activation code, so I wondered if I would need to upgrade to the official Windows 11 to get a key, or could I simply use my current Windows 10 key by using an app called ShowKeyPlus and use that Windows 10 key instead? 

If your PC came with Windows 10 installed, just put this into an admin command prompt:

wmic path softwarelicensingservice get OA3xOriginalProductKey

It will spit out the OEM key from the board firmware. Otherwise just use that ShowKeyPlus tool from the MS Store. 

 

I would advise just running Windows 11 though. By most accounts I have seen on similar threads here, Tiny11 cuts out so much of Windows that it ends up nuking itself within a month due to having so many essential services cut out. If you want a minimal OS, you're better off just using Linux because that'll actually work long-term. '

[Radium_Angel]

I'll second the advise against "custom" micro-OS versions. TechYesCity on YT did a video on the custom OS builds vs stock stuff, and the FPS improvements doesn't offset the irritation factor of so many things not working.

[iGPR3]

13 minutes ago, Radium_Angel said:

I'll second the advise against "custom" micro-OS versions. TechYesCity on YT did a video on the custom OS builds vs stock stuff, and the FPS improvements doesn't offset the irritation factor of so many things not working.

Good to know. I'm guessing that using the Tiny11 instructions make de-bloating the official OS the best way to go about it? Seeing as it doesn't pose any security issues like downloading it from someone else's OS and it might not have the compatibility errors or update problems that the Tiny11 ISO has, I'm assuming that would be best.

15 minutes ago, Zando_ said:

If your PC came with Windows 10 installed, just put this into an admin command prompt:

wmic path softwarelicensingservice get OA3xOriginalProductKey

It will spit out the OEM key from the board firmware. Otherwise just use that ShowKeyPlus tool from the MS Store. 

 

I would advise just running Windows 11 though. By most accounts I have seen on similar threads here, Tiny11 cuts out so much of Windows that it ends up nuking itself within a month due to having so many essential services cut out. If you want a minimal OS, you're better off just using Linux because that'll actually work long-term. '

I've seen that it does have problems with updates and security. I'll further look into Linux and see if that would be more worth it. It's simply that I'm used to Windows and it would be easier for me to stick with an OS that I know. Thanks.

[Zando_]

4 minutes ago, iGPR3 said:

Good to know. I'm guessing that using the Tiny11 instructions make de-bloating the official OS the best way to go about it? Seeing as it doesn't pose any security issues like downloading it from someone else's OS and it might not have the compatibility errors or update problems that the Tiny11 ISO has, I'm assuming that would be best.

I haven't looked at the instructions, you'd have to be very selective with what you follow, because a lot of the services super-lite-OS people don't like are essential to Windows not imploding itself. 

4 minutes ago, iGPR3 said:

I've seen that it does have problems with updates and security. I'll further look into Linux and see if that would be more worth it. It's simply that I'm used to Windows and it would be easier for me to stick with an OS that I know. Thanks.

Take a look at Linux Mint (the Cinnamon version, should be the default download). Similar UI to Windows, you can do... basically everything but HDD RAID setup through GUI so no need to learn how to use command line stuff, it's well built and based off of Ubuntu (one of the most popular Linux distros, itself based off Debian which is super common on lots of things) so finding guides on how to do X, Y, or Z is incredibly easy. Spin it up in VMWare/VirtualBox and see how it feels to poke around. The main issue with Linux for lots of folks (myself included) is just poor gaming support, it handles general computer tasks fine. 

[iGPR3]

16 minutes ago, Zando_ said:

I haven't looked at the instructions, you'd have to be very selective with what you follow, because a lot of the services super-lite-OS people don't like are essential to Windows not imploding itself. 

Take a look at Linux Mint (the Cinnamon version, should be the default download). Similar UI to Windows, you can do... basically everything but HDD RAID setup through GUI so no need to learn how to use command line stuff, it's well built and based off of Ubuntu (one of the most popular Linux distros, itself based off Debian which is super common on lots of things) so finding guides on how to do X, Y, or Z is incredibly easy. Spin it up in VMWare/VirtualBox and see how it feels to poke around. The main issue with Linux for lots of folks (myself included) is just poor gaming support, it handles general computer tasks fine. 

Thanks! I'm currently messing around in Ubuntu in VMWare and I'll take a look at Mint as well. I'd probably run Linux on a server (I'm looking to get one soon) so it'd be nice to get a feel for it before I do.