I came across a site (Tom’s Hardware De-Bloated Windows 11 Build Runs on 2GB of RAM | Tom's Hardware)
detailing a lean build of Windows 11 called “Tiny 11”. Just wondering about whether to have a go at installing it on my second Surface Pro 8 to see how it goes. I see that it is not recommended for machines designed for Win 11 as my SP 8 is, but if it allows extra performance for Gig performer then it may be worth a try. I have an image saved so I can revert back to my current build without any bother. I would appreciate any comments.
Question from a user:
"Please forgive my ignorance, but I do have a very basic question: for a dedicated DAW pc (digital audio workstation) I am very intrigued by lean windows builds that would just skip all the myriads of services and run only those parts that are necessary for DAW operation.
Hence my question: Would it be possible to install ASIO and MIDI drivers as well as all the other audio applications such as Studio One, VST plug-ins, virtual instruments etc on this tiny Windows?
Since this would be intended to be a dedicated audio pc, it wouldn’t need any office or network functionality and it would be kept “as is” and offline for as long as it runs."
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Answer from a Tom’s Hardware moderator:
"Start with a regular Win 10 install.
Uninstall what you do not need.
Move on from that.
A minimal hack like this is A) currently unusable, and B) Unknown as to what it actually removes.
It is merely a proof of concept, not an actual usable OS."
I’d like to know more about why it would be unusable. Why are people producing lean builds if they are unusable? Why bother?
Your question applies to many other areas. Do you honestly think we’re better riding on this? Yet the specialized magazines are full of them…
Agreed. But it’s hardly a useful answer.
The useful answer was the one from @npudar.
But given your question “ of unbelief”, I thought I should enlighten you in another way.
Because they might usable enough to read your email and browse the internet!
Exactly.
For example, this is one of the examples how stripping down various services can cause crash in a plugin.
Link: Roland cloud plugins causing crash - #34 by rreuscher
I’d either try this as a virtual machine or an unused old PC.
If by chance the Tiny 11 build was reliable, would GP run more efficiently i.e. faster? That would be the only reason I would consider trying it out on my second machine.
After spending sometimes hours / days to finetune Windows services / registry settings etc. Sometimes with great results, sometimes with unexpected behaviours, I found the “Ultimate Windows Utility” from Chris Titus.
This is powershell script (run as administrator), in where you can “menu based” make a lot of tweaks.
My experience is that it easely “removes” about 20-30 services, and it makes my Gigperformer Pc run much smoother, and stable.
The script can be found here: The Ultimate Windows Utility and does essentially all the things you would like to tweak ( I always use the “Desktop” setting ).
If it was reliable, I think that you would benefit from more RAM and probably more glitch-free experience, as there probably won’t be many unnecessary interuptions.
Of course, this is only my guess, since I haven’t tested this yet. But I plan to test this “tiny” build, along with the Ghost Spectre builds.
I always prefer to optimize manually, as I am aware exactly what I turned off (who knows what somebody else did?)
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Good point.
Have you looked at The Ultimate Guide as mentioned above?
P.S. My Surface Pro 8 has a fixed amount of ram - 16gig.
Yep, I think that it is a decent guide 
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I was referring to this one below.
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Ah — That’s not a “guide” but a “utility”. 
The Ultimate Guide is this one: