Is there any way to bypass 10816 MB minimum disk limitation when installing Win10?

[c7aesa7r]

=> This question is crossposted to Tenforum

When i try to install Windows on a disk smaller than 10GB, i get this message:

https://i.imgur.com/iUvWMkp.png


By customizing the installation and removing components which i'm not going to use, i have been able to create a Windows 10 virtual machine (using the latest iso) on VMWare (with tools already instaled) with way less than 10GB:

https://i.imgur.com/MXUR5NG.png


I couldn't find anything on the documentation about if this minimum size is configurable.

I wonder if theres anything that could be enabled or modified to allow installations on smaller disks on such specific cases.

 

[garlin]

The answer is no if you use Setup to install the image, as the required size for Windows is hard-coded into the app's logic. To bypass this restriction, you need to make a custom WinPE with a script to perform Setup's normal tasks without using Setup itself.

https://www.elevenforum.com/t/unattend-installation-noreboot.31283/post-535526

10816 MB is the minimum size for your Windows release when the installed Windows when not using CompactOS mode to make it smaller. MS is probably using the same disk space assumptions as this chart. Since they don't officially support the idea of component removals, there is no reason for them to allow even smaller partition sizes.

Compact OS, single-instancing, and image optimization

Image	Windows 10 Home x86, 2GB memory	Windows 10 Home x64, 4GB Memory
Base Footprint	11.68GB	15.06GB
Compact OS, with no single instancing	8.85GB (>2.75GB savings)	11.3GB (>3.7GB)
Compact OS, single instanced	7.66GB (>4GB)	10.09GB (>4.75GB)
Hiberfile off, no compact OS	10.87GB (>825MB)	13.48GB (>1.5GB)
Hiberfile reduced, no compact OS	11.27GB (>400MB)	14.15GB (>930MB)

 

[c7aesa7r]

The machine on my previous picture is already following almost everything on the msft link you shared, compact os, hibernation off, removed features that i'm not going to use, etc.

Following the steps on the gist you send before i have been able to create the machine with a 8GB disk and "everything" it still working normally.
Thank you, always sharing very usefull data

I'm not going to use this machine to anything special, this is most for fun, trying to see until at what point i can reduce the OS size (lol)

To be able to customize its size even more, i think ill need to remove things during the winPE phase like for example, i have deleted the edge folder before copying the installation files and got a free 600mb.

Do you know anything else? maybe things on the WinSxS folder or any other in which wouldnt brick the installation or the OS.

 

[garlin]

Copy the unattended file to "C:\Windows\Panther\unattend.xml", and reboot.

If you have a SetupComplete.cmd, copy it to the "C:\Windows\Setup\Scripts" folder. Staged files in the ISO's "\sources\$OEM$" folders need to be also copied to their destination folders, where "$$" is replaced by C:\Windows.