tiny11builder: Smaller Custom Windows 11 Images

TL;DR: tiny11builder is a WinUI desktop app for building smaller, customized Windows 11 images. It has 20,254 stars and 1,556 forks, declares no license at all, and its default branch is winui-preview.

What it is

A Windows desktop application, written in C# against WinUI, whose stated job is producing stripped down and customised Windows 11 images. The value proposition is straightforward: a full Windows 11 install carries a lot of weight that a lab machine or a disposable test image does not need.

It is a tool for building base images rather than a tool for using Windows, which is a narrower and more honest framing than the star count suggests.

$ curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/ntdevlabs/tiny11builder \
  | jq '{stars: .stargazers_count, language, license: .license.spdx_id, topics, created_at}'
{
  "stars": 20254,
  "language": "C#",
  "license": null,
  "topics": [],
  "created_at": "2023-02-24T23:42:36Z"
}

Two metadata details to read carefully

The license field is null. GitHub found no license file it could detect, which means there is no MIT, no Apache-2.0, nothing. Under default copyright that means nobody has been granted the rights to reuse or redistribute the code, which is not the same as permission. If you intend to fork it, patch it or ship something built on it, that is a conversation you need to have with the author first.

The default branch is winui-preview, not main or master. A project that ships a preview branch as its default is telling you the current line of development is the WinUI rewrite. On a repository created 2023-02-24, that means the project is still re-platforming its interface more than three years in, and that the app people used earlier may not be the app in front of you now.

Metric	Value
Stars	20,254
Forks	1,556
Open issues	36
Primary language	C#
Created	2023-02-24
Last push	2026-10-12
Default branch	winui-preview
License	none declared

How to try it

git clone https://github.com/ntdevlabs/tiny11builder.git
cd tiny11builder
git branch -a

Listing the branches first is worth the extra second here. The default branch being a preview line means the branch layout tells you more about the project’s state than the README does.

Running it against a real workstation is the part to be careful about. The changes an image build applies cannot be undone from inside the machine being built, so the sensible first run happens on a virtual machine you are willing to discard. Snapshot before you start, and keep the rollback path outside the tool.

Building it requires a Windows machine and the Windows SDK, since WinUI is a Windows framework. This is not a cross-platform tool and there is no reason to expect it to become one.

When to use it

The obvious targets are environments where you control the image from scratch: virtual machines for testing, disposable lab machines, sandboxes you rebuild often. A smaller base image means faster provisioning, cheaper snapshots and less disk churn.

It is genuinely useful precisely because it is a discrete, bounded job. You want one known-good Windows 11 image, not a tool that manages Windows for you.

When not to use it

Do not point it at a machine you cannot rebuild. Image customisation is irreversible by nature, and the risk here is not hypothetical breakage, it is an unbootable machine with no supported desktop to fix it from.

Second, the missing licence means treat the source as read and run, not as a base to build on. If you need a maintained fork, that conversation has to happen upstream.

Source and Accuracy Notes

• Source repository: ntdevlabs/tiny11builder (verified via GitHub API html_url)
• License: none declared (GitHub API license.spdx_id returned null, no license file detected)
• Stars at time of writing: 20254