As operating systems grow in complexity, system requirements often outpace older hardware, leading to electronic waste and limited access for low-resource users. This paper evaluates Tiny10 — a community-driven, stripped-down version of Windows 10 — against official Windows 10 in terms of disk footprint, RAM usage, process count, application compatibility, and security posture. Results indicate that Tiny10 reduces storage usage by over 80% and background processes by 65%, but introduces potential security risks due to disabled updates and removed security components. The paper concludes with recommendations for safe deployment in legacy hardware or virtualization scenarios.

While Tiny10 is highly praised for its speed, it is important to understand the risks associated with third-party ISOs. The LAST Version of Tiny10? - Tiny10 23H2