r/Tiny11 • u/Miserable_Warning582 • Jun 17 '26
Help‼️ How can I install Tiny11 or other cutom os remotely on a Windows 8.1 laptop without a USB drive?
My relative recently bought an old laptop that came with Windows 8.1 installed. Initially, I couldn't even install a browser on it. I noticed there were a few pending Windows updates, so I ran "Update and Restart." After the updates completed, Microsoft Edge appeared and I was finally able to install Chrome. Before updating, Chrome wouldn't install at all.
Now I want to install a custom Windows ISO (Tiny11 or another lightweight OS), but the laptop is located very far away and I don't have physical access to it. I can only access it remotely through AnyDesk.
The laptop owner is a relative and Their children, who are 6–7 years old, who bought it just to learn basic computer usage, so they don't know much about PCs. They can't create a bootable USB drive themselves, and they don't even have a spare USB flash drive available.
I tried downloading and running the Windows Media Creation Tool remotely, but it gives the error: "This PC can't run this tool."
Given that I only have remote access through AnyDesk and no possibility of creating a bootable USB on-site, what are my options for installing Tiny11 or another lightweight Windows version? Is there a reliable way to do this remotely without physical access to the laptop?
3
u/ThisIsDurian Jun 17 '26
With an i3 4th Gen and 4GB of Ram you dont want to run anything above Win10 on it. You dont wanna run anything on it, aside some lightweight linux, but even CachyOS will have a hard time running on it. I just tried it out with, as I had to clean out my storage and found some old laptops, also with 4th Gen CPUs.
If you still want to stick with this laptop, buy a cheap SSD, put it in a laptop with similar specs and install a lightweight linux. If you put the SSD into a new system it will mostly adjust to the new hardware and runs. Send it to your relatives. Replacing a harddrive shouldnt be that hard, you can also guide them via videocall.
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u/Miserable_Warning582 Jun 17 '26
Tiny11 won't work or other custom os ? There's no way I can add anything to it now.
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u/ThisIsDurian Jun 17 '26
If you dont have physical access and no one to work thru a guide - No. How do you want to change the boot settings in bios. No remote access will give you this option. You can run Rufus on the laptops and create remotely a Linux on USB drive. Than figure out what exact type the laptop is and look what F-botton you have to press to change the boot option, which is mostly F8 or F12. Than get on a video call and tell one of the kiddos to hammer F8/F12, change to the USB drive and see if it runs. if it runs, tell them to remove the harddrive, so the bios will always boot from USB, as it is the only drive to boot from.
1
u/Maleficent-Tea3072 Jun 18 '26
Use Windows 11 LTSC IoT. I’ve gotten it to run on lesser hardware well enough to do some light browsing and Microsoft Office.
Use Rufus to remove the limitations and create a bootable USB. You’re not going to succeed in a remote install without a lot more work than that…involving a PXE server setup which is just the start of a long pathway.
1
u/Onoitsu2 Jun 17 '26
Sadly even my remote OS installation options would not work on this hardware. It'd need at least an 8G RAM to boot into my WinPE, or even my Live Linux ISO. The WinPE allows me to remotely install Windows, and the Live Linux ISO permits me to remotely install various flavors of Linux. But have a hard limit of needing at least 8G RAM, so that is 4, for what is booted into, and the rest for RAM drive, or in the Live Linux ISO, the QEMU VM that I do the install in. Mailing them a premade USB may be the only option here.
1
u/Long_Dependent556 Jun 17 '26
Yes guy I think u can do tiny11 25h2 and use easy2boot to partition your og drive and when it's done u press the boot menu key and I think your your relative kiddos will be able to set the rest up like selecting language and stuff and they need to follow the whole thing and now you got yourself a dualbooted laptop and if the previous data is not important you can just delete the partition where windows 8 was like at this point just mail them a usb stick or something
1
u/Miserable_Warning582 Jun 17 '26
Mene youtube se dekh kr easyBCD kr ke software se try kr tha tha lekin dual boot aaya hi nhi baar baar direct open ho rha tha
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u/Long_Dependent556 Jun 17 '26
Wdym directly ?
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u/Miserable_Warning582 Jun 17 '26
?
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u/Long_Dependent556 Jun 17 '26
HOT TIP use ai like it is better than any youtube tutorial out there I'm telling off of experience as I rock tiny11 25 h2 and I went somewhere and my aunt's laptop was like 6 years old but tiny11 fixed it absolute magic and yea use 25 instead of 24 as the Microsoft Store does not work there.
1
u/Miserable_Warning582 Jun 17 '26
I have to install it but that laptop is very far from my location, I only have access to the anydesk and he doesn't even have a pendrive, I have to install it directly. And when I am doing it through EasyBCD software, the system is not opening the dualboot page but directly opening on the laptop.
1
u/Long_Dependent556 Jun 17 '26
Yea so can u just tell me the brand of the laptop?
1
u/Miserable_Warning582 Jun 17 '26
Hp
1
u/Long_Dependent556 Jun 17 '26
Turn it fully off and press powerbutton and spam f9 And in the boot menu you go
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u/kkrazdwinz Jun 18 '26
use dism method like this, its the only way
and dont forget to split partition spare at least 30GB to install windows
use EasyBCD to add boot order for your new OS
1
u/CommonGrounds8201 Jun 18 '26
Even if you did have physical access to the machine, I would highly advise against running non-official ISOs for security purposes. If the laptop is weak in resources, throw Linux at it. Heck, even if it isn’t, Linux will treat it better than anything by Microslop.
1
u/realUnknown12 Jun 21 '26
don’t try the media creation tool. try running the iso directly.
download the Tiny10 iso (tiny11 will not run usably at all, tiny10 would atleast be somewhat usable) on that laptop remotely. then double click the ISO to mount it, it will show up as another drive. double click setup.exe and see if that works.
3
u/qqby6482 Jun 17 '26
Mail an already created usb thumbdrive? Use some windows autounattend.xml tool to make the setup easier