recently saw a video of like a bare minimum version of Windows 7, like everything that's not a hard requirement for the graphical session is gone
can it make it to the desktop without a certain file? then that file is outta there
and it made me wonder
would it be possible to go even further? like hear me out, the idea is as follows:
take any version of Windows NT (or perhaps the latest nightly build of ReactOS if you don't want to deal with any potential legal issues)
strip out ALL the graphical components
create a DOS-like text-mode shell for the NT or ReactOS kernel (perhaps borrowing infrastructure from Command Prompt to make it easier, since Command Prompt is the closest thing Windows NT natively has to the old DOS shell afaik)
(optional) port a BASIC interpreter to this weird hybrid OS, because if it can't run BASIC, then it isn't a real computer
i wonder how much would be possible, since unlike the 9x kernel, NT was only ever meant to be part of a full, graphical operating system