oh i bet you can replace it

Seems to me people want everything, pay nothing for it and in fact want to be payed for the trouble of using it. Give me a break. If you pay for the entry level version, you get entry level features. I'm not a MS fanboy, far from it, but for crying out loud, let's be real here.

Are we in some sort of parallel universe in which all Microsoft plots to take your money are even more obvious?

MS is only hurting themselves with all these restrictions, This only gives people more reason to downgrade to Win XP, or move to a free OS like Linux.

@Jokemeister NO that is totally incorrect, because the SE version does cost the end user money. A more correct way to put it is if we pay for it we want everything. The end user doesn't want to be nickeled and dimed. There only needs to be two versions of Win 7, Home and Corporate and that's it, not this pay more for more features version crap. MS needs to drop SE versions of Win 7 or prepare to lose marketshare to free OSes.

i can change the wallpaper, sounds, ringtones, and theme of my crappy entry level 4 year old phone but won't be able to do it in Win7?

I'd rather have full functionality than the ability to change background image or system sounds. This is a better idea that the 3 process limit.
Start Edition: High pressure presoak
Home Edition: Undercarriage Rinse, Soft cloth buff
Ultimate Edition: Triple Polish, Clearcoat shine

It can't actually cost anything for MS to include these customization options when they're already in the mainstream releases. What's the deal?

This is just dumb. Trying their hardest to annoy anyone who happens to get stuck with SE to the point where they just spend their money and upgrade it. If you want to clean up your image have two versions of Windows 7. One catered to businesses and one catered to everyone else. Ultimate and Business. That's it. None of this nonsense.

I'm sorry, but where in that statement does it say anything about the user changing this stuff?

That's right: it doesn't. All it says is that the OEMs can't change it.

Yay, reading is fun!

If SE had the features of the Ultimate Edition why would you buy ultimate?

You want wallpapers don't buy SE - simple, marketing is marketing, Microsoft has to give the users a reason to go higher and pay the premium.

Oh, good, weekend joke articles are back and they forgot the notice this time.

If MS actually came out and said that, then go back to 3rd grade. Luckily seboj and I both passed reading. "OEMs must not modify..." Not sure about THG here, but I'm not an OEM. Perhaps, just maybe, MS meant that OEMs must not modify the background. This is an awfully stupid "feature" to remove... the last OS MS produced that couldn't change the background was what, DOS 6.22? Give me a break. They're obviously talking about OEMs pre-loading their own crap and breaking Windows 7.0 like they think was done with Vista. (How many ignorant users thought Vista always come with all this extra crap software that OEMs bundle and assumed it was MS's fault and went back to XP? All they really wanted wanted was retail Vista, not OEM fubar'd Vista).

Plus... why would they spend time removing that "feature" we've come to take for granted? It wastes developer time. I believe what MS came out and said was that if OEMs ship out 7.0 SE, they need to ship a retail copy or they'll lose their partnership / require Win 7.0 Home to be shipped at a higher cost (and thus decreased sales).

Articles about fucking wallpaper. Anyone know of a better tech site because these lame articles that no one cares about are getting old.

anandtech.com

"oh i bet you can replace it"

yea and i bet it will be easy to )

stupid limitation.
I hate it when they try to do sh*t like this....

easy fix, replace whatever paper, probably wallpaper.jpg, with whatever you want. done. that's number 1. number 2, as was pointed out, they said "OEM's," not end-users. number 3, they need 3 versions, not 2. they need a consumer version, a server version, and a corporate version. server version could also be "media center" or whatever you want to call it. feel free to add anything i missed...

Daamn straight. My flipping Nokia from 2006 can even change theme/wallpaper!

Also screw you Jokemiester your freaking strepid.

I will shank you.

This is just part of MS's plan to allow the sale of a version of their expensive OS for less money, so netbook prices can stay low. You want the additional features, just buy the more expensive OS.

Personally I would be OK if they just made one version that contained everything, and sell it to everybody for the same price, but it would really bump up the prices of lower end computers.

that is a rather over exagerated view point of teh situation , no one is saying they "want it free" aside from pirates that will rob MS any way.

this is a simple case of MS getting the "green eye" and disabiling features that have been hall marks of OS's for the last 20 years just so they can get some one to buy a more expensive version of thier OS.
any one that disputes this fact is a moron

here's another fact , 9 out of 10 companies go "down Hill" in some form or other , with in 10-20 of the original owner/founder retirement / dissassociation with said company . and the effects of this can bee see as earlky as 1 year after this occurs. well billy left ms last year for good , and i can guarantee you given the state of vista and now this BS , Microsoft will fall under the 9 , they very well may stay on the top of the ffod chain , but regardlessthey will not be the same company and the guys runing it now may very well run it to the ground (not nessicarily in a finacial way either , look at Walmart they are about as low as a company can get, yet they are still an economic power years after sam walton died )

right here you ard-tard

"According to Within Windows, consumers cannot swap out the original windows wallpaper, change the colors or sound schemes."

Note KEYWORD - "consumers"

tryign reading you self for once genius !

Even in windows 95 you could change the background .... this thing with Win7 SE totaly blows. Soon they`ll remove the ability to have a sound card in your pc or what ?

If you read the Link provided,it says Windows does a hash check on the image file so just replacing it doesn't work. But a fix is already in the works and if I was stuck with this version the first thing I would do is "fix" it.

I see it as kind of a dick move on MS's part, it's been a feature on every single version of windows ever, the only reason to remove it is to force people spend more money on upgrades.

I will pass. I refuse to buy any notebook or desktop I can't change the stupid wallpaper on. An old $40 used P3 computer with Windows 98SE will let me change the blitherin' desktop background. I understand some limits - no DVD disc playback, no dual monitors, etc. It's "starter edition." But this is the first time in HISTORY since early Windows versions that a basic, budget starter computer has RESTRICTED the owner (that's right. OWNER!) from changing his/her desktop background. This kind of limitation has never, to my knowledge, been placed on a consumer computer, Mac, Windows, or Linux. We really shouldn't support this. I'll buy a Netbook with real windows 7, or Vista, or Linux, or NOTHING for an OS. But if I can't even change my wallpaper? Do not want. Maybe it's a small thing to you, but it's a product I'm buying with my money, so I want to have at least a few basic rights with it. Restrict me from heavy duty pro stuff and media stuff - fine. But the desktop background? Rubbish.

/rant

Another thought, it probably cost MS more money to develop the function to do a hash check to make sure you're not changing the wallpaper than it would have to just leave the function alone. That just reinforces the opinion that it's all about the upgrade money.

For

For $0 I get Linux, if I pay more I want to get more.

"i can change the wallpaper, sounds, ringtones, and theme of my crappy entry level 4 year old phone but won't be able to do it in Win7?"

Exactly. It's a very strange feature to remove from the Starter Edition. Netbooks are essentially oversized cellphones, and people expect to be able to customize them to express themselves. Even very cheap phones at least allow you to choose from a number of factory installed wallpapers.

... they should put out just one version with all the goodies... charge an affordable price... and maybe they get a peace of the market, were the pirated versions are...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtS [...] re=related

Haha, starter news always make me laugh.. Don't you people get it that this is for DEVELOPING COUNTRIES ONLY and trough OEM channels.

You are not going to even touch it on regular countries.
The limitations exist so they aren't used over the bigger editions. Pricepoint is set intentionally very low and the main target is to combat piracy, plus to give OEMs something to ship with a system.

Starter is most likely seen on average users desktops. I mean, how often do you see bliss.jpg switched from the average internet users desktop? They will switch it with a photo at most if they ever get enough usage skills to do it.

This might or might not be true. Tomshardware has been running fake articles each weekend for some time now...
Does anyone know if this is real?

The initial statement that appears to be what this article was entirely based on:

"In Windows Starter Edition, OEMs must not modify or replace the Windows-provided background for Windows Welcome, the logon screen, or the desktop."

Maybe there's something more from Microsoft that Kevin just isn't sharing, but it doesn't look that way. If you read the article this one links too, the opening paragraph eludes to Microsoft limiting the users. If you stopped there and skim the rest, you could easily walk away with that impression. I'm guessing this is a result of hastily done reporting by Tom's Hardware.

But regardless, there is NO indication in this statement from MS that users will not be able to change the wallpaper. Only OEMs are to be affected.