No Wallpaper Swapping in Win 7 SE

News
By Kevin Parrish
published

Users, OEMs and Microsoft partners will not be able to change the wallpaper within Windows 7 Starter Edition.

While many consumers anxiously await the arrival of Microsoft’s new Windows 7 operating system, recently controversy has surrounded the Starter Edition version. Originally, SE would only allow three programs to run in the background at one time, however Microsoft eventually relented and lifted the restriction. Albeit not quite as drastic, now another restriction has surfaced: the inability to change the desktop wallpaper.

According to Within Windows, consumers cannot swap out the original windows wallpaper, change the colors or sound schemes. Apparently the same now holds true for OEMs and partners, a feature said companies normally modify in-house before shipping to retail outlets. Although Windows 7 Starter Edition isn’t available on the market, Microsoft recently confirmed the SE’s upcoming limitation in a short but firm statement.

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

As of this writing, Microsoft has not yet revealed the official desktop background for SE. Consumers wanting to switch out the wallpaper for images of Fluffy or the in-laws will need to upgrade to Windows 7 Home Premium. However, it’s highly likely that a wallpaper workaround will be available online long before the OS makes its debut this October.

Kevin Parrish
79 Comments Comment from the forums
  • mindless728
    oh i bet you can replace it
    Reply
  • jokemeister
    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.
    Reply
  • cruiseoveride
    Are we in some sort of parallel universe in which all Microsoft plots to take your money are even more obvious?
    Reply
  • phatboe
    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.
    Reply
  • duckmanx88
    JokemeisterSeems 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.
    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?
    Reply
  • cletus_slackjawd
    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
    Reply
  • WheelsOfConfusion
    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?
    Reply
  • tayb
    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.
    Reply
  • seboj
    “In Windows Starter Edition, OEMs must not modify or replace the Windows-provided background for Windows Welcome, the logon screen, or the desktop,”

    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!
    Reply
  • apache_lives
    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.
    Reply