Typo?

Either way, this won't affect me. I don't buy netbooks, and I'll most likely get Home Premium of Windows 7 anyway

i don't like having a bunch of sku's....i think it's bs.
people will use the features they need...there are a lot features i don't want but would have to pay for in order to get what i truly want. bs if you ask me.

If they want to cripple Windows Starter Edition, limit the maximum screen resolution. That will not only reduce the appeal, but hopefully stop OEMs from making "netbooks" with 13"+ screens.

Also limit the number of useable cores. A nice new quad-core won't do anygood if the OS only uses two of them.

I mean, the whole goal is to stop people from using start edition with a bigger, more powerful machine, right? Why not limit the OS to small and crappy, virtually?

Wow, this is suprising. I actually thought the 3 app limit was a good compromise to keep starter from canibilizing the sales of their main editions. Maybe hellwig has a good idea. Limit the hardware performance virtually. I might go as far as to say they should cap CPU speed at ~2GH, RAM at 1GB, and set a total of 320GB recognized hard disk space. However, outright banning the better hardware, as mentioned in a previous article, would be a bad idea and might violate anti-trust laws.

Phew!, for a second there I thought they were going to make starter edition into an adware vehicle. Then again, what does the unchangeable wallpaper look like?

No, screen size will be enough. And make upgrade a mandatory reformat, with configuration settings being written to another media and imported. Seriously, we don't want another process (scanning system hardware without user's explicit authorization) to slow down an already weak netbook. I thought software on netbooks were supposed to be light? If they do this, I'm going Ubuntu and screwing over any company that writes Windows software but not Linux stuff.

I meant the limit on screen size would be limiting enough to make people upgrade ^.^

Damn.
It would have been the perfect virus protection. Simply always run 3 programs you know.

I imagine this is thanks to ignorant people complaining, this will probably increase the price as well

This is stupid, put random limitations to piss people off into buying the upgraded version?

Just a random BS software policy from M$ to differentiate the versions for more cash. I wouldn't run more than 3 apps simultaneously on a netbook but then again it should be left to the user if they want to clunk along with more than 3 apps.

Netbooks are supposed to be weak.
Limitations are to be expected when it simply doesn't have the muscle.

I think all you guys underestimate the power of a netbook. Yes it's crippled but you can still run the internet, a pdf, word, excel, im, email, and a music program all at the same time. A three limit app and I wouldn't buy the computer even if it is a netbook. too many people would freak out about it anyway.

I can (just) run Portal on my netbook. Don't underestimate them, but don't expect them to complete SMP F@H work units either.

(Click here to read more on the limitation.)

Click where? That's not a link.

they should set the minimum specs to 2 cores, 2Ghz, 2GB of ram, upto 222GB HD/SSD. Would make more sense, easier to remember.
The boost in RAM is really desired. The loss in HD space isn't that important. Most 1,8" HD/SSD's are below 200GB anyways. Most processors in cheap mini notebooks are below 2 cores / 1core + HT anyways.
But most mininotebooks get equipped with 2GB of RAM.

If you know that the minimum recommended to run Windows 7 without any additional software installed is 786MB of RAM, I don't think the extra 128MB of ram can suffice for Internet explorer 8, MS Office, Anti-virus/firewall/popup blocker, Adobe pdf reader, compression agent, etc...

A lot of these programs are run on mini notebooks.
You also need to know mini notebooks often use shared ram. Win 7 needs a min of 32Megs of shared ram. To work optimally 128MB is needed for aero.
In other words, Win7 out of the box will work fine with 1GB of ram, but don't expect many programs to run fine with that low amount of RAM!

I would opt again for 2GB of RAM, which is more important than the processor speed or disk space!
Besides, with nowadays hardware there are no energy efficient processors like the Atom running on 2GHz. 1,8Ghz is about the limit.

app limit on starter who cares. Using compatibility to sale higher SKU's is the thing that sucks. XP mode is something everyone should demand. Granted it should require our old XP or Vista serial for home versions.

This is what M$ should do to get away from making win7 upgrade versions.

Why not just NOT make a scaled-down version for Netbooks then? :-/

It's called capturing all the different market segments with a product still from you. It's a very common business practice for a company to release a high end, mainstream, then low-end part. In hardware we call it binning. In software they call it "scaling down" or limiting features, if you will. The tri-core AMD processors are quad cores, but one core is disabled. Even though this has practical reasons, such as preventing one defective core from wasting an otherwise flawless CPU, it also captured AMD market share in the mid-low segment. MS wants a cheap product to compete with the Linux netbooks, and possibly those who buy a 'nix netbook and throw a pirated copy of Win 7 on it. Now OEMs and home builders can get a cheap version of Windows to go with their cheap computers. No longer do they have to buy Home Basic or Premium and get a lot of features they don't need. They can buy the cheapo starter edition with more limitations, and save themselves some money, as well as have a quicker OS install and less headaches, maintenance, and software troubleshooting on a platform that has very little profit margin ... case in point: the netbook.

And to Elbert .... Win 7 starter doesn't NEED XP mode. Why the HELL do you need XP for surfing the web or looking at pictures? Windows 7, Vista, Linus, whatever OS does just fine. If MS can release a cheap OS to replace XP on netbooks, than at the very least our end user cost will stay the same, and Win 7 and XP run similar performance-wise on similar hardware. MS's operating costs will only increase if they have to increase support on Windows 7 and still support new XP computer products. To keep clinging to XP is STUPID STUPID STUPID. Do you want prices to go UP??? If Dell releases a new netbook with Windows 7, and sells netbooks and notebooks with Vista, netbooks also with Linux, and continues to sell netbooks (which account for a very large and growing number of PC sales today) with XP, look at all the different platforms they have to support now.

Get over it, XP zealots. I loved XP as much as the next man, but we've got to move on. XP needs to be phased out, because the new OS's aren't going away. We need to transition the product to the newer, more recent software or support is going to be a financial and logistical nightmare, and our costs will never go down if we keep it up.

I suggest that Microsoft also removes that crap "Starter Edition" and renames it to "Netbook Edition". And they should try really hard to make it work without a hassle on netbooks while keeping it a fully functional OS.

The idea of three app limit was fantastically idiotic. My Symbian OS crapmobile can do more than that! Microsoft is quite often quite dumb!

I think the inability of changing the wallpaper is dumber than the 3 app limit.

Learn to read and you want be so stupid stupid stupid. I said

I did not say started needed XPM so you just assumed. Home versions do need XPM as they need to run all the old app, games, and ect. I'm not going to pay out for a OS just to turn around and pay out more for windows 7 compatible programs I need.

I have found a sudo-workaround to atleast ditch aero basic and the wallpaper and use windows classic and a sold color desktop background...

Check it out:
http://blog.mattatobin.com/2009/06 [...] heme.binoc