Comments on: Windows 7 Starter Edition- no how, no way

By: articles

articles — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 23:12:46 +0000

Article on arid.net (http://digg.com/d1pTAK) that talked about windows 7 starter edition and had suggestions on a better way to implement the starter edition for netbooks.

By: Oliver

Oliver — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 06:48:38 +0000

I really wonder how many “normal” people buy these so-called netbooks anyway. I certainly wouldn’t want to have one as my only computer. And if you are buying the device as your secondary or tertiary computer, you probably are a more heavy-duty user (which doesn’t mean you *need* more than three apps, but you probably don’t want to have an artificial limit).

So bottom line — I don’t think the Starter Edition is not going to be very popular with the vast majority of Netbookers.

By: Kevin C. Tofel

Kevin C. Tofel — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 23:42:15 +0000

Well said! Regardless of generation, I’ve long felt a paradigm shift in the works towards the cloud. Smartphones, netbooks and always-on connectivity definitely support that. We’re just getting started as far as I’m concerned. :)

By: Corrupted Mind

Corrupted Mind — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 23:33:17 +0000

Kevin, don’t take me too seriously… I just think us “adults” don’t really have our eye on what the “yoof” is up to and how their computer needs have changed almost totally to what mine and yours might be. Watching teenagers live inside facebook, twitter, flickr and google docs – illustrates that younger consumers (i.e the can’t pay crowd) are more than ready for this kind of change. Us “adults” can choose – but you must remember that its only those of a certain generation that insist on continuously multitasking – as my mother and father often remind me I can only “really”do one thing at a time!

By: Kevin C. Tofel

Kevin C. Tofel — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 20:50:41 +0000

I think I’ve done plenty of “outside the box” thinking when it comes to living in a browser. 60 days wasn’t enough? ;)

I personally think I could get by with the 3 application limit because I do mainly live in a browser. In fact after our recent conversation about e-mail clients vs. web mail, I’ve moved back solely to the web for mail and IM. However, just because I can do it, doesn’t mean every consumer in the market can or that it’s a good idea. It’s a personal choice and will depend on computing habits and marginal cost of moving up to a more robust license. Again, I think I could do it based on my current netbook needs.

By: Corrupted Mind

Corrupted Mind — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 20:26:42 +0000

I think all the squawking about the three program limit is much ado about nothing. All it does is push all your usage into the cloud. In your example, that apparently shows the deficiency in the system I can do absolutely all of those processes without leaving the browser. Browsing (chrome/firefox), IM (Gchat sidebar or Firefox ext), Mail (Gmail/hotmail/yahoo mail), music (list of online music resources is endless). I expected Kevin (at least) to be thinking outside the box on this. C’mon guys engage the brain matter!

By: NatapocHigh

NatapocHigh — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 18:52:57 +0000

I’m struggling imagining what the experience is with 1 gig of RAM and trying to run IE, iTunes, AND other apps at the same time?

Not to mention the screen real-estate.

To be honest, a 3-app limit doesn’t seem all that invasive for many netbook buyers.

By: Luscious

Luscious — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 08:39:52 +0000

Buy an OEM copy of XP now and get that Win 7 netbook with starter edition when it arrives – if the device has drivers for XP, you should not have many complaints.

By: animatio

animatio — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 08:02:14 +0000

to say the least … it was even silly by the redmonder’s to sell an xp starter by then. NOT the community is silly but …

By: David Cohen

David Cohen — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 07:45:15 +0000

This is just silly.

Window has been available in a Starter Edition since the end of 2006, with XP Starter Edition – which had the same feature set, including the 3 app limit.

A modicum of research – by typing “windows xp starter edition” into Google – revealed this as the first search result:

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/newsroom/winxp/WinXPStarterFS.mspx

I expect Win 7 Starter will be sold to exactly the same markets as the XP and Vista version. It is somewhat sad that the entire blogosphere is commenting hot air off the Windows 7 press release without doing a bit a basic fact checking.

By: animatio

animatio — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 06:03:07 +0000

just my thought … i linux distro running – all included – no frills – for free

By: Ricky B.

Ricky B. — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 05:34:21 +0000

This is great news for Linux; now the Microsoft netbooks will be the ones constantly returned… ;)

By: Netbook Fan

Netbook Fan — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 05:07:56 +0000

Windows 7 Starter Edition is just silly. Microsoft needs to take a closer look at Apple’s pricing on Leopard. Over at Fry’s, it’s either $129 for a one-user license or $199 for a 5-machine pack.

Having multiple flavors of Windows 7, not to mention full and upgrade, etc. is way too confusing.

Ah, the days when there was only 1 version of Windows….

By: Gadget Merc

Gadget Merc — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 05:07:22 +0000

This will hurt netbooks very badly. I think netbooks work great because you get the same experience you get on your notebook or desktop. Consumers will hit the 3 app limit a few times and have a bad taste in their mouth.

By: GoodThings2Life

GoodThings2Life — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 04:35:29 +0000

I think 5 concurrent applications would be a reasonable limit… even as I write this I have Firefox, Windows Live Mail, Windows Live Messenger, and Zune running. That leaves me one more app that would be “flexible”. If I shut down the Zune app to “focus on work” that gives me 2.

This is assuming, of course, that the limit is imposed by what’s listed on the “applications” tab of Task Manager as CupcakesandBunnies suggests.

By: Oliver

Oliver — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 03:19:48 +0000

@Lamaan — Apparently MS claims the avg. user runs about two apps at a time: http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/02/09/1348255&from=rss

I’d assume Kevin is running exactly one at any given point in time, his brows… eh, cloud program. ;)

I have actually forced myself to not run a ton of programs on my HP 2133 because the darn thing is just too slow, even with 2 GB of RAM and XP. It feels like it’s getting slower by the day, actually.

But yeah, why would you save a few bucks and put an artificial limit on what you can run?

I imagine it won’t be long before some hacker somewhere figures out how to eliminate the limit. Reminds me of the good old days when I was rooting through the machine code of Apple II games to increase the number of lives/ships/bullets in games.