We’ve chatted about the Microsoft Windows 7 Starter Edition in the past: it’s the upcoming version of Windows 7 that is limited to run only three programs concurrently. James has said “no way, no how” for most folks, but I took a contrarian view in my commentary. Since I live in the browser, I think I could make do with this very limiting situation.
While we’ve had access to the Windows 7 beta for several months, neither of us was actually picked to test the Starter Edition. Ed Bott has, however, and he shares some useful hands-on feedback about how this three-application limit actually works. His summary likely puts it best:
“Ultimately, that’s the question that you’ll want to ask before considering Windows 7 Starter Edition as an option: Is this a netbook or a notebook? If the answer is netbook, you might be pleasantly surprised at what this low-powered OS can actually accomplish.”
That’s an excellent point on Ed’s part and it reiterates one of our mantras here: you need to define your mobile computing needs before you can decide which is the best tool for the task.
As far as the limitation and how it works, it’s not quite as limiting as you might think. James asked how anti-spyware counts in the three-app limit: Ed found that if your software runs as a service, it doesn’t count as one of the three. Some system utilities, gadgets, Control Panel applets and apps like Windows Explorer don’t count either. Multiple tabs in a browser only count as a single app, which makes sense as well.
Given that Starter Edition is rumored to cost as little as $15 for a license, this seems like a semi-reasonable way to use Windows 7 on a netbook for a low fee. And as Ed points out, the Windows Upgrade Anytime feature can be used if you keep bumping into the three-app limit too much. I actually tested that feature in beta and found it to be painless and quick: in about eight minutes, I was able to select, pay for and unlock a higher version of Windows 7. For some folks using a netbook for it’s originally intended usage, Starter Edition might be a good starting point after all.

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