# Windows 7 Starter...why?



## Hyena (Aug 23, 2010)

Recently I acquired a version of a Windows 7 disc that has all the versions unlocked on it. I noticed there was a version called "Windows 7 Home Basic" (they have x64 as well as x86). I was really curious to this as I was familiar with Windows Vista Home Basic, but never knew of a Windows 7 flavor of that. 

Come to find out, Windows 7 Home Basic is for "developing countries" so it's not sold in the US, Canada, Britain you get the picture. But also looking into it, Vista Home Basic has more features than Windows 7 Starter edition that we get here in the states on "Netbooks" and "Nettops" Things such as desktop wallpaper changing, Aero Peek, DVD playback (without using VLC or something) as well as quite a few other things as well. 

Wouldn't it have just made more sense to put Home Basic on the netbooks and such? I know on Windows Vista Starter you could only run 3 applications and stuff at a time, then the step up from Vista Starter was Vista Home Basic which worked just fine (just didn't have aero and such) but now it seems like that's kinda flip flopped. I found some Windows Live tools that allow you to change the desktop wallpaper on windows 7 starter, but it's kinda strange and its easy to mess the system up doing it (like for example if you link the app to a .gif or .png it will give you a blank screen when you log in. 

What do you guys think though, isn't it kinda dumb that Microsoft would put Starter on our netbooks, and not notify us of Home Basic? maybe they were trying to force people into wanting to use the "anytime upgrade" ? I checked the amount of CPU/Disk and RAM resources needed. CPU was fine on both, Disk space was both 6.3GB used and RAM used was roughly 768MB each on start up, so it's not like "Home Basic" is that much more resource intense than Starter thus not running well on Netbook hardware. 

Video I made demonstrating the differences
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzp9wroeii4


----------



## Fenrari (Aug 23, 2010)

Hyena said:


> Recently I acquired a version of a Windows 7 disc that has all the versions unlocked on it. I noticed there was a version called "Windows 7 Home Basic" (they have x64 as well as x86). I was really curious to this as I was familiar with Windows Vista Home Basic, but never knew of a Windows 7 flavor of that.
> 
> Come to find out, Windows 7 Home Basic is for "developing countries" so it's not sold in the US, Canada, Britain you get the picture. But also looking into it, Vista Home Basic has more features than Windows 7 Starter edition that we get here in the states on "Netbooks" and "Nettops" Things such as desktop wallpaper changing, Aero Peek, DVD playback (without using VLC or something) as well as quite a few other things as well.
> 
> ...



Um... well I actually could do all of those things you mentioned on the Vista Started, its just a long ass process of things you have to click and edit. Or get something like Tuneup Utilities for like $15 to keep everything nice and spiffy. 

But yes I get what you mean with the technically limited basis of the original package. Power to the Home Basic (or Professional )


----------



## Velystord (Aug 23, 2010)

we are talking about a giant company ... they dont have to make since to be profitable 
and in this case extreamly


----------



## Fenrari (Aug 23, 2010)

Velystord said:


> we are talking about a giant company ... they dont have to make since to be profitable
> and in this case extreamly


 
English Grammar Please...


----------



## Velystord (Aug 23, 2010)

never was good in english class


----------



## ArielMT (Aug 23, 2010)

Hyena said:


> Wouldn't it have just made more sense to put Home Basic on the netbooks and such? I know on Windows Vista Starter you could only run 3 applications and stuff at a time, then the step up from Vista Starter was Vista Home Basic which worked just fine (just didn't have aero and such) but now it seems like that's kinda flip flopped. I found some Windows Live tools that allow you to change the desktop wallpaper on windows 7 starter, but it's kinda strange and its easy to mess the system up doing it (like for example if you link the app to a .gif or .png it will give you a blank screen when you log in.


 
It'd make more sense from an end-user perspective to have only one edition of their home computer/workstation OS, but it makes more sense for Microsoft's books to hock as many editions as they can get away with, and to overprice the "Windows Anytime Upgrade" feature to change editions.

Windows 7 Starter does not have the three-app limit, but it does have the wallpaper limit.  In fact, there's extremely little customization that can be done without hacks or third-party apps.  The wallpaper can be changed without using a third-party application, but it requires a registry hack and registry access control list (ACL) hack.


----------



## net-cat (Aug 23, 2010)

Windows has had "Starter Edition" in some form since Windows XP.

They have all been terrible jokes at the consumer's expense.

Windows 7 Starter Edition is no exception.


----------



## Velystord (Aug 23, 2010)

microsoft does overprice but at least you dont have to spend a ton of change on a computer with it on it like apple 
not that apples bad but steve could charge a little less for a machine that does everything the other does with just a few less resources
and linux is nice accept no compatibility with games that are not browser based


----------



## Hyena (Aug 23, 2010)

ArielMT said:


> It'd make more sense from an end-user perspective to have only one edition of their home computer/workstation OS, but it makes more sense for Microsoft's books to hock as many editions as they can get away with, and to overprice the "Windows Anytime Upgrade" feature to change editions.



I'd actually have to disagree with that. But I think maybe there should just be 4 versions total. 2 for home users, 2 for business/it development/digital media creators etc. For home use there should be 7 Home Basic (for the netbooks or other machines a little slower that can't run HP very well) then Home Premium for general users on desktop computers or more powerful Celeron/Sempron or better baised laptops. Really my two test machines barely will run Home Premium but they both run Starter and Home Basic with real ease. I come into CPU problems on my test machines with Home Premium (Test machines being a Dell Optiplex GX520 with a Pentium 4 HT 3.2GHz. Second machine being a Great Quality Fry's series with a AMD Sempron 64 2800+) So there are a lot of machines out there still that are gonna have a hard time with 7 Home Premium. So two versions are needed. 

For business and workstations, there should be Professional and Ultimate. With Enterprise's features being combined into Professional. The home user just doesn't need remote desktop access, bitlocker, windows xp mode things like this. it's just unnecessary and is going to take up more disk space, and while disk space comes cheap these days what's the point of having a feature if you never use it. But IT professionals should be on Ultimate to manage the other machines in the buildings running on Professional. it's more easy to set controls using applocker and things like that on a Professional machine rather than an Ultimate machine to my knowledge. Also apps like Autodesk Maya and stuff are designed to run on Professional or greater Microsoft OS so for someone whom really uses their computer for digital media creation or IT stuff these two versions will work well. I'm all in favor of having a few versions. 

As for what you claim with Windows 7 Starter, I wasn't disagreeing with you and I stated much of what you're talking about. I was stating in Vista Starter there was an app limit. Windows 7 team was actually going to implement that limit on Windows 7 Starter but ditched the idea last minute.


----------



## Hyena (Aug 23, 2010)

net-cat said:


> Windows has had "Starter Edition" in some form since Windows XP.
> 
> They have all been terrible jokes at the consumer's expense.
> 
> Windows 7 Starter Edition is no exception.


 
Wow I wasn't really aware that it went all the way back to xp. If you're referring to "Home Edition" though, I don't think that can really be considered a starter edition. it's a fully fledged OS like Vista Home Basic. 

And yeah, 7 Starter is a pretty mean joke : \ I mean they could have atleast made the GUI look attractive. that taskbar everyone loves looks horrible in robins egg blue.


----------



## Hyena (Aug 23, 2010)

Velystord said:


> microsoft does overprice but at least you dont have to spend a ton of change on a computer with it on it like apple
> not that apples bad but steve could charge a little less for a machine that does everything the other does with just a few less resources
> and linux is nice accept no compatibility with games that are not browser based



Kinda depends on where you buy your OS. You can get the OEM version from Newegg for $99.99 and that's Home Premium 64bit. I think Professional is $139.99 and at those prices really I don't think its too much to spend. considering its a licence you can have for life and use for like 5-10 years its not a bad deal. 

As for the Apple computers. They should be charging probably 30-45% less than what they're asking, but this just keeps the sales of Windows and Linux biased computers high so I'm not complaining. I don't think Steve will ever drop his ego, so most likely their computers will stay high in price. 

And as for Linux, it's just not ready yet for the "average home user" I'm quite an advanced user so I do demand a little more out of an OS, but when I use linux it just... breaks all the time. a few days ago I didn't install any software or anything like that, and suddenly the sound just fully stopped. The sound didn't work for a few days and suddenly it just came back on working again. this happens with my wireless card as well. Also programs just aren't compatible or have huge amounts of bugs. for example recently I wanted to burn a DVD video on linux. I open Basero disc burner only to find that there is a huge bug that doesn't allow for DVD burning unless you go into terminal and type in a whole bunch of nonsense.


----------



## Runefox (Aug 23, 2010)

No, there really was an XP Starter Edition. It was meant to run on very low-end hardware and be a low-cost alternative to full-blown Windows, with a maximum of 3 applications running simultaneously and with a cap on the amount of RAM available. Another interesting variant is FLPC.

I believe that the Starter Editions have a lesser memory impact and are thus far more suitable than Home Basic or Home Premium for most low-end netbooks.


----------



## Hyena (Aug 23, 2010)

Runefox said:


> I believe that the Starter Editions have a lesser memory impact and are thus far more suitable than Home Basic or Home Premium for most low-end netbooks.



That's funny. you learn something every day lol XP starter edition that's entertaining. 

As for Windows 7 Starter VS Home Basic though, I used HB for quite a good amount of time and it was running just as efficient (dare I say more efficient) than Windows 7 Starter. As for RAM max I was getting Starter and Home Basic to use was roughly 750MB. on startup both of them were nearly identical at 551MB Starter, 574MB Home Basic. so I think both Basic and Starter are about the same on resources, that's why I was questioning "why in the hell do we have starter when Basic is the same and better" :3


----------



## Leafblower29 (Aug 23, 2010)

I think it's for 3rd world countries.


----------



## net-cat (Aug 23, 2010)

... yeah. XP Starter Edition is a very real joke.

And yes, Runefox is right about the memory. Then again, when you strip out 50% of your operating system, it tends to have that effect. (Just look at some of the "features" they have listed in the article.)


----------



## Velystord (Aug 23, 2010)

its not like xp was a resource hog its just when shipped it has a ton of bloat ware. personal experience i have a pentium 3 @ 667 mhz and 128mb of ram and its fine with xp pro and then my main computer just would seriously just idle running IE and xp pro
its actually idling at a max of 6% useage


----------



## Rakuen Growlithe (Aug 24, 2010)

Hyena said:
			
		

> I'd actually have to disagree with that. But I think maybe there should  just be 4 versions total. 2 for home users, 2 for business/it  development/digital media creators etc. For home use there should be 7  Home Basic (for the netbooks or other machines a little slower that  can't run HP very well) then Home Premium for general users on desktop  computers or more powerful Celeron/Sempron or better baised laptops.  Really my two test machines barely will run Home Premium but they both  run Starter and Home Basic with real ease. I come into CPU problems on  my test machines with Home Premium (Test machines being a Dell Optiplex  GX520 with a Pentium 4 HT 3.2GHz. Second machine being a Great Quality  Fry's series with a AMD Sempron 64 2800+) So there are a lot of machines  out there still that are gonna have a hard time with 7 Home Premium. So  two versions are needed.
> 
> For business and workstations, there should be Professional and  Ultimate. With Enterprise's features being combined into Professional.  The home user just doesn't need remote desktop access, bitlocker,  windows xp mode things like this. it's just unnecessary and is going to  take up more disk space, and while disk space comes cheap these days  what's the point of having a feature if you never use it. But IT  professionals should be on Ultimate to manage the other machines in the  buildings running on Professional. it's more easy to set controls using  applocker and things like that on a Professional machine rather than an  Ultimate machine to my knowledge. Also apps like Autodesk Maya and stuff  are designed to run on Professional or greater Microsoft OS so for  someone whom really uses their computer for digital media creation or IT  stuff these two versions will work well. I'm all in favor of having a  few versions.



I also think just one version of Windows for desktop would make more sense. Sure you might wind up with some excess features but you can just disable/not install them (of course windows has something against customisation) and even if you don't need them it's always nice to know that they are there in case you do need them in the future. Why should someone go buy the whole OS again just to get a new feature that they need when they could just reinsert the disk and install that one piece of code? Microsoft only does it all to make money. Why else would they only let people who have bought the expensive versions of Win7 downgrade to Vista? Microsoft is very overpriced.


----------



## Hyena (Aug 25, 2010)

Velystord said:


> its not like xp was a resource hog its just when shipped it has a ton of bloat ware. personal experience i have a pentium 3 @ 667 mhz and 128mb of ram and its fine with xp pro and then my main computer just would seriously just idle running IE and xp pro
> its actually idling at a max of 6% useage


 
Yeah, issue is with me I demand a lot out of a OS. I have 8GB of ram in my main workstation and I max that out at times even if Windows usually is only using 1GB of it. However I did get Vista to run on a AMD Duron 1600+ and 512MB ram with relative ease. Problem with XP is just maintaining it. making sure things aren't adding themselves into the registry and things like that. I still use Windows xp Pro 64bit / Windows xp Home 32 (dual boot) on my secondary workstation. it's still a really good OS and I really wish Windows would make a "Workstation" version of Windows 7 that acted and looked like windows xp.


----------



## Hyena (Aug 25, 2010)

Rakuen Growlithe said:


> I also think just one version of Windows for desktop would make more sense. ... Why else would they only let people who have bought the expensive versions of Win7 downgrade to Vista? Microsoft is very overpriced.



See there is a huge problem here. While disabling things and uninstalling things isn't much of an issue for me, it's going to be troubling and confusing to the average user. probably 90% of the people that are going to use the OS are going to be like "bitlocker, do I need that? what's remote desktop access?" etc etc just a plethora of questions that is going to make things complex and just cause more problems for people that aren't as smart when it comes to installing or learning about these sort of things. the average user can go to the store and pick up Home Premium and know that's probably going to be for them since it has "Home" in the name. They're also gonna be inclined to choose Home as it's going to be cheaper. Also most likely any OEM they purchase is going to have Home on it. if you are looking into a compaq/hp workstation business class machine, most likely it's going to come with either XP Pro and Win 7 Pro upgrade or just Win 7 Pro. 

Think of it like buying a car. if you're just commuting to work, do you really need the 250 horsepower V6 engine that easily hauls 5 passengers? or should you just buy the economical 4cyl that gets good gas mileage. To go back to your original argument I'll assume you're not so familiar with how a car works. If you went into a dealership to purchase a vehicle, would you want to be sitting there having to choose all these options even if you're paying the same price? (options being enabling/disabling software or features in Windows by buying just one version) sorry for the use of analogies. But I'm hoping you're following me here. I might not even be making since right now...its late D:


----------



## Nineteen-TwentySeven (Aug 27, 2010)

Windows 7 Starter originally had a 3 application limit, so that the low-power hardware netbooks and nettops are constructed on wouldn't get bogged down (not that I could tell the difference). Really, it's Windows 7 Home Basic, stripped down to the bare essentials with some extra shit thrown in. One bonus is that it has a fairly small footprint, and then the OEMs promptly take up the saved space with crap trials and a little bit of actually necessary software.

It always ran like shit on my netbook, which is why it now runs Ubuntu 10.04 NBR.


----------



## Kayze (Sep 2, 2010)

Velystord said:


> never was good in english class


 Here's your change to start! 

Seriously though, it's a need and not a 'maybe'.


----------

