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Cut-Rate Windows 'XP Starter Edition' in Thailand
zlel writes "Microsoft has decided on an official name - 'Windows XP Starter Edition' - for the stripped-down, cut-rate version of Windows that it first began offering in Thailand last summer."
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They removed English from the OS for piracy concerns. Something about that stat 75% of all Asian installs were stolen.
http://jayceecorder.blogspot.com
There was (is?) a whole floor of the Mah Boon Krong department store in Bangkok for warez CD's. (Fortunately, the attitude towards payment cuts both ways there -- the first time in the MBK cafeteria, I took food from a bunch of vendors and walked off to the cashier to pay. They all waved and yelled and I waved back. Turns out you need to pay the vendors individually. Took a bit of backtracking and apologizing, but they all were content to just laugh their heads at an even dumber-than-usual farang.)
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Unfortunately the guy who crammed WOAF (Windows on a Floppy) took his information offline due to some sort of conflict with his employer. There was an article on shrinking windows on /. a year or two ago that mentioned this project. There are programs you can download to remove a lot of components from windows like litepc. I always knew someone would make a living out of decrufting windows! I have an old notebook I installed windows 2000 on so I can use Microsoft Mappoint on the road. Mappoint is a pretty big program. North American maps are like a 1.2GB full install so I needed to trim space, and litepc saved me a lot of time. Unfortunately most of my problem is usually introducing my own cruft on systems, which is why I like debian's cruft utility, debfoster and deborphan. If anyone knows any similar tools for FreeBSD I'd appreciate suggestions. I'm still trying to figure it all out, but all other apps I used on Linux were already supported in FreeBSD.
I was in Thailand (Pattaya Beach, nice town, plenty of Adult Entertainment) before XP was resleased and got the Beta version of Windows XP for about 600 Baht, about $5 US at the time.
.Net and Office 2003, all priced at 1,200 Baht (but, you can get them down to 600).
It's obvious that Microsoft is attempting to curb piracy in third-world countries. Sorry, it's not going to work. Once they've cracked the copy protection, XP Starter Edition will be should next XP Pro, Visual Studio
They even sell copies of Linux. Strangely, most PC I've seen in Thailand run pirated version of Windows. Even the people who sell copies of Linux next to Windows were surprised to learn that it was completely free.
More Linux advocacy in needed in such countries were the majority of the computer using population relay on pirated copies of Windows.
I think I think, therefore I think I am.
My impression is that Microsoft is doing this because it knows there are people that cannot afford XP at the full price, not because it is trying to become competetive "again" with linux. If a town of people in a very poor area can put up enough money to run 2 public terminals, that's $80 MSFT didn't have before. And now, 100 more people have used Windows.
If they cut prices in the US, it'll be because everyone who will pay $300 for XP has paid $300 for XP, not because they're afraid of Linux. I think MSFT views the two different markets entirely separately, and I don't think you can take what they do in one (the "emerging markets") and use it to infer anything they might do in the other (ours).
In terms of profit, I think it's rather genius. And best of all is that now it sort of looks to the media like MSFT cares about bringing third-world countries up to speed, slicing prices dramatically so that everyone can experience the glory of technology.
Then they'd realize there is a sect of users who would love something like this in the US and Europe. People that don't want the damn animated dogs telling them how to search, or Fisher Price UIs. People who aren't afraid to drag out the command prompt to do things and enjoy having options. Hopefully they get the message that there are still power users on Windows, but it certainly feels like an endangered species at times -- many UI innovations are little more than eye candy or making the UI easier for novice users. Meanwhile, most real power users have graduated to OS X or Linux where they don't have to feel like they are being talked down to.
All the bundled crap should be optional. That means I should be able to choose whether to install:
* IE, including disabling shell integration. Additionally I should be able to replace IE with an alternative browser that is used through the system, including applications that embed IE through COM.
* Media player
* Windows messenger
I should be able to fine tune which services are installed and have them explained to me at install time so I know exactly what ports are open. A compiler and build tool for C, C++ and C# should come preinstalled and in the path. You should be able to do anything from the console that you can do from the GUI.
If this seems outlandish, they could have it simply be two alternate modes of setup whereby you select your expertise level. Like, an "Express" install option versus an "Advanced" mode that lets you tailor everything you want.
(I tend to be an MS apologist, but this is one point where they really aggravate me.)
This was actually explained not long ago in somebody's blog, but I can't find it right now so I'll paraphrase.
The first problem is in-use file.
On Unix you can delete a file that's in-use and replace it. The actual storage isn't freed until the last handle is closed. On Windows, it doesn't work that way. Open handles don't keep storage around, so you can only rename the file to replace it (except on Win9x). But you can replace it, so that's only part of the problem. (for executable files, at least on Windows, you must keep the original file around while it's loaded for paging)
The other problem is dependencies between in-use files.
Suppose you have a program A, which uses DLLs B and C, and each of B and C use DLL D:
A -> B -> D
A -> C -> D
Now say A has loaded B, and in the process D, but has not yet loaded C. You come by and update all of the files, A, B, C, and D. Program A is still using the old versions of A, B, and D, because you can't guarantee that the old data structures will still work. It's never safe to swap out a running program in memory, even in Unix.
Now A comes across something that requires loading DLL C. C needs D, but D is already loaded in A's address space, so Windows will use the existing copy. And now you have a new version of C, expecting a new version of D (since you updated them at the same time), but using the old version. Loading the new D for the new C would have other problems, perhaps more difficult to debug.
If your programmers and users are all 100% clueful, you can avoid this problem (ie, make sure C will work with the older D), but Windows doesn't have this luxury.
The whole reason behind the rebooting problem is the registry
The only case where this might be so is for programs that read their settings once and forget about it. I don't think there's a solution for that that depends on how settings are stored.
In fact, the registry might be better for this problem, since you can ask for notifications when a section of the registry changes. Unix typicially uses SIG_HUP, which is just manual change notification.
And I don't know what you've been installing, but 90+% of the installs I see do not require reboots.
Kind of. Take me for example. I wanted to play old games with people across the internet which required an IPX network. Microsoft's home grown solution is their VPN client/esrver package which is naturally built into the entire user/security system. Anyway I wanted to use this system for gaming, just one problem: I had/have windows xp professional. This version of windows has an arbitrary limit of one VPN connection. If I want multiple VPN connections I need to buy Advanced Server. Now coming from their point of view there might be some sort of reason for this cripple ware, but coming from my point of view they want me to pay a couple thousand bucks to play old games.
How does this make me feel? Infuriated. I have yet to find a suitable replacement (there used to be a few online services which created IPX networks but you had to play by their rules and pay monthly fees). Thank you Microsoft, for dangling the carrot in front of my face, letting me smell it, and then ripping it away. The final snub is (I am told) when installing Advanced Server it asks you how many connections you want to be able to accept.
Ah well it really just comes down to me complaining, but it sure doesn't make me like Microsoft anymore. Remember when Notepad used to have an arbitrary file size limit? (The limit value wasn't arbitrary, the fact that they had it was) Good times.
If you compare your sendmail/postfix/whatever server "equally" to Exchange you don't know what you are talking about.
...
Precisely why I specifically said "the email portion of Exchange". Go back and actually read it this time, I'll wait.
There are certainly other (and better) calendar, task, distributed filesystems, etc. However as you mention, they are not all in the same client. I suppose for some people it is worth the price in vendor lock in, buggy software, and security issues to have everything bundled like that. For many however it is not.
Finkployd