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Windows 7 Starter Edition — 3 Apps Only
CrustyFace writes "Cybernit reports that the Starter Edition version of Windows 7 will only allow the user to run 3 applications at once. Targeted at notebooks, this doesn't seem like such a bad limitation, however it is a bold move from Microsoft, and it will be interesting to see how the operating system sells."
This isn't newsworthy. Starter Edition, ever since its inception, has had a 3 app limit.
Why are we wasting time on this again?
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http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/02/09/1348255&from=rss
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
Now I'm not an M$ fanboy so save your trolling, but TFA is clearly biased and written badly. Thankfully there's a link to a better article hidden in there somewhere, and I suggest people read it before they post or judge.
You can advertise in this sig from as little as £99.99 a month!
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=844
Here are some selected quotes:
"you can open as many windows as you want from a single program. So if you want to open 15 tabs in your browser, six images in your photo-editing program, and a couple of instant messenger windows, you can do it."
"Windows Explorer windows don't count."
"Basic Windows tools don't trigger the limit. You can run a Command Prompt window or open Task Manager"
"Antivirus programs that run as a system service don't count."
"In short, when I used this system as a netbook, it worked just fine. On a netbook, most of the tasks you're likely to tackle are going to take place in a browser window anyway."
"If I tried to use this system as a conventional notebook, running multiple Microsoft Office or OpenOffice aps, playing music in iTunes or Windows Media Player, and using third-party IM programs, I would probably be incredibly frustrated with the limitations of Starter Edition."
posted on /. a while ago. It's also up to OEM's if they offer this or or Windows 7 Home Premium. How many times will this story be posted to Slashdot? The last one was in February. Editors, surely you would have known something like this was posted before, with a better article.
That which does not kill me only postpones the inevitable.
This may help.
That which does not kill me only postpones the inevitable.
Um, where are you getting that? TFA explicitly states that it's targeted at developing nations--places where XP Starter with the same 3-app limit have been sold for years. Microsoft never said that Starter was intended for netbooks, either--that was mostly just speculation by the media.
"This also, and perhaps primarily, gets the OEMs to not even consider Linux on the OEM's bottom-tier line."
That's pretty much what they're going for, IMO... as long as it counts as a Windows sale, Microsoft will continue to push crappy disabled OSs on customers...
Maybe it's the phone? I can't speak for the other poster but I have a Samsung SCH-i760 with Windows Mobile 6 and I've had no problems keeping multiple apps (most are native but a few third party) open for a couple weeks at a time. I've noticed that certain apps (adobe reader) seem to hang more than others but nothing that had to be tended to on a daily basis. I get over 2 days with the extended battery with normal use. I will say that I've never tried the standard battery.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
I've got a netbook, which gets used heavily as an ultraportable machine. As long as you're sensible, it's fine. It's far from unusual for it to be running: ...and I'm already over the limit while very plausibly doing a single task (albeit not a typical one for a netbook, but one that is surprisingly usable from experience). I'm working on some graphics software at present - perhaps I'm checking something in Paintshop Pro or similar. I use the Windows calculator a lot (lazy I know :-) - that would suddenly become unviable.
* Visual Studio
* OpenOffice showing some documentation or notes
* Web browser
* DB program of some description, usually SQLite Admin.
Why, why, why? Anyway, as has been pointed out, plenty of apps seem to have already found ways round this. Annoy your customers in their day-to-day use and they'll find ways to stop the annoyance - if that means you're creating a group motivated to hack your security, that's just a terrible idea.
Stay out of your users' way and let them work the way they want to. If I'm daft enough to want to try to host a commercial website or want to do serious software development on a netbook, that's my problem.
Greg
(Inside a nuclear plant)
Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!
Artificial limitations like this seem to me to be an invitation for problems and end user frustration.
Given that this is designed for especially low-cost (and hence low-power) small notebook PCs, it may not really be an artificial limitation, but rather a valid means of managing extremely limited resources.
What is an application?
Ed Bott took it for a test drive and answered that question...
Are tool tray apps possible, or allowed?
Yes and yes. They don't count toward the 3 app limit.
What about apps that launch other apps as part of their functionality?
If they open multiple tabs (ex. Firefox, Internet Explorer) or windows (ex. Messenger), that's fine. If they launch completely separate applications, well, those would be completely separate applications.
Would Chrome be limited to two tabs? (One for the host window, two and three for the first two tabs.)
Nope.
Some other interesting details:
All in all, according to the ZDNet writer, "when I used this system as a netbook, it worked just fine".
"You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war." -- Albert Einstein
It's still there. Create a new user, select 'Managed with parental controls' for the type and enable 'Simple finder' in the options.