Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Kills 3-App Limit For Windows 7 Starter Edition
Chabil Ha' writes "Heard the rumors that the much-maligned Windows 7 Starter Edition would be able to run more than three concurrent applications? Today, the Windows team made it official: 'Based on the feedback we've received from partners and customers asking us to enable a richer small notebook PC experience with Windows 7 Starter, we've decided to enable Windows 7 Starter customers the ability to run as many applications simultaneously as they would like, instead of being constricted to the 3 application limit that the previous Starter editions included. We believe these changes will make Windows 7 Starter an even more attractive option for customers who want a small notebook PC for very basic tasks, like browsing the web, checking email and personal productivity.' Small consolation, of course, if you want to watch a DVD natively, but I'm sure this won't stop the Slashdot crowd from enabling it."
At least someone realized that it was an epicly bad idea before the thing was released into the real world.
How about making window management not block when a modal dialog is open?
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Marketing has a very, very short memory. Not too long ago people where word-processing, spread-sheeting, data-basing, developing software and even Windows, heck, even using AutoCAD on a Pentium II. Or a 486 if you go farther back a bit more.
This seems more like they were marketing it as going to be limited and people were turned off by that but it kept the product in the public eye. Waited for a bit. Now they're marketing it as without the limit as to improve the perception of the product, leading to more people wanting it.
Sure it can.
I use ubuntu on both my laptop and desktop. Both work just fine with very little hassle.
Ever tried installing Windows on a machine and then spending the next few hours updating drivers and security patches, and then downloading all the stuff you need (firefox/OpenOffice/trillian/winamp/whatever) to actually get your stuff done? THAT is a hassle.
Installing Ubuntu consists of:
1) stick thumbdrive in netbook
2) boot netbook
3) click "install" and decide how big you want the partition to be
4) notice that while you're doing that it has found your wireless network
5) run pidgin and talk to people while waiting a few minutes for the install
6) tell friends you're going down for reboot and will be right back
7) boot working system with tons of useful software
Not too long ago people where word-processing, spread-sheeting, data-basing, developing software and even Windows, heck, even using AutoCAD on a Pentium II. Or a 486 if you go farther back a bit more.
Not too long ago, I remember having to wait 15-20 minutes to TeX up my research papers, only to find out that I missed a curly brace somewhere.
Not too long ago, my spreadsheet couldn't import data from a MySQL database halfway around the world through the internet.
Not too long ago, the database that I run on that other computer would need a refrigerator-sized mainframe.
Not too long ago, developing software meant that it was faster to manually read for syntax errors than to just compile and have the IDE flag the errors. On a project 1/20th the size, at least half of which was implementing things that are now in libraries. Actually, as I recall, I didn't have an IDE, just a dumb terminal. The debugger was crap to -- it pales in comparison to what I have today.
Never used CAD software, but I bet dollars to donuts that in the 12 years since the Pentium II, it's also come a damned long way. And that's the problem with these comparisons -- people may have been doing the same tasks but they were still doing much much less than we casually do today. In many ways, we the usefulness of the tasks themselves expands to fill the available power -- our programs and environments get better and better.
If 10 years ago you would have told me that I'd be running a miniature search engine on my computer, crawling and indexing my filesystems to save me the trouble of finding files, I'd say you were nuts. Today, I can't remember how I lived without Google Desktop: ctrl ctrl + filename and the results are there. To say that somehow this is comparable to my computer 10 years ago because they both perform the same basic function -- allowing access to saved files -- is disingenuous. They are the same in the way that a steak knife and a chainsaw are the same. That all goes for the modern web, AJAX and all, versus the web that I browsed back in the dark old days. Same for programming, same for just about everything I can think of.
Computers do more than they did. This is a GOOD THING. Stop convincing yourself that somehow what they do now is good enough for the future. I hope it's not, and I'm working to make sure that it's not by pursuing more ways that my computer can do more for me.