windows-7-starter

Paul Thurrott of SuperSite fame originally broke the story that Windows 7 Starter Edition would no longer be limited to 3 applications running at a time. Now today we have confirmation from Microsoft that this is in fact true.

When it comes down to the actual details, Starter Edition is more like a crippled Windows Vista Basic Edition. Here are some of the things that are either disabled or missing from it:

  • No Aero Glass. It is limited to the “Windows Basic” theme and does not have any of the transparent features including Taskbar Previews and Aero Peek.
  • No ability to “Personalize” the appearance. This means you can’t change the wallpaper, window colors, or sound schemes.
  • Fast user switching is disabled. In order to login to another user, you must first completely log off any other users.
  • No Multi-Monitor support. Essentially your VGA out port is worthless.
  • DVD playback is disabled.
  • Windows Media Center is either completely missing or massively crippled.
  • No ability to stream music, videos or recorded TV from another computer on your home network.
  • Domain support is disabled
  • XP Mode is of course also absent

A lot of these are no brainers such as Media Center not working but things like changing the wallpaper and lack of DVD playback are pretty lame. Since Starter is only going to be for Netbooks it is not too much to worry about but if you are looking for less restrictions you can always upgrade the OS.

While Windows 7 does make for a good Netbook operating system don’t for get Moblin, Ubuntu Netbook Remix or one of the many other Netbook specific operating systems.

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