Windows 7 Starter Edition — 3 Apps Only 695
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."
Bad user experience, piracy or Linux will win out. (Score:5, Insightful)
Artificial limitations like this seem to me to be an invitation for problems and end user frustration.
What is an application?
Are tool tray apps possible, or allowed?
What about apps that launch other apps as part of their functionality?
Would Chrome be limited to two tabs? (One for the host window, two and three for the first two tabs.)
I would say this is an invitation for piracy, but if it really is intended for netbooks, most consumers would find it very hard to install a new OS on a computer with no cd drive. It will make users angry, although potentially limit things on machines with small amounts of RAM.
If it's intended for developing countries, I suspect piracy (or Linux) will win out.
What constitues an app? (Score:2, Insightful)
Sadly, I cannot follow the link from here at work: but my first question is "what's an app?" Make it too broad and your anti-virus and IM client leave you with only one. Make it to narrow and it's an easy to circumvent limitation
Severe foot trauma (Score:5, Insightful)
3 apps is more than enough. (Score:5, Insightful)
You must mean the iPhone (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple corporation has said it will release a version of OS X that will allow only one application to run at a time
Apple already released such an operating system in 2007. I think it's called "iPhone OS".
I will just run (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the most useless thing I ever heard of... It's like selling an incomplete OS...
The point is to sell automatic upgrades to more expensive versions of Windows.
"I'm sorry, to do that, you need Windows Ultimate Edition. Would you like to upgrade now? Yes/No"
Re:DOS (Score:3, Insightful)
Why are they deliberately fucking up their OS? Don't they have enough competition? If so, bring in the anti-trust people, or fire the department responsible for this kind of brain-damage.
To compete with Linux on netbook market (and other markets where the cost has to be very low), while still providing some added value for their other editions.
Oldest trick right after "here, eat this apple". (Score:3, Insightful)
"You can have the friking useless edition for 40$. Or, you can be a premium user of the Shiny Platinum Standard Edition VIP for 150$.
Yes, we understand it's a bit expensive, but you're buying the PSS Edition VIP, what did you expect?".
Sorry (Score:3, Insightful)
Short, insipid, arrogant (Score:4, Insightful)
This article is basically a two paragraph summary of something I would expect to hear from a hysterical spitting nerd who hadn't showered for three days standing outside of a Gamestop. (Or in a Digg summary)
"Windows Home Basic OMG! Such shite! Install linux!"
I'm actually kind of offended it got posted. Plus also, it's already been discussed ad nauseam.
Send me to troll hell, but you know it's true.
Re:Name Those 3 Apps (Score:5, Insightful)
User: "Aw man, I can only load three apps? Well, I guess I can use Google Docs in my browser... what else can I do online without installing anything?"
And that's how Microsoft plans to simultaneously make people hate their operating system and also not buy their other shrink-wrapped software.
Re:Bad user experience, piracy or Linux will win o (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed. What advantage would Windows 7 starter offer over Ubuntu Netbook Remix?
Also, about installing an OS from a flash drive, remember the advances we have seen in OS install programs in the last 10 years.
I am pretty sure there could be a program to sell cheap 1GB drives with different flavors of Linux preinstalled...
Oh, so they're bringing back OS4? (Score:3, Insightful)
FORWARD! INTO THE PAST!!!
RS
Re:Starter Edition could do this since XP. Old New (Score:5, Insightful)
If the price is right... (Score:5, Insightful)
If the price is bargain low I could see myself grabing a licence. I only use windows for gaming anyway. A game + web browser would be enough for me.
Re:I will just run (Score:3, Insightful)
I am sure that will work real well on the target platform for this version of Windows 7: the netbook.
How long can it last (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Will probably sell quite well (Score:5, Insightful)
These are OEM sales, millions more than Linux (Score:2, Insightful)
Linux could only dream of the sales numbers this "POS" will have. P is punky, not piece.
It doesn't matter really if the buyer puts win7 warez edition on after he buys it since MS already got $25 from him. This also, and perhaps primarily, gets the OEMs to not even consider Linux on the OEM's bottom-tier line.
Re:Will probably sell quite well (Score:1, Insightful)
I'm in the UK and I don't have iPlayer or 4oD running.
Artificially introducing competition (Score:5, Insightful)
This is an absolute farce.
MS is now in such a dominant position that it is now artificially limiting features to introduce competition and introduce artificial price points. It's aimed at the hardware vendors, and at the price of other operating systems to drive them out of the market.
It's still anti-competitive. It's still MS.
ws
Re:Original story link (Score:2, Insightful)
Sounds like MS is either mislabeling or mis-marketing this version of Windows. Had they called it Windows 7 Netbook Edition, it probably wouldn't cause so much uproar.
Honestly, I wouldn't expect to pay less than a $100 for a new version of Windows, so I'm pretty much ignoring this Starter Edition stuff. Nothing under a $100 could possibly good enough, right
Re:You must mean the iPhone (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:You must mean the iPhone (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:What constitues an app? (Score:3, Insightful)
Anything that has a tab on the taskbar. The tray and background processes don't count.
In other words, we'll soon see more apps running as services soon. I bet uTorrent will be one of the first lol
Re:Bad user experience, piracy or Linux will win o (Score:2, Insightful)
Familiar apps (Score:5, Insightful)
What advantage would Windows 7 starter offer over Ubuntu Netbook Remix?
Familiarity. More applications designed for Windows with which users are already familiar run under Windows 7 than under Wine, albeit not at the same time. In a lot of vertical markets, there often just isn't an equivalent Linux app.
Re:What constitues an app? (Score:3, Insightful)
And IM? And Skype? And WiFi connection managers that come with various WiFi cards? Same for Graphics, Sound and other cards? I could well see that the various "manager" programs that come bundled with cards and periphery could easily account for three applications. Hell, the random crap you get bundled with the average notebook spawns ten applications nobody needs or wants, easily.
Does that mean that a HP or Dell notebook will start and display "sorry, your maximum amount of apps is already running" even before it's done booting?
Actually that gorilla would be posix (Score:4, Insightful)
I can still compile and run unix apps written 20 years ago on linux today. Can you say that for running a win32 app on Windows 3.0?
No , didn't think so.
Re:What qualifies as an application? (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a headache in the making.
Take various printer drivers that come with their own application (ok, service with systray icon). Does it count? nVidia graphics manager, does it count? Cell sync software, what about that? WiFi connection manager? Various auto-updater, from Java to RealPlayer to Adobe Acrobat Reader, which tend to run all the time without the average user even noticing. If you have a notebook, what about fingerprint reader software and various other "half way essential" systray crap that makes your hardware work decently (I'm not even counting the proprietary "updaters" or "quick launch applications" various notebook, and other, vendors bundle with their stuff).
What gets counted as "application"? Only programs that create a window, only when they actually do so?
Phew. At least malware will still run fine...
Discrimination against netbooks? (Score:4, Insightful)
It seems that netbooks are the primary excuse for pushing this - "most people won't need to run more than 3 apps on a netbook" - or something to that effect. In many cases, the only significant difference between today's 'netbooks' and my 6-year-old laptop is size and weight. I can tell you that I regularly run more than 3 apps on my old laptop.
Granted, I wouldn't want to be writing code or documents on the tiny screen & keyboard of a netbook. However, I don't think it's reasonable to dictate what I can do with my computer based on it's physical dimensions. I could easily find 4 things for my computer to do that don't require lots of typing/reading.
Just my $0.02. I won't be affected by this anyway, since I just wouldn't buy a machine with that version of Windows (or of course I'd just install Linux).
Re:Well, that's easy... (Score:5, Insightful)
Lulz!
Get out.
Re:You must mean the iPhone (Score:2, Insightful)
You sound more like a power user. Perhaps you are not the target for the "Starter Edition" of the OS?
Re:You must mean the iPhone (Score:3, Insightful)
This is about netbooks, not notebooks with 4 GB RAM, a dual core 2.8 GHz CPU, and two fast SSD drives. Try to read before getting your panties in a twist. Or maybe you were just karma whoring to get on the MS bashing bandwagon.
Just curious, can that be construed to mean that you agree with artificial limitations like this and can see no reason why anyone would ever oppose ("bash") them or MS for creating them?
A three-application maximum sounds reasonable for a modest netbook until you realize that some applications have a lightweight footprint and that running significantly more than three at a time is well within the hardware capabilities of most netbooks. An objection on grounds other than practicality is that this is yet another instance of a Microsoft operating system determining what the user may or may not do instead of the user determining what the operating system may or may not do. Considering that the operating system is a tool, that seems inappropriate to me. Your hammer doesn't tell you which nails you may drive with it.
I appreciate Microsoft's business reasons for wanting to target different price points by creating lower-cost versions of their OS. Many companies do this. I think they had the right idea with Vista in that the more expensive versions included more "luxury" features that the most basic one lacked, such as the Aero interface. I disagree with the method they're using for Windows 7 because all versions of it have multitasking capability, it's just artificially crippled in the Starter Edition. They didn't innovate or create any new feature, they just crippled an existing and very basic feature.
What follows is my personal opinion. I think this would be a business failure if every member of the general public were thoroughly educated on all matters concerning IT. I can't in any good conscience support something that, in all likelihood, only exists because of widespread ignorance.
Re:Actually that gorilla would be posix (Score:1, Insightful)
"Backwards compatibility" would be running the same binary as you ran 20 years ago. Mom doesn't get a chance to "just recompile recipe-book pro from 1995" to work on her new version of an OS.
Re:You must mean the iPhone (Score:1, Insightful)
This isn't a notebook though, this is a netbook. Super small, just* for browsing the internet. You wouldn't want to do anything more serious than that on these machines.
That said, I think the 3 app limit is a bit small. Clearly one would be for the browser. A second would probably be for another browser, in case the first one hits a page it doesn't like. The last one is a toss up, but could be any number of programs: Command line, Calculator, Word/Excel (or OO.org equivalents), AIM, music player, email client...
Would this allow services to run, or what?
I think a more reasonable limitation would probably in the 5-10 apps region. 5 seems a little more flexible for the average user, while 10 seems "good enough" for anyone (though clearly some people will have issues with this number as well).
What I'm running right now:
Notepad++, firefox, Visual Studio.net x3, opera, command line x2, ahoihoi. I'm already at 9, so, there you go.
Re:Bad user experience, piracy or Linux will win o (Score:3, Insightful)
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=844 [zdnet.com]
Other users have posted this, and it gives some good information as to what is counted and what is not. Something that runs in the tray ("notification area") does not seem to count, but may when the window is launched. An example from the article is an antivirus app that runs in the tray. While in the tray, it works fine, but if you launch the main window for the application that window counts toward the limit. This means you might be able to hide applications in the tray using TrayIt or something, but only 3 can be unhidden at a time.
Re:In other news (Score:4, Insightful)
You know MacOS started out that way, right?
The original MacOS didn't have any app-level multitasking, not even "cooperative" multitasking. The first hints of being able to run more than one app at once came with the "Switcher" program by Andy Hertzfeld in 1985, which let you run... two. You could install MultiFinder in MacOS 5, and it was bundled with MacOS 6.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MultiFinder [wikipedia.org]
Now, back in the "one or few apps" days on the Macintosh, there was a need for little widget-like mini-apps that could be run without exiting the current app. The calculator was one, and an alarm clock was another one. They were called "desk accessories". I would bet that Windows 7 includes something like this, and that the app limit doesn't apply to them. And as a result, I would bet developers start cramming more and more functionality into them, exactly as occurred under MacOS in the 80s.
Re:These are OEM sales, millions more than Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
When they're done "rising" I hope they sell some cars. So far, not so much.
Re:You must mean the iPhone (Score:3, Insightful)
Not unlike an OS that would determine that I cannot use my own hardware.
Re:You must mean the iPhone (Score:2, Insightful)
Your hammer doesn't tell you which nails you may drive with it.
No but my flathead screwdriver tells me which screws I can screw.
New software feature: No own application (Score:4, Insightful)
CreateRemoteThread, for the longest time the love child of malware writers everywhere, will finally become essential for benign applications. explorer.exe can be hijacked to run more than just malware, I tell you! :)
Re:Familiar apps (Score:2, Insightful)
If it can run on a Netbook, and anyone would want to run it on a netbook ... there is almost certainly a native app for Linux already ...
Tell me where to find a Linux native app for doing CAMA (Computer Assisted Mass Appraisal - what governments use to calculate property taxes), Tax Billing, Building/Construction Permitting, Vehicle\Fleet Management, or Court Administration. And yes, we use a lot of these on tablet style devices for field work. Most of these are targeted at local government use, but every particular industry has it's niche apps. Very few companies have a work flow consisting ENTIRELY of just sitting around and typing stuff into Word or Excel documents.
The simple fact is that there are a lot of niche apps that there is no Linux equivalent for, or the Linux version is terrible (there is no open source groupware client/server setup comparable to Exchange/Outlook or Domino/Notes - Domino/Notes IS available in a Linux version if you want proprietary, but the client, though visually identical, is slow as molasses compared to the Windows version). Unless the plan consists of hiring or allocating internal developers to rewrite a lot of applications from scratch, simply switching everything over to Linux is not always an option.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:These are OEM sales, millions more than Linux (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, but with Microsoft, they are doing this by making a deliberately crappy product. Everyone seems to defend MS by saying, "isn't that what every company wants/does?", but it's not the motives that piss people off so much, it's the actions.
The ends aren't the problem, it's the means.
Re:You must mean the iPhone (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually I would expect viruses to remove the app restrictions as much as possible, so that they can launch other instances of themselves (and to remove worries from users so they don't try to "figure out what is wrong" with their computer). Either that or the viruses/spyware will switch more toward running as "services" which I'm guessing aren't as regulated by MS, since they wouldn't normally require user interaction.
Expect to see a rash of "Want to use more apps at once on Windows? Download our new Advanced Application Launcher" Utility and Trojan, all in one.