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."
In other news (Score:5, Funny)
In response to the announcement of Microsoft's innovative 3-application limit, Apple corporation has said it will release a version of OS X that will allow only one application to run at a time, but in a more friendly and artistically enhanced environment than Windows Reduced Vista(tm.) Apple announced the special version late Sunday evening, at a special event entitled "You're the One." Steve Jobs emerged from his semi-retirement to explain how Apple's invention of this one-to-one relationship between users and applications would "revolutionize computing." Jobs stated that the new OS would also herald a return to the one-button mouse, single monitors, and Apple's new "One-at-a-time" network stream technologies.
Overnight, the Linux community, leveraging its well known security advantages and high speed development based upon open source and developers active in all time zones at once, has released a beta of "Linux Zero", which they claim is the most secure operating system in the world, and the least confusing, by virtue of its enforcement of zero applications running. Linux authority Linus Torvalds said "if an application can't run, it can't bring worms or viruses into the system. In addition, user interaction is now limited to pressing the power button." Waxing optimistic, he went on to say that "We think even Windows users can learn to do this." He told this reporter "In fact, the price is zero, too!"
An unconfirmed rumor also developed this weekend of an OS that is so carefully and explicitly restricted that consumers interaction with it is limited to attempting to install it; as the rumor goes, completing the installation requires permissions that users simply do not have available to them. Such an operating system would provide the ultimate consumer safety net. When asked to comment, both Jobs and Torvalds derided the rumor as being propaganda. Both OS mavens insisted that technology wasn't up to such a challenge yet. The rumor, however, persists.
When contacted by the press for comments on these new developments, Intel explained that multi-core processors were designed specifically for reduced application counts. It is only now that the leading OS manufacturers are revealing their deep strategies for the decade of 2010 that Intel is able to comment on the real rationale for multiple cores. Technical Leader Sanji Ramahasmiran" laid out several reasons why systems with few- or single-application loads would benefit directly from multiple cores. He said "Our new 8-core dies will allow switching the same single task cyclically from one core to another, thus reducing the activity levels to 1/8th that of single-core designs and operating in a greener fashion, contributing less to global warming, and simplifying programmer APIs in any properly designed operating system."
Simply as a personal observation, I always enjoy seeing how competition ensures that corporations compete for the marketplace by leveraging their core competencies and working to out-do one another. The end users always benefit. No matter who your favorite OS manufacturer is, the industry finds a way to work to bring you the latest developments. Isn't technology wonderful?
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".
Re:You must mean the iPhone (Score:5, Funny)
wow, wish i had modpoints for that.
snark, wit, and insight.
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"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...
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: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.
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In 2007, Steve Jobs specifically said that the iPhone would "run OSX".
If you don't believe me, google "iphones run OSX".
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Re:You must mean the iPhone (Score:5, Interesting)
I agree wholeheartedly. I've switched to linux a million times now and I keep falling back to the ever stable, ever reliable windows xp. I never dreamed that I would make this statement 10 years ago, but I have had about 0 problems with XP. Ever since service pack 2, XP has been rock solid. Its been a long, long time since I've seen a blue screen. I can't even remember. Maybe over a year ago. I was all excited about Ubuntu 9.04, so I downloaded the release candidate and tried a wubi install inside my windows partition. Usually this option works great, but not this time. It seems my generic Athlon 64 motherboard won't boot 9.04. Amazing. (It seems USB related) I finally dicked around and got it to boot (exit busy box after everything times out) and now it doesn't see my virtual partition on the windows drive. Lovely. It wants to install to the first primary partition on the first drive in the chain by default. If I didn't know what I was doing I could have easily installed over my windows partition (or attempted to at least). I'll take it as a sign. No Photoshop CS3? No lightroom? No reason or live? I can run mozilla and the gimp in windows too. In fact, there is better quality free software on windows than linux and a great deal more of it too. I don't want to turn this into a troll (I know I'm on the edge here), but when my ATI card can't even get accelerated 3d at a basic level its kind of hard to see the appeal. (was looking foward to the new drivers too) A lot of this crap would have been perfectly acceptable in 1994, but its going on 2010 and when I plug something in, I really expect it to work without pissing around with it for 3 days and finding the magic keywords on google that will hunt down that one post on that one obscure bulletin board that will magically fix my problem. Sorry. To get back ontopic....
Its amazing that M$ would even consider selling such a neutered OS still. Look at what the OEMs are paying for a license (they won't tell you, people would be outraged) and look at what you pay when you walk into Best Buy and pick up a copy of ultimate. What the hell ever happened to the simple Home/Corporate ideology of XP? Like for instance vista ultimate is $319 versus Home premium at $239 with surprisingly Vista Business being the cheapest out of the 3 at $200. The cheapest dell right now is like $350 with vista home premium. So what is dell paying for the OEM license? $50? $70? I don't see how it could be more than $70. Why the hell do you have to pay $170 more at retail???? Talk about gouging. The best part of the OEM license is that it is totally not transferable. Want to install Vista on another machine, you need buy another license. This crap has to end. Consumers should at least have transferable rights to software.
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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 a
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Not unlike an OS that would determine that I cannot use my own hardware.
Re:You must mean the iPhone (Score:5, Funny)
Wait, what, you mean it's stupid to be outraged over the development and sale of products which don't meet your needs to people with different needs than you? How can this be?
Guess what.... (Score:3, Funny)
I'M A POWER USER!!!!!!!!
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* #3 couldn't install because the installer could not launch it!
Re:You must mean the iPhone (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps more importantly to most users:
Let's say you have 2 viruses and 1 piece of spyware running on your computer, does it prevent you from launching the applications you actually want to use... Like the malware removal tool?
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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 sw
Re:You must mean the iPhone (Score:4, Interesting)
They also had a "single window" mode in the OS X public beta way back when. It was quickly removed after user comments.
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Re:You must mean the iPhone (Score:4, Informative)
It's still there. Create a new user, select 'Managed with parental controls' for the type and enable 'Simple finder' in the options.
Re:You must mean the iPhone (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:You must mean the iPhone (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:You must mean the iPhone (Score:5, Informative)
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was that a typo, "I get over 2 days with the extended battery with normal use." because it looks like you said you purchased an extra large battery and with just normal use only get 2 days on a charge. Do they really sell phones which only have a 1 day usage capability on the standard battery? ouch.
This reminds me of the old Compaq iPaq running Windows CE. I saw vendors showing their apps on the thing but to be useful, they needed to snap on this huge battery and expansion pack on the back. The thing looke
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Re:You must mean the iPhone (Score:4, Interesting)
Like most Apple devices, the iPhone is designed as an "appliance". It does what it does, no more and only in the way Apple designed it to do it. It's like a fridge or a TV. When you want some new feature, you chuck it and buy a new one.
Geeks may love it but it wasn't designed for them.
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I was issued an i760 at work. I gave it up and went back to a Motorola w385 flip phone since I had poor coverage at my house, and the battery died in less than a day. My flip phone goes about 5-6 days between charges.
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I had this issue with my Windows Mobile 5 phone a couple of years back, with the worst part being that it would cause the whole "phone" part of the phone to fail entirely (but not obviously); when I got fed up and called support, they said "just reboot the phone once a day and you'll be fine". That's the fucking fix, seriously?
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As a dedicated member of the Windows Mobile community I would like to apologize for the fact that you have had to use a HTC 6700. HTC makes wonderful phones now based on Windows Mobile 6.1 ::Hugs his HTC Touch Diamond::, but that 6700 was a horrible horrible beast. It was slow, felt bulky, buggy (that is more of an early WM5 issue) and really was a PDA they slapped a phone on. Please don't assume all WM phones are the like that thing.
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Windows Mobile seems to be one of those really weird things. I consider myself a techie, and I've had endless problems everytime I try and use one. My stepfather has fairly minimal technical knowledge but he's able to use it flawlessly, keep everything synchronised with ActiveSync (which has never once run successfully for me!) and even has no trouble installing new programs like MemoryMap.
I've had to get him to fix mine before and he managed it in two minutes. For absolutely everything else technical, h
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Status, brother.
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No, they'll make a special exception for trojans. They don't want to confuse their users with to different a user experience.
Oh, so they're bringing back OS4? (Score:3, Insightful)
FORWARD! INTO THE PAST!!!
RS
Re:In other news (Score:5, Funny)
An unconfirmed rumor also developed this weekend of an OS that is so carefully and explicitly restricted that consumers interaction with it is limited to attempting to install it; as the rumor goes, completing the installation requires permissions that users simply do not have available to them. Such an operating system would provide the ultimate consumer safety net. When asked to comment, both Jobs and Torvalds derided the rumor as being propaganda. Both OS mavens insisted that technology wasn't up to such a challenge yet. The rumor, however, persists.
Until a few months ago, I thought this was how Gentoo was designed.
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An unconfirmed rumor also developed this weekend of an OS that is so carefully and explicitly restricted that consumers interaction with it is limited to attempting to install it...
Hurd.
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.
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.
Re:Bad user experience, piracy or Linux will win o (Score:5, Funny)
Would Chrome be limited to two tabs? (One for the host window, two and three for the first two tabs.)
Chrome and Firefox count as 4 applications each, and thus can't run.
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Well, you completely missed the joke there, but I'll try to make helpful response. Chrome uses one process per tab. IE8 uses a single process and separates tabs into threads of the process. It seems that Starter Edition is basing this on the number of "applications" based on what shows up under "Applications" tab in Task Manager. So Chrome and IE should each only be counted as a single application toward the limit.
Someone else mentioned using tray apps that hide applications in the system tray instead of in
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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 u
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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.
Or, most likely, this feature will end up just like every other artificial limitation: random groups of highly trained and motivated people will compete to see who can fix it first. And, like always, they will succeed within a day of release.
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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...
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:Bad user experience, piracy or Linux will win o (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Bad user experience, piracy or Linux will win o (Score:5, Funny)
Windows 7 twitter edition?
All documents limited to 140 characters.
Re:Bad user experience, piracy or Linux will win o (Score:5, Informative)
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 [zdnet.com] 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".
3 applications.. (Score:5, Funny)
Severe foot trauma (Score:5, Insightful)
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However, this might be a good thing for gamers. If nothing else in the OS is crippled, this should work for gaming, which is the only thing I need Windows for anyway.
I suppose (Score:5, Funny)
one of them will be the System Idle process. Naturally. That's the one that hogs 98% almost all the time.
Re:I suppose (Score:5, Funny)
3 apps is more than enough. (Score:5, Insightful)
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I was thinking along the same line
1) Web Browser
2) JAVA
3) Adobe FLASH (Sorry Silverlight)
Things have been moving in this direction for a while. Even the next version of MS Office is supposed to be a web app.
Is Malware an app? (Score:3, Interesting)
You left out malware. Does malware count as an app? If so, three pieces of malware can prevent you from using any apps.
If regedit.exe counts as an app, you won't be able to clean out the malware either. I think I'll stick with Jaunty.
Starter Edition could do this since XP. Old News (Score:5, Informative)
Why are we wasting time on this again?
Re:Starter Edition could do this since XP. Old New (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Starter Edition could do this since XP. Old New (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Starter Edition could do this since XP. Old New (Score:5, Informative)
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From Microsoft's press release [microsoft.com].
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I used site:microsoft.com just to get it right from the horse's mouth...
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2009/feb09/02-03netbooksqa.mspx [microsoft.com]
For OEMs that build lower-cost small notebook PCs, Windows 7 Starter will now be available in developed markets.
I will just run (Score:5, Insightful)
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I am sure that will work real well on the target platform for this version of Windows 7: the netbook.
Dupe (Score:5, Informative)
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?".
Well, that's easy... (Score:5, Funny)
svchost.exe
svchost.exe
svchost.exe
There, you've used up your allotment of three apps.
Re:Well, that's easy... (Score:5, Insightful)
Lulz!
Get out.
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.
Biased Article (Score:5, Informative)
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This other article... just kind of smacked of Stockholm Syndrome.
I mean, yes, point made, it's not completely unusable. It's still a really weird restriction, and still looks very much like it could lead to more Web-based app usage, rather than desktop app usage -- which isn't really in Microsoft's best interests.
How long until the 3 app limit is cracked? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm guessing that a new 3rd party shell will be released within a month of Windows 7 that defeats this. Anyone want to take a wager on when or how this will be cracked?
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Original story link (Score:5, Informative)
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=844 [zdnet.com]
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."
Here's a better article (Score:5, Informative)
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.
How long can it last (Score:5, Insightful)
The best part is... (Score:5, Interesting)
You know what the best part about this is? I DON'T CARE ONE BIT.
When I first read the title my instinct was to get angry. Then suddenly I felt a wave of calm come over me as I realized that I haven't relied on windows for 5 years now.
I simply just don't care any more.
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
Vista has the same limit (Score:5, Funny)
If I try to run more than 3 apps under Vista, I run out of memory.
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).
Wow, this would wind me up fast (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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: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"
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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.
Re:DOS (Score:5, Funny)
>Why are they deliberately fucking up their OS?
A question asked by many ever since Windows ME.
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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 be
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Antivirus is excluded [pcpro.co.uk] from the app count.
How does the operating system determine what is antivirus software? Does antivirus software have to have a Windows Logo Program signature in order not to count as an application? That would appear to exclude Free antivirus software such as ClamWin.
Re:What constitues an app? (Score:5, Informative)
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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: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:Will probably sell quite well (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Linux is free :)
and many people actually want to use it.
Re:Here's betting MS apps won't count (Score:5, Interesting)
That is esentially the administrator password recovery tool.
Use "at" to schedule explorer to run. Kill explorer, wait 1 minute and yippy, you have explorer with system credentials(higher than admin).
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If you go by processes, a very fundamental design difference between Windows and Linux begins to show. In Windows, processes do not have parents. If one process spawns another, they are always peers.
This is absolutely 100% incorrect. Try loading up Windows task manager sometime. Right-click on a process. See that item called "end process tree"? Use Process Explorer if you want to see a graph.
Why is it that so many Linux fanboys make up limitations of Windows that don't exist? It's not necessary - there are enough real flaws in the Windows user-land to gripe about. The Windows NT kernel, on the other hand, is actually well designed and executed.
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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 make