Living with limits.

Story: Living with the limits of Windows 7 Starter Edition Total Replies: 22
Author Content
ColonelPanik

Apr 23, 2009
10:35 AM EDT
The Linux marketing plan is to let m$ continue to Turn Off customers. And it is working!
Steven_Rosenber

Apr 23, 2009
1:12 PM EDT
If you read the article, the guy starts with how crazy a 3-app limit is, then he goes on with "if you use it as a netbook, you'll be OK ... if you use it as a laptop/regular PC, not so much ..."
gus3

Apr 23, 2009
1:21 PM EDT
So some things count as "applications" and some don't.

Somewhere in there is a marker that makes it an application, and it's begging for someone to turn it off.
techiem2

Apr 23, 2009
1:33 PM EDT
Steven: That's exactly the point that got me really scratching my head.

Considering netbooks are often at least an Atom 1.6 with 1GB of RAM - and some are using the Dual Cores....how is that not a notebook? A P4m-1.6 laptop with 256MB was top shelf 5 years ago, and is still a pretty fine machine for most people. (I'd still be using the one I got at college for something or other if it hadn't finally died a couple years ago)

Ok, so it's not a Quad 3G 4GB machine....but still...it's plenty of power for most people.

At this point it seems to me that the major differentiating factor between "notebook" and "netbook" is simply size/form factor and the fact that "netbooks" use slower CPUs....but how many people would really notice? How many people are planning to run 3dsMax or some such on their netbook next to their word processor, email client, web browser, and IM client?

Once again MS is artificially limiting things to get people to spend more $$ for version without the restrictions...
bigg

Apr 23, 2009
1:47 PM EDT
> Somewhere in there is a marker that makes it an application, and it's begging for someone to turn it off.

That's what I thought too. I'm guessing that Microsoft will try to sucker the dumb ones in by telling them they have to pay extra. They know the dumb ones won't switch from Windows. The rest will enter a few commands or something and have the full-blown version. Kind of like Microsoft turning the other way wrt illegal copies of XP so that they can keep out the competitors.
gus3

Apr 23, 2009
2:09 PM EDT
techiem2:

Just more "what does Microsoft want me to say" thinking. He probably doesn't even realize it.
techiem2

Apr 23, 2009
2:20 PM EDT
Yeah...you wonder if these "journalists" ever realize just how ridiculous their arguments sound at times....
theboomboomcars

Apr 23, 2009
2:34 PM EDT
It is funny that because some marketing people say a netbook is used for x, people think it can only be used for x.

You know, you bought the device, if you think it would be neat to try to x, y, q, g, and k on it go ahead. Unless of course you want win7, then MS says no and you just get to do x.
techiem2

Apr 23, 2009
3:46 PM EDT
And then they look at their friend sitting next to them with the exact same netbook running Linux instead doing a-z and realize they got screwed by MS (again). :)
purplewizard

Apr 23, 2009
4:02 PM EDT
I know a number of people who didn't believe me when I told them about this. But in discussion with them about their netbooks it turns out none of them ever run more than 3 apps on it at any time. So Microsoft may well be hitting the perfect limit with this and most netbook users will never know or care.

Reality is most Windows users have no idea how powerful last years hardware can seem next to their super whizzy box running Windows. They think the machine is broken when it has slowed down monsterously with accumulated cruft and go buy new machines!

And finally with more people drifting to on line services for doing documents and things it makes it even more sane in their world.
Steven_Rosenber

Apr 23, 2009
4:54 PM EDT
The 3-app limit seems to be a way for Microsoft to both dominate the netbook platform simply because it's still Windows, yet be telling users that for a "real" computing experience, you need a bigger machine running regular Windows. They'll be trying to both own and limit the netbook market in an attempt to bolster their core business, which is OSes and apps for multi-core CPUs and 3GB+ RAM.
techiem2

Apr 23, 2009
6:46 PM EDT
And to push the "normal" versions of Windows 7 to netbook users via a nice easy upgrade option like Vista of course. "Want to do more with your netbook? Just click Upgrade To Windows 7 Standard in the start menu now and soon you'll be able to run all your favorite Windows applications!"
Steven_Rosenber

Apr 23, 2009
7:02 PM EDT
I just don't see how this will ever work. It's pretty much a gift to netbook-optimized Linux distributions.
gus3

Apr 23, 2009
7:15 PM EDT
So, Windows 7 == nagware.
jacog

Apr 24, 2009
6:03 AM EDT
It will work. Windows advocates are like people in abusive relationships... they just can't bring themselves to leave. They'll make all manner of excuses for the shortcomings.
gus3

Apr 24, 2009
7:47 AM EDT
Wow, jaco, I hadn't seen that angle.
NoDough

Apr 24, 2009
11:09 AM EDT
>> Windows advocates are like people in abusive relationships...

Like?
Bob_Robertson

Apr 24, 2009
11:34 AM EDT
Isn't this exactly the same argument against Vista?

Vista Home Basic cannot run Media Player.

Yet people still buy Vista.

NoDough, no duh!

I was listening to FreeTalkLive.com and Linux came up on the Wednsday 4-22 show. Both of the hosts are perfectly happy with their Windows, which is fine, but then Mark says, "When my computer has a problem, I just give it to Ian to fix."

So he admits Windows gives him problems, but still goes back to it. Sounds like an abusive relationship to me!
tracyanne

Apr 24, 2009
5:11 PM EDT
Not everyone who uses Windows likes the experience, and once given the chance will upgrade to Linux. It seems to me that the people with the most to lose, Window guruship (new word), professional [windows] tech writer, people who make money from people who use Windows, Microsoft shill, are the people who in the main don't want to upgrade [don't want people to know they can upgrade], and these are the ones we hear about/from, they are irrelevent, other than publicly correcting their lies there is little point in interacting with them.

For most people, it's simple ignorance, and the fear of the unknown, but once you overcome that ignorance, and the fear, many, will upgrade. All that is needed is a good marketing/education campaign, whether on a personal or a general level, and sooner or later they will ask to be upgraded.

Which brings me to an interesting anecdote, I had just, once again, saved a problem Windows computer by using various tools available on Linux, this time it was simply using GParted to reformat the Windows partition on a Dell Laptop, it appears that the recovery Disks don't allow reformating, instead, all you can do is reinstall the operating system files back over the top of the existing ones, and the reason my workmate wanted to recover back to the original settings was negated by this fact, the recovery seems to be basically a merge process, as even the corrupted registry remained corrupted. So once again a trusty FOSS/Linux tool saved the day, we booted on GParted, selected the Windows partition, reformated it as NTFS, and my workmate reinstalled Windows Vista.

Anyway, we were talking, and he mentioned that a friend of his has been downgrading computers from Vista to XP, because they hate Vista. I said wthat what his friend should have done is offered upgrades instead, and he said that Windows 7 wasn't available then. To which I replied, "No.... upgrade, he should have offered to install Linux."
ColonelPanik

Apr 24, 2009
10:11 PM EDT
tracyanne >> Well said!
tracyanne

Apr 24, 2009
10:37 PM EDT
That is, in fact, what I offer people, an upgrade from any Windows Version to Linux.
tracyanne

Apr 24, 2009
11:11 PM EDT
My response to Living with Limits. http://talkback.zdnet.com/5208-12354-0.html?forumID=1&thread...
ColonelPanik

Apr 25, 2009
9:50 AM EDT
tracyanne, And on ZDNet? Thats bold. /°_°

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