I predict more people will be jumping ship to linux.

That makes no sense. Microsoft should know that this will hurt them...

That was the rational part.

Who ever thought of this fucking idea needs to get kicked out, right now!

This would be good for Kiosk PCs, which are becoming more and more popular.

It's annoying having to pay for a full OS when it's not going to use about 10% of it's capabilities.

Anything that makes our products cheaper to the customer is good in my opinion.

 That is what we have heard for years. Linux is free and the marketshare tends to 1%.

I don't think MS would do something like that, why should they? There is no sense to include such a limit. I call BS.

Linux is, unfortunately, still WAY too complex for the average Joe. Back to using it fulltime at work now (well, virtualised/ssh'd) and I struggle. And if I struggle - my father who struggles with Vista, will never have a chance.

That said, I'll never pay money for Windows again - ever. My next PC will either be XP (what I have now or 2000), a Mac or Linux (probably Ubuntu or Debian Lenny).

Trust you to come out and post some BS article.

This stripped down version is designed as a cheaper solution for people running it on netbooks.

If you had more than 3 programs running your netbook would be crawling anyway. Your ignorant posts really annoy me sometimes. Yes I know you didn't write the article but you posted it.

To the rest of you, you really don't have a clue what you're talking about.

Put your stupid little MS bias aside for one moment and understand the target of this version of windows. It's like the starter edition of Windows Vista, none of you even know anything about it so I don't expect well reasoned responses.

You prolly didn't even know that it was targeted at low powered devices the most likely can't open more than 3 apps and run smoothly. Yet you all jumped in with your mouths running.

Yeah well done.

In regards to XP starter: "The product can run three programs at a time." (http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_starter_edition.asp). Now I'm unsure what counts as a program, and it may be more than what is being touted for Win7 starter, but it defintely was limited.

I could definitely be wrong in regards to the Win7 starter edition as it has been a few weeks since I really read anything about it and there seems to be crossed signals coming from the sources. For example at http://www.winsupersite.com/win7/win7_skus.asp (the main reference wikipedia uses):

"The first is Starter Edition, which will be a hardware-constrained version sold only in emerging markets."

Yet just down the page:

"Market: Worldwide availability this time but with new PCs only"

Now I suppose you could class netbooks as an "emerging market", but traditionally MS has used this in regards to regional markets. "Hardware-constraint" is most likely referring to these markets, not netbooks, just in the same way that XP starter was aimed at constrainted hardware too.

scottie you need drop that axe your grinding and get over yourself.

Funny, so Firewall, Antivirus and Spywareprotection - and then you wont be able to surf the interwebs.