@ Gnizmo - You make the equally faulty assumption that Windows 7 Starter will NOT be readily available. Lets assume for the moment that you run an electronics retailer. You care not for providing people with computers that do what they want, you simply want to make as much money as you can. If Windows 7 starter is $50 cheaper than home premium - would you not want to make your company an extra $25 per sale, whilst selling your computers for $25 cheaper than your competitors?

I also have googled this quite thoroughly, it seems odd that you would think I haven't. I assume of course that you are reading too much into this quote "According to Microsoft, you'll be able to run services (such as Windows Defender) in the background" Obviously, because the computer will not inherently know if it's a 'background' task (background being more of a human concept than a technical term) it will use some variety of White List - only programs on the White List will count as 'background services', which essentially means that MS has to approve any antivirus program that is to run on Starter as a background service.

 Indeed, Microsoft will have final say on which anti-virus programs will, or will not count as a background service. Of course that is just added incentive for various corporations to bribe Microsoft to be put int the "not an application," territory. I would have to find the quote I am talking about specfiically again, but it mentioned anti-virus by name.

 Oh and the reason you don't do that is because it will piss off your consumers. Coke could use food coloring to make water look like Coke and then sell it for far cheaper and make a huge profit. They don't do this because it pisses off consumers and spreads bad word of mouth that cannot be repaired.

There is also the matter of disclosure I mentioned that you completely ignored. Microsoft is on the verge of, or actively being sued for the "Vista Ready" sticker non-sense. They have an all the reasons in the world to be completely on the level about the limitations of their latest OS versions.

 Furthermore I am not making assumptions on how agressively Microsoft plans on pushing the Starter version. They are on record as saying that only 20% of the people who use Windows 7 will use Starter, and most of those will be netbooks. You are trying to make a mountain out of a mole-hill here. I am realtively certain you haven't done any reasearch based on what you have said in this thread. You contested XP Starter having the same limitation. Your thread title itself is entirely misleading, and your specific reasons why this is bad keeps changing.

That sounds pretty bad to me

If you can find the quote I would be interested to hear it. However, even if it mentions antivirus, I still suspect it will be a white list

I hope you are right, but I do not have confidence that enough companies will do so. Take the Vista capable thing for example - hardware vendors and shops sold computers under the 'Vista Capable' label despite it being obvious that they weren't, simpy because they knew MS would be blamed, not them.

I agree that MS has made every effort to make this information available on the internet, but most people will not do enough research to discover this

Netbooks do not have 10% marketshare, therefore one (or both) of those statements is incorrect

I disagree, and have predicted that I shall be proved right after 7 is released. We shall see

You are incorrect, I did do research

Quote or it didn't happen. I have already admitted that I was initially unaware of XP Starter, but I believe this is a different situation due to the worldwide release of 7 Starter

Agreed - if someone were to read the thread title and not the 1st post they would get the wrong impression. I hope no-one did this however

Once again, quote or it didn't happen. It changed once when I found out about the existance of XP/Vista starter. I would hardly say I have been inconsistent in this thread. Also, this colour is gross.

 First the quote for anti-virus "The three-app rule includes applications running in the background, meaning that a user running Windows Messenger and Skype, for example, could only use one further application on their machine. Antivirus software is excluded from the app count." (PC Pro http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/246859/windows-7-a-nonstarter-on-netbooks.html). Microsoft also has every reason in the world to be very generous with what is or is not classified as an anti-virus program. I imagine the company will just have to submit the program for approval and work from there.

 Now for XP starter "XP had a starter version, yes. It was capable of running many programs at once, limited only by the specs of the computer," (scroll up). Your initial complaint seems to be the 3 app limit. Then you go on to it being a problem of Home premium being more expensive and just a way to jack up the cost while not giving any prices for these potential OSes. Then you go on about how it will be pushed onto consumers and make them suffer through it which, somehow, you think a corporation as successful as Microsoft would see as a good plan. I have also been sore and crotchety all day so I might just be attacking something thats not entirely there. I'll apologize later if I think thats the case.

 Now, I would agree the Vista capable fiasco can be partly attributed to hardware vendors who are not getting taken to task for it in the court of law. Unfortunately for them Microsoft can due it through the old wys of bullying and dickishness. The problem with fighting a monopoly is you have no alternatives when they start being dicks. Microsoft will be the ones liable if the 3 app limit is not correctly advertised, which gives them all the incentive in the world to force everyone who licenses it to clearly state that limitation. Refuse to put the limitation, and you don't get that version of Windows. Simple, legal, and smart.

 This could be a combination of factors. Microsofts internal research could have a different number, they could be attempting to predict the expanded market, they could be planning on a limited push outside of the netbook market or it could be the PR guy had his hard numbers wrong. I cannot speak to the truth of it all as I don't have a list of hard numbers, nor the Microsoft Windows 7 master plan in hand.

 Oh and more people will read the thread title than will read the initial post. No one clicks on every thread they see. Honestly, I almost didn't click because I knew it was talk of the Starter edition, but wanted to make sure nothign was being blown out of proportion.

I spose for most of this we shall have to wait and see how it is implemented. I would also like to see what the pricing is like on the various SKUs, but MS has made no official comments as of yet.

And yeah, I couldn't really think of a way to compress the whole article into a thread title

come on... it sucks...

How about Microsoft just makes one version instead of bullshitting around and screwing people? "Oh our operating system is only 150 dollars! ..buut if you want an actual good version youre gonna have to fork out 400..

That's what they always used to do, a client edition and a server edition.

If I recall, they started testing it with XP and went full fledged with Vista. You know, windows 7 might be stellar but if they pretend people and business to drop 200 smackers just to have the timestamped backup feature enabled, it's gonna hurt them.

 It has essentially always been this way. 2000 had 3-4 versions aimmed either at consumers or businesses depending on the name. Before that they just had two seperate lines of OSes that they worked with. You had the 9X series more targetted towards the home user, and the NT series designed more for businesses and the like in the exact same vein as the current set-ups. Hell, even Windows 3.1 had an extra version in 3.11 with networking support to make it more worthwhile in a business environment. The multiple versions will work because it has always worked. You are just now becoming aware of it though.

LOL...I guess they don't want to sell the basic software.