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Microsoft drops personalization from Windows 7 Starter, locks wallpaper
We already knew that Starter would be extremely feature-limited. How full an experience would you expect from an OS that can only run three programs at once?
Regardless, one feature has been crippled that has a lot of people confused. In Windows 7 Starter Edition, the personalization option on the context menu isn't available. Worse yet, users can't even change their wallpaper.
Granted, Starter is only available in emerging markets and will probably only be used on very low-cost PCs (like netbooks) on which OEMs still want to provide a taste of the "Windows 7 experience." Taking that into consideration, letting manufacturers lock users into an OEM-branded wallpaper almost makes sense. Almost.
A little bit of permanent advertising in exchange for dropping the one desktop customization nearly every user wants to use seems like a poor trade-off.
We should remember that all Windows 7 versions are still in beta testing and we don't know for sure what Microsoft's plans for the RTM will be. With all the ruckus the Starter wallpaper lockdown has created, Microsoft will have to either make it customizable or stick to their guns and tell us all that personalization was never part of the plan for the most limited feature-limited version of Windows 7.
Fear not, future Starter Edition users. Rafael Rivera has already figured out how to circumvent the lock.
Comments
27
Subscribe to commentsQuikboyMar 29th 2009 10:57PM
Windows 7 Starter might be more useful for some institution like a library or an elementary school. You know, where you just need the basics, and nothing more than that. Doesn't seem like an OS made for personalization, but just for basic use. It'd be relatively cheap and not too much of a hassle to work and restrict user options with.
DavidMar 30th 2009 12:13AM
Well that settles it - when I pirate Windows 7, it'll DEFINITELY not be the Starter version!
vvtopkarMar 30th 2009 12:44AM
I don't think you guys get it.
Simply having the ability to, say, change the wallpaper of a desktop is one more variable, and one more thing to variably render on the screen (since the variable in this case, could be ANY picture). What Microsoft is doing here is removing that variable, thus saving precious system resources, something that anyone running Starter Edition will need. How much do you want to bet a gazillion other things in that version will be locked as well? It's all for a reason. You should all be praising Microsoft for being able to remove so much stuff for the sake of system resources.
Oh, and by the way, please stop calling them "M$," it's just plain childish.
JohanMar 30th 2009 3:14AM
It is obvious that Microsoft is doing this to enable subsidized models to have a branded desktop. Think Vodafone offering a subsidized netbook with a Vodafone wallpaper. I think it is a pretty smart marketing move from Microsoft, even though more tech savvy users will probably be able to quite easily work around this.
Lee MathewsMar 30th 2009 7:14AM
Still - have you ever seen a color cell phone that didn't allow the wallpaper to be changed? I haven't, but maybe things are different outside North America.
It's the fact that the most basic personalization option has been removed. It's just the wallpaper, after all.
@vvtopkar: if you think "saving system resources" was the goal here, think again. How much memory/cpu does the custom wallpaper require on your PC?
There are plenty of options that could be dropped that would make more of a resource impact than wallpaper.
NoAndThenMar 30th 2009 10:03AM
Starter is bullshit. Only 3 apps at a time? Oh, ok.
1.) Antivirus (it is still windows, right?)
2.) Explorer/my computer window
3.) Web Browser
Shit, I need to look at my documents, looks like I'm shutting down my antivirus so I can do that... oh my computer has a virus! @#%*& windows...
This is so dumb. I'll stick with XP for netbooks, thanks. And my wallpaper.
KeegdnaBMar 30th 2009 7:21PM
or, y'know....you could get home premium cause it'll run fine