W indows 7, well the name itself is enough today to make people think “Yeah! Something cool is going to arrive soon”. Also there has been loads of POSITIVE reviews on Windows7 which no doubt has proved the success of it! But one thing is that Windows 7 does require a high end PC in order to give you all the performances it supports. If you are planning to install a complete version of Win 7 in an older PC then the result might not be that good!
Well for this, whenever Microsoft has launched any new product from the time of Windows XP, it always has included a special edition for Entry Level PCs, known as Starter Edition. There has been loads of talk about the upcoming starter edition of Win7, but it was not fully cleared, yet yesterday, Brandon LeBlanc made it clear on the windowsteamblog. He has mentioned everything Cleary about Windows7 Starter Edition ~ Inclusion, Exclusion everything. To know more about this please read on below…
What is Starter Edition?
Starter Edition are some special edition of OS’s specially designed for entry level PCs to run modern OS’s smoothly! Of course there are several restrictions there in starter edition which may include:
- Ability to run only 3 Application on a PC at a time [excluding background programs]
- Exclusion of many desktop enhancing features like Themes, Backgrounds etc…
- Overall configuration on the basis of System Performance NOT on the basis of Visual Appearance
Microsoft has been releasing Starter edition from the time of Windows XP. So you might have used/heard of starter edition of XP or Vista. But this time, it seems even Win7 Starter edition is also different from its ancestors. Read on below to know more!
What has been excluded in Win7 starter edition?
According to Windowsblogteam the following features seems to be disabled in Starter edition:
- Aero Glass, meaning you can only use the “Windows Basic” or other opaque themes. It also means you do not get Taskbar Previews or Aero Peek.
- Personalization features for changing desktop backgrounds, window colours, or sound schemes.
- The ability to switch between users without having to log off.
- Multi-monitor support.
- DVD playback.
- Windows Media Centre for watching recorded TV or other media.
- Remote Media Streaming for streaming your music, videos, and recorded TV from your home computer.
- Domain support for business customers.
- XP Mode for those that want the ability to run older Windows XP programs on Windows 7.
Note that like other final edition, this edition is not released yet! It is available only on certain places!
When to use starter edition and how effective it is?
It clearly indicates that one should only use the Windows 7 starter edition on some small Notebook PC or some old backdated Desktop PCs. As the starter edition includes only some subset of features of Win7 so there is no point of using it in modern PCs. If your PC meets the requirement then you should be using some higher version like Home Basic, Home Premium or Ultimate edition.
If we talk about effectiveness then it will be better to quote the words from Blanc
After using Windows 7 Starter out myself on my Dell Mini 9, I loved the advancements that it inherently offered versus Windows XP
But on the other hand it was not capable of playing DVDs which no doubt is a point of disappointment!
I also use it to watch videos and listen to music. Because I also have a portable DVD drive, I also sometimes watch movies on my Dell Mini 9 as well. I believe that the majority of consumers will want a version of Windows 7 – like Home Premium – that will make their small notebook capable of all the things that you could do with an “traditional” PC, like playing movies, working with documents, listening to music, working with photos, and even playing games.
So its quite clear that Starter edition will be worthy only if you use some small Notebook PC entirely for Business! If we are talking about Multimedia then no doubt Win7 Home edition Premium or higher will serve us best! Do share your views about Windows 7 with us!
