Microsoft plans to add “several” netbook editions of Windows 7
With rumors suggesting an upcoming Apple tablet netbook, is Microsoft getting themself into more trouble than they intend to?
Just when Microsoft almost managed to redeem itself over the Windows Vista edition fiasco, they’ve blown it again. According to Bloomberg, Microsoft is planning to offer several netbook editions for Windows 7. The purpose of this is to drive consumers to opt for more expensive versions of Windows 7 instead.
So far the edition lineup is as follows:
- Windows 7 Starter
- Windows 7 Home Basic
- Windows 7 Home Premium
- Windows 7 Professional
- Windows 7 Enterprise
- Windows 7 Ultimate
HP made it clear that they will be selling Starter with their netbooks. If this is the case, then consumers can expect to end up dealing with 3-4 editions of Windows 7. Seeing that netbooks are most likely to be secondary computers, that means netbook users can look at having to learn the differences between up to 8 editions of Windows 7!
Do you think this is a score or dupe for Microsoft? Let us know in the comments.
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Tags: windows 7, windows 7 netbook, windows 7 netbook editions
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10 Responses to “Microsoft plans to add “several” netbook editions of Windows 7”
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For a website that is wanting to thrive on Windows 7, you sure know how to dump on it. I think having an edition designed for netbooks is good. It’ll run better. Optimized OS for the target hardware profile. As you know netbooks have funky, non-standard resolutions. Also note that the learning curve between different Windows 7 versions is the same. The difference is some functionality differences. Not an entirely new OS for each of the versions.
Haha, this is what I love best about being able to run my on windows 7 site. I think most sites that are geared towards OS are too one-sided. Although I like Windows 7, Microsoft isn’t perfect.
Doing something like this is one of them. I believe their original 6 were fine. Only Home Premium and Professional actually mattered. Starter would be there sometimes and Ultimate was an upgrade. But keeping in mind that the netbook is mostly a secondary PC, adding more editions is not exactly a good idea imo
“Several netbook editions”??? There is only one “netbook” edition. That would be the Starter version which is designed for slow netbooks because it can only run 3 apps at a time.
More powerful netbooks can, of course, run any of the other Win 7 versions.
Oh, and no one is going to have to “learn the differences between up to 8 editions of Windows 7″, because they will all work exactly the same way and have the same interface (with the possible exception of Windows 7 Home Basic, which, incidentally, you can’t get in the US).
But with 8 versions of windows, how do we decide which one to buy. i miss just having a home and pro version.
I’m probably going to end up saving for ultimate, just so i don’t run into the old issue of finding out a feature i wanted isn’t available. Or a feature i just found out about isn’t on my version
.
This was my major gripe with vista.
For most people it will just be home and pro. I guess things should become more clear when they market it. Ultimate will be like the best one to upgrade to.
They messed it up a bit with Starter, let’s hope they find a way to fix it.
Great announce, thanks for the info
I use a netbook as a PRIMARY computer. Ditched my snappy Core 2 Duo for an Atom. While some programs have posed problems with time delays (of course it’s the hardware), Windows 7 Ultimate (7048) runs perfectly with Aero enabled. Flip works great, Peek of course looks good as well. Media Center plays my DIVX shows and movies better than Media Player at times. I don’t believe a netbook edition is required and I frown on manufacturers going all the way to Starter. Starter should be the one that stays as a “third-world” build, and Home Basic should be your default netbook one. I am personally going to install Ultimate and forsee no problems.
Maybe something is happening with netbooks we don’t know about. Possibly prices will go even lower than we can imagine with the ION platform, who knows? Honestly in today’s era of computers, how can you only have 3 apps open. If it was no more than 5, I think I could live with that.
I heard that a lot of netbooks are having network card problems. Like my friend has an MSI wind and required some work before getting the internet working. But it’s good your’s worked out-of-the-box.
I am running win7 Ultimate (rc1) on a MSI wind, added memory now 2gig and bigger harddrive.
have got Adobe CS4 running happily (apart from the resolution issue already mentioned with other apps) and various other apps.
Watching fullscreen movies, emails downloading in background, antivirus scan etc running (happy as larry).
My Point….
Win 7 Home Premium should be the min ver for developed markets as all feedback I have seen on any site has shown that the current Netbooks (developed world) are more than capable of running the so-called standard version of win 7. And it is good.
Have pre ordered my limit of offer, (not happy that we are paying well over the odds in the UK as its the old story of changing the “$” sign for the “£” sign)
However I am that impressed with win 7 so far I am willing to bit that bullet.
One strange issue I have is that I can mannualy disconnect my WiFI or Bluetooth (so the light goes out on the case) but I remain connected to the WiFi router or Bluetooth device, re-boot change location etc.
I hope this dosn’t sound like a rant as I Am a big Fan on Win 7 and have been an early Beta tester and am running it on several systems.
The only network problems I have been experiencing is the Windows 7 driver for the Atheros AR5007EG wireless. Little quirk: if you RESTART, wireless card shows up as unknown network card that you CANNOT install drivers for. If you shut it down and do a cold boot, it works fine… or you can do what I did: just install the OEM drivers and be able to restart just fine… like I said, bug in 7 at this point. For any that are wondering, I own an Acer AspireOne and the only adjustments I’ve made from factory are upgrading from 1 GB to 1.5 GB of RAM, and I hover around 32% memory usage.