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Microsoft to scrap three app limit for Windows 7 Starter?
May 23rd, 2009 Barry Collins

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/blogs/2009/05/23 ... 7-starter/

Windows 7It appears Microsoft has come to its senses and decided to remove the completely arbitrary three app limit from Windows 7 Starter edition. Word of the U-turn comes via the normally reliable Paul Thurrott, who makes the claim in the briefiest of blog posts on his SuperSite for Windows, although there’s no official word from Microsoft yet.

Why the about face? Perhaps Microsoft has recognised what we’ve been telling them publicly and privately since this ridiculous announcement was made: limiting netbook owners to three concurrent apps is hugely frustrating. Open your email, web browser and IM client, and you’ve got to shut down one of them before you can fire up Media Player to watch the video clip you’ve just clicked on.

With competitors such as the Ubuntu Netbook Remix, the Intel-backed Moblin and Google’s Android all looming large, Microsoft probably decided it couldn’t afford to give PC manufacturers any excuse to look elsewhere.

So well done Microsoft. Now if you can see your way clear to putting BitLocker To Go into the Professional edition, we can all rest easy…

Of people who I know put w7 on a netbook, they say it is slow even just using a browser (as per Veronicazilla of Revision3/Tekzilla fame).

eddie wrote:Of people who I know put w7 on a netbook, they say it is slow even just using a browser (as per Veronicazilla of Revision3/Tekzilla fame).

I've heard the opposite from people that I know who have netbooks and are running Windows 7. They say that compared to previous versions of Windows, it's quite responsive. Of course, I'm not sure if this beta has implemented the 3-app-max at all, but it's probably in Microsoft's best interest to remove it in competition with GNU/Linux distributions on netbooks.

It's possible that those running Windows 7 on their netbooks are just experiencing the usual slowdown that is expected with netbooks or even issues with browser bloat. There are times where my Eee gets sluggish when using Firefox, but it's quite responsive with other apps running in the background. There just seem to be too many unmentioned variables in the claims of slowdown regardless of the OS running on a netbook.

Since Veronica is not pro linux, I would think her evaluation might be valid. I run debian on a pentium 1 laptop at 166mhz with 96 megs ram, I can not imagine linux being slow on a nettop if properly setup.