“This article is an overview that discusses the differences and similarities between Windows XP Starter Edition and Windows XP Home Edition. These differences are discussed for entertainment, networking and sharing, printers, system requirements, languages, and security and safety features. This article is part of a series written to provide support to independent software vendors interested in designing programs for Windows Starter.”
Got anything on Windows Legacy, by the way?
with all the current fuss being devoted to the release of vista, isn’t this something like an afterthought ?
As I understand it, Windows Starter is mostly aimed at contries in which the piracy situation is not under control. People who can’t afford XP now won’t be buying Vista, but they may buy a ‘starter’ version of Windows XP. Not offering something like this is like leaving money on the table.
Considering that three programs is enough to open a music player, an internet explorer, and an instant messenger, that’s good enough for 90% of the people out in Internetland.
you can believe this, piracy is not under control here in rio. street venders have been hawking vista since beta 1. walk into any lanhouse here, and you will never, never find xp starter edition.
That I don’t understand. A computer with the guts to handle Vista (at least with aero, one of the key things differentiating it in the public’s eye from XP) would cost more than Vista itself. I can’t picture people pirating computers, so why Vista (other than that they can). Either they have a bit of money to spend on their machine, or they don’t, in which case they won’t have a good Vista machine anyway ?
Maybe they are in it for the security updates. Or DX10.. dunno
Anyway, not everything is black and white of course. A computer is cheaper than a computer + vista afterall[/shades of grey]
Edited 2007-03-08 23:38
well, i don’t want to wear out my welcome on this article, but i feel certain that most street venders have no idea what it is they are trying to sell, they can only identify with the name microsoft windows. probably most of them don’t even have a pc to begin with. so, in perspective that you can not understand why they are trying to sell this….don’t feel bad, i’ve been living here since sept. 2005 and i understand almost nothing at all about brazil.
Edited 2007-03-08 23:53
Agreed. Microsoft’s futile efforts to stop piracy merely slow down the pirates. Only legitimate, paying customers are inconvenienced by WGA’s draconian tactics or ensnared in WGA’s false “positives”. Since security in only an illusion, hackers will always find a way to circumvent such measure and enjoy the choicest software free of charge. Those more ethically minded among us will simply switch to free, open source software and never look back. Either way, Microsoft loses revenue, but not enough to scratch the surface of their vast empire.
Agreed. Microsoft’s futile efforts to stop piracy merely slow down the pirates. Only legitimate, paying customers are inconvenienced by WGA’s draconian tactics or ensnared in WGA’s false “positives”. Since security in only an illusion, hackers will always find a way to circumvent such measure and enjoy the choicest software free of charge. Those more ethically minded among us will simply switch to free, open source software and never look back.
So well said it’s worth repeating all of it! I for one hope Microsoft take their anti-piracy measures to the Max!
Either way, Microsoft loses revenue, but not enough to scratch the surface of their vast empire.
Oh, I wouldn’t bet on it. Sooner or later they will become an also-ran, a forgotten force. It’s the fate of all businesses – and “The higher a statue is raised, the harder and more dangerous the impact when it falls.” (Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer)
I wonder with how quickly the activation has been cracked, and made it very easy to do so, if all the time and money and resources Microsoft employed to prevent piracy, if they would have removed the proctection and avtication and sold Vista Ultimate (as the only Vista retail version) for $49.95 each.
I wonder with how quickly the activation has been cracked, and made it very easy to do so, if all the time and money and resources Microsoft employed to prevent piracy, if they would have removed the proctection and avtication and sold Vista Ultimate (as the only Vista retail version) for $49.95 each.
First, without protection, Vista would have been almost immediately incorporated into Linux. Debian Vista, Gentoo Vista, Red Hat Vista, and Vistbuntu would have come out before the beta finished.
Second, that sort of price is silly for an operating system using a legitimate development model. Unlike companies whose business model involves convincing their end users that their giving up their own time and skill to develop for a corporate product is their idea, Microsoft pays its developers six figures, with benefits that leave the rest of the industry (and truth be told, most other industries) behind, and they have never ‘downsized’ their workers to save a little money.
Edited 2007-03-09 02:47
Microsoft pays its developers six figures, with benefits that leave the rest of the industry (and truth be told, most other industries) behind, and they have never ‘downsized’ their workers to save a little money.
Linux programmers get paid too. There might be some occational people that contributes code for free, but that could be seen as a cost for marketing for their consulting skills. Nobody is forcing them to contribute.
Most of the Linux developers work in large companies who benefit financially from the success of Linux, and thus are prepared to pay salaries to Linux developers. IBM would be a good example of such a company. They support Linux to sell more servers and consulting services.
Another thing, there are more programmers working in non software related industry doing in house development, than there are in software houses like Microsoft. They get paid because their work facilitates the sales of some non software or even non computer related related product in the same way that IBM manages to sells more servers due to Linux. You may in fact be paying a Linux developer more often than you think. It could be when you fill up your car with gas, or when you buy groceries.
First, without protection, Vista would have been almost immediately incorporated into Linux. Debian Vista, Gentoo Vista, Red Hat Vista, and Vistbuntu would have come out before the beta finished.
You obviously have no idea what you are on about. Vista and Linux code are completely incompatible at the source code level.
Second, that sort of price is silly for an operating system using a legitimate development model.
You’re a bit late to get on the “open source is communism” bandwagon. They don’t make that kind of petrol no more.
The fact that drivel like the post I’m replying to gets modded up is physically nauseating.
You’re a bit late to get on the “open source is communism” bandwagon.
The fact that drivel like the post I’m replying to gets modded up is physically nauseating.
Here in America, we think that people who spend years of their life learning arcane code and mastering organizational techniques in a field that straddles science and art, and then spend years of their life developing complex products when there is strong competition no matter what they work on, should get paid for their work. We also think companies that trick people into doing their work without pay and then go off to make a profit off of it are commiting fraud. These should not be foreign ideas to you.
And as to ‘open source is communism’ — have you read the GPL yet? The text of the license is readily available, and it’s worth a readthrough before you accidentally use any software released under it.
So hmm… wtf are you talking about?
Getting paid for your work has nothing to with whether you code open or propietary code.
Do you really think the linux kernel coders work for free? Get a clue.
As for communism in OSS: 70’s called, they want their anti-communist FUD back.
Do you really think the linux kernel coders work for free? Get a clue.
It’s as unoengborg said*; Linux developers have to take up a second job, such as pumping gas or bagging groceries.
* http://www.osnews.com/permalink.php?news_id=17454&comment_id=219882
As for communism in OSS: 70’s called, they want their anti-communist FUD back.
What is this “FUD” that Linux users keep speaking of? Whenever a fault or flaw in Linux is pointed out, they keep blaming it on FUD. I’d think that if FUD was so horrible, a sane developer would have quit using it years ago, but still, it’s brought up as the explanation for every fault in Linux. Is it part of the kernel?
Take a look at kernel contributions, pretty much everything comes from companies nowadays.
As for the FUD, I was talking about the american anti-communist propaganda during the cold war.
It’s kind of funny that you try to relate FUD with linux, seeing how these days so many astroturfers are eager to call FUD on all those bad reviews vista is getting.
It’s as unoengborg said*; Linux developers have to take up a second job, such as pumping gas or bagging groceries.
I like the part where you completely fail to address the other points connected with unoengborg’s post, such as the fact that having to have a day job is common in other (particularly artistic) industries – presumably because they refute the content of your post.
If you want to continue the situation we have now, where one company dwarfs all others in the (proprietary) software industry and hte only way to have anything like a future in it is to be an employee of that company, then you, too are either an employee of that company, or else a fool.
Ok, I think it’s time for a little reality check:
Here in America, we think that people who spend years of their life learning arcane code and mastering organizational techniques in a field that straddles science and art, and then spend years of their life developing complex products when there is strong competition no matter what they work on, should get paid for their work
If people want to develop code in their spare time and share them, then I guess also in your (North?) American country this should be ok for even the fiercest proponent of liberal markets, no? And many people actually make a living as administrators, developers, programmers, consultants, etc. not despite, but because of the FOSS development model.
Currently, we have for example a pulling market situation here in Europe where people with good skills in Linux- and FOSS related development are actively searched by companies.
And to add a little perspective, not every programmer is able to make a living in the proprietary software business either, e.g. the “I could have been a famous singer, if I had someone else’s voice” syndrome ( (c) Connor Oberst @ Bright Eyes). I know many artists who rely on their day-job in order to earn enough money to sustain their live, because their income as an artist would not suffice. “Quit your day-job” is simply not an option for many artists and programmers alike (and I have to agree at least with the tiny fraction of your comment, where you placed computing in the vicinity of art)
If you could provide pointers towards testimonials of programmers who started to work in the FOSS oriented software industry and were refused payment later (because that’s what your comment seems to be about), then this would be highly appreciated.
Furthermore, since you seem to concentrate your comment on the particular field of operating systems, pray tell: Where is there (or would be, without FOSS operating systems) a strong competition? We have one single company dictating the market with a 90%+ market share (MS), perhaps this is my failure, but a competitive market looks different where I’m from.
Without open source alternatives, we would be left with the only other significant competitor, Apple, who has only a marginally more open attitude (WebKit/KHTML, mainly), yes thank you, but no thank you.
And as to ‘open source is communism’ — have you read the GPL yet? The text of the license is readily available, and it’s worth a read through before you accidentally use any software released under it.
I would really suggest (re?)reading it. Right from Section 0. of the GPL2 [1]
Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License; they are outside its scope.
Got it? Merely using it is ok and comes with no strings attached as only distributing, modifying and copying is governed by a minimal set of rules. You may not subscribe to the rules or the philosophy behind this license, but you are still entitled to use the programs, which is a fundamentally different concept compared to usual (non-FOSS) EULAS, if you ask me.
In reply to your earlier post, I really would like to know more details about the scenario, where this
First, without protection, Vista would have been almost immediately incorporated into Linux. Debian Vista, Gentoo Vista, Red Hat Vista, and Vistbuntu would have come out before the beta finished.
would be even a remotely possible setting. You do realize, that “anti-piracy” measurements like the release of a heavily restricted XP Starter editions have little to absolutely zero to do with the flow of code from one OS (Windows Vista) to a completely different, incompatible (at code, license and philosophy level) family of OSes (the Linux distributions you wrote down in your list), as others have already pointed out?
If there is a logical sound theory (consistency with itself and the reality would definitely be a big plus too) behind this statement, I would be very eager to hear it.
[1] http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html#SEC3
Edited 2007-03-10 12:01
And as to ‘open source is communism’ — have you read the GPL yet? The text of the license is readily available, and it’s worth a readthrough before you accidentally use any software released under it.
Yes, I have read it actually, and having read it there’s more chance of my using it deliberately than of my using other licences “accidentally”.
As for other parts of your post, they have already been well-enough shot down by others, whom I take this opportunity to thank.
“You obviously have no idea what you are on about. Vista and Linux code are completely incompatible at the source code level. ”
Not to speak of licensing incompatibilities. It is totally irrelevant whether WGA and other authentication schemes are actually implemented.
I call this “junk FUD” ;D
Even at $49.95, folk would still pirate it. I know a fell who is dealing with a crack to the activation on his program, that he sells for $40; who the hell would steal something so cheap? Answer: everybody
Second point is that like most people here, you have completely missed the point of having different versions of Vista. Not everyone has, or needs the kind of machine that Ultimate needs to run, so having only one version at retail wouldn’t work.
Having said that though; the seven or eight different versions is way too many.
Not everyone has, or needs the kind of machine that Ultimate needs to run, so having only one version at retail wouldn’t work.
Not everyone has the kind of machine needed to run doom3 at full res with all the effects, yet you didn’t see ID releasing 5 versions of the game.
What if ID has decided to sell a version that only did up to 1024×768 16bit for half the price. Would you buy that instead if that’s all your system could handle?
For my part, I would. I don’t compete in the graphics card wars ^^;
What if ID has decided to sell a version that only did up to 1024×768 16bit for half the price. Would you buy that instead if that’s all your system could handle?
No, because that would mean spending more money on the long term. If the game is really worth playing I’d want the full version as soon as I upgraded, even if that was a couple of years latter (if it’s not then I wouldn’t even consider playing it to begin with).
My computer could barely run Quake3 back in the day, but now I play with all settings at max.
Edited 2007-03-09 15:02
Ok. What if you could then upgrade to the FULL version by paying the difference between the full version and the version you have? Don’t you think that’d be a nice deal?
Because that’s how Vista works.
Probably for some, I’d rather get the whole product and then decide by myself what to install and how to configure it in order to adapt the product to my hardware and needs.
Why not save the money up front just in case you decide not to upgrade for one reason or another? It is indeed a good option.
That depends on the price. I don’t think windows ultimate would be anywhere near as expensive if it was the only released version.
Back to the Doom3 example, if it was 60€, would the crippled version have been 30€ or would they have released it for 50€ increasing the premium one to 80€? Obviously there’s no way to know, but I highly doubt they’d have released a full game for half the average price, even if it was crippled in resolution.
. Only legitimate, paying customers are inconvenienced by WGA’s draconian tactics or ensnared in WGA’s false “positives”. Since security in only an illusion, hackers will always find a way to circumvent such measure and enjoy the choicest software free of charge.
I wouldn’t go that far. When Jane Average, who has an XP CD and gives it to her brother Joe to install on his computer tries to load the OS and it barks at him, Joe’s probably not going to know enough to go hunting for an XP crack for WGA that actually works.
I’ve investigated how to bypass WGA on XP (out of curiosity, as my two copies are legit) and most of the cracks I found would still not let you download updates .. they only disabled the notifications in the system tray. I had to try several before I found one that cracked it completely, and I’m told that using such cracks is like a cat and mouse game, sort of like hacking the firmware on a Sony PSP.
Point being, though it wouldn’t do much to stop people with real technical skills who wanted to pirate a copy, I don’t think the average person is gonna be able to bypass it, unless they know somebody with said technical skills
To be honest, the way I got the crack was to PM a friend of mine who I knew had a hacked copy of XP. If I would’ve had to scour the bowels of underground to find it myself, I probably wouldn’t have bothered.
As for XP Starter, I remember reading an article where it said how many copies they had sold, and though I can’t remember the exact number, it was quite a lot. God only knows why, but apparently some people find value in it. I just don’t see how you can sell copies in 3rd world country where you can get a full-blown Windows CD for $2 from some crook on the street corner.
Edited 2007-03-09 01:30
twenex: I for one hope Microsoft take their anti-piracy measures to the Max!
Me too. Preventing people’s computers from working correctly is supposedly what Microsoft is best at, but they don’t seem to be living up to their reputation. If people actually had to pay for Windows, it wouldn’t be so damn ubiquitous.
I’ve investigated how to bypass WGA on XP (out of curiosity, as my two copies are legit) and most of the cracks I found would still not let you download updates
Also great. If people don’t upgrade to “more secure” Vista because they don’t want to pay, and if people can’t get updates for their cracked installs, they will remain incredibly vulnerable to malware.
Things really do have to get worse before they get better. I was hoping that Microsoft’s disastrous Vista development cycle would result in a horrifically bad OS, but they churned out something marginally decent instead. Microsoft clearly must continue to release crappy software with frustrating limitations, and they must be more blatant about not caring about their paying customers. Come on guys, quit the gentle prodding, put on the brass knuckles, and give us everything you’ve got!
First step: get rid of volume licensing for OEMs. Everybody wants the awesome Windows Vista experience, and making it easy for OEMs to provide it is obviously making it harder to keep Vista from working on just anyone’s computer. Let OEMs give their customers blank computers and a $20 mail-in rebate coupon for Vista (Ultimate only). Everybody wants Vista, so even if you don’t put it on everyone’s computer by default, people will still buy it.
When WGA Notifications indicates that someone in the U.S. isn’t entitled to the Genuine Advantage (probably because they weren’t told how awesome this Advantage is), they are obviously breaking the DMCA. Issue a summons and encourage them to settle for $3,000 within two weeks in order to prevent a lawsuit. It’s your responsibility to your customers to make sure they receive their Advantage and that they do so in the most Genuine way.
Finally, it’s a proven fact that Microsoft knows best how their customers should be using their Vista computers. People don’t exercise proper judgment when using their PCs. They even install software and click on links that Microsoft’s top executives have never even heard of!! Stop the madness, and just tell your customers that there’s thousands of applications and millions of links that work with Vista, so many that there’s no reason to want anything else. If they insist, just trigger a hard reboot and a mandatory file system check. That’ll teach them.
Nothing will change until the sh*t hits the fan. No ridiculously limited and patronizing Windows version for developing nations is going to be enough for the feces to make it all the way to wherever they put the fan (if anyone can even find it). We just need to wait for Microsoft to realize once again that being an enormous proprietary software monopolist is boring unless you really piss your customers off… and do so in a remarkably Genuine manner.
I’m having a lot of difficulty trying to figure out what you’re saying here. Are you saying that you want Microsoft to suck so that alternatives can have a chance or are you saying that Microsoft isn’t interesting enough because it doesn’t fit the archetype of the evil monopolistic corporation to the Tee?
~Confused~
I’m saying that Microsoft sucks, but they don’t suck hard enough for most consumers to care. Alternatives that suck much less are being held back by the fact that people put up with Microsoft’s suckiness. It Microsoft sucked just a bit more, the market would move to solutions that don’t suck as much, and mostly likely those platforms will begin to suck much less because of the greater marketshare. Ultimately we might end up with one or more platforms that don’t suck.
Microsoft could decide to suck less, but that would make the situation suck more in the long run, because Microsoft probably won’t ever release a platform that doesn’t suck. If they did, it would probably blow.
I hope that clears things up.
Actually, I don’t think XP or Win2k sucked at all, and Win2k3 is a very stable, fast OS.
“Microsoft could decide to suck less, but that would make the situation suck more in the long run, because Microsoft probably won’t ever release a platform that doesn’t suck. If they did, it would probably blow.”
WTF does that mean, basically, you seem to be saying whatever MS does, even if they manage to suck less, it would still be a bad situation. Perhaps there is no pleasing you. If MS released an OS that didn’t suck, it would blow? are you 13? Come on, be reasonable.
There is lots of things to not like about MS and Windows, just like there is lots of things to dislike about Linux. All OSs suck, they all just suck in different ways.
Agreed. Microsoft’s futile efforts to stop piracy merely slow down the pirates.
———
This may be true, but the effort probably makes the investors feel better.
As I understand it, Windows Starter is mostly aimed at contries in which the piracy situation is not under control.
Which countries do have piracy under control?
The ones where you can’t buy pirated software/movies at most street corners.
Not fully under control, but at least mostly controlled off the internet.
with all the current fuss being devoted to the release of vista, isn’t this something like an afterthought ?
This isn’t a new product. XPSE has been available since 2003. There is also a Vista version of SE:
Fact Sheet:
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/newsroom/windows/factsheets/WinV…
Overview:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=0752507e-a…
Product Page:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/editions/sta…
Edited 2007-03-09 02:43
I will never purchase Windows Vista it is the slowest mess with UAC prompt boxes popping up all over the place like popcorn.
I will continue to use Fedora Core now on release 6 as we speak and ALL of my multi-media works even ebeded website stuff.
I will never purchase Windows Vista it is the slowest mess with UAC prompt boxes popping up all over the place like popcorn.
Yeah, cuz God knows Fedora Core doesn’t put up any login prompts when you attempt to exceed your current user privileges … /sarcasm
Yeah, cuz God knows Fedora Core doesn’t put up any login prompts when you attempt to exceed your current user privileges … /sarcasm
I totally agree even trying to change the background or anything else it dims to black and has a prompt box. This is out of control all because they built an operating system that had to be ran in Administrator in order to run certain programs. In a Linux distro you can run programs under your regular user account. If you need configure system files or updates yes you need root otherwise you do not need to tinker with it.
MS has dug a hole and had to go backwards implementing security after having full access not trying to get down to none. It cannot be done with causing nothing but problems and this is evident by UAC. Too little to later in my opinion and they have created a monolith of disaster!
The best thing they could do is to build a kernel and start with implementing security in it and building modules to operate outside this area. But then again we already a secure, efficient multi-threading operating system built choose your favorite Linux distro!
🙂
You know you can turn of the UAC prompts?
type msconfig.exe in run, in wondow that appears go to tools tab and down the list find “disable UAC…” and run it. Then reboot.
Voila.
You know you can turn of the UAC prompts?
Yeah, but if you do what happens to the security “improvements”?
One more reason to stick with XP or (better) switch to something else.
This isn’t even about Vista.
This isn’t even about Vista.
Oh, good. In that case it stands a chance of having some relevance!
No right-clicking? Maybe they should add a wav of Nelson going “Ha-ha” every time you click the right mouse button.
I can see where they are coming from with the other limitations, but that one just seems kind of silly.
No right-clicking? Maybe they should add a wav of Nelson going “Ha-ha” every time you click the right mouse button.
And if they dont do it i want a crack that allows me to .. lol .. brilliant !
Only 32bit PIII+ CPUs (and of course no multiple CPUs/cores/hw threads), max 512MB RAM, max 120GB HDD,1 monitor only, max resolution is 1024×768, not upgradeable to any other version/flavor, no multiuser, no password for the only user, no file sharing, no desktop theming, not even right-click, and the cherry on the top: 3-tasking (you cannot call that multitasking). Bottom-line: an embarrassment amongst third millenia’s OS’es.
Microsoft as usual is parlaying the concept that “leaving out” parts of XP can allow it to run on “legacy hardware” such as a 233MHz machine with 64M RAM; as it does with other products like “XP Embedded”, etc. This is a great distortion, most people find a machine that takes over 3 minutes to complete the boot process and 1-2 minutes (with great hard drive churning and noise) to open a small program to be unacceptable.
The problem is that Windows is total bloatware and is not easily reduceed into anything resembling “lean and mean” with any reasonable amount of effort. I find the minimum reasonable hardware for XP (any version) is Pentium III 400+ with 192M RAM and EIDE drive.
Try downloading “Starter XP” and running on the “minimum hardware” if you doubt my test results.
“I find the minimum reasonable hardware for XP (any version) is Pentium III 400+ with 192M RAM and EIDE drive.”
I think you’ll find that is also the minimum for any mainstream Linux-based OS running KDE or Gnome. If people want the features, they will pay for it in bloat. I wouldn’t run (K)Ubuntu, Fedora, or Suse in anything less than that either.
You can get modern distros that run well on lesser hardware, but they all use alternative window managers, such as XFCE or something like blackbox, these are very good WM’s, but are not full DE’s like KDE or Gnome.
Patronising.
No-one has mentioned it so far, but I found it extremely strange that Microsoft made the document available as a RTF file instead of the usual DOC format.
That is odd, expect them to start charging for wordpad.
Do you really think that someone who buys Windows Starter will have money to buy a legit copy of Microsoft Office?
The Windows XP Starter Edition Overview was very interesting. I think Microsoft has done a good job to protect these computers better through deactivated network features and shares. It seems that pcs with Starter Edition has a lower security risk on the internet, if connected.
This disk will be golden like Windows ME hanging on the wall amongst the greatest software ever written with the blue screen award winner.
Vista ME Gold Edition…
I think Timex Sinclair has more functionality for its time!