napilopez said:

While mac may be tailored at one market, it still works perfectly fine in other markets.

I haven't used vista installed from a retail disk, solely out of manufacturer installations.

Regardless of the market tailoring and whatnot, I see no true reason for separating into such a vast number of versions. Again, I'm fine with a Business/Professional Version, but why the need for starter and basic? I am quite sure you those people with starter and basic will very likely not enjoy Windows as much as those with the other versions.

My question is simply, why? I mean, besides the obvious money/marketing issue. XP is likely Microsoft most successful OS to date and that worked fine with simply a home edition and professional edition.

I'm not bashing MS, I actually love windows. I just dont see the need for such fragmentation in the different versions.

yet what you dont see is that is many notebooks and desktops of many types and sizes is that for netbooks there is no way you could run Vista ultimate or 7 (while 7 is leaner and i saw a someone actually using a 7 Ultimate on a MSI wind....) and for that matter gain anything from using it (in a netbook anyway...)
Why would you need MC....
or extra Networking options that will create more overhead for this netbook??
not to mention battery life?

you see there are in actuality only 3 editions you can get....
Home Basic Home Premium and Ultimate....

it shouldnt take a genius to know which is which...
Home Basic is just that a Basic edition of Windows that is geared for people that are only going to type and go on the web (maybe watch a movie or two)
Home Premium is for the people that want an entertainment Center but dont need any or use any networking extras....
Ultimate caters only for the people that have a Serious networking need and at the same time need that entertainer center

as for me i think (coming from experience from windows server side....)
that they should get rid of the Windows Enterprise....
Thats what's Windows Server Standard should be....
(AFAIK Windows Server 2008 Standard 10 lic is 1,182.99 which would come up to about a little more than 118 per licence which is even around the price of Windows XP MCE OEM disk....)

as for Starter

and for the Windows editions
you might not know that there was more than those 2 (as only those two get attention)....
(x64 aside since that is architecture)

Windows XP N
Windows XP Starter
Windows XP home
Windows XP Pro
Windows XP Corp
Windows XP MCE (the 2004 and 2005 are counted as Win MCE because they are more like R2 and R3 and thus should be counted as Windows XP MCE)
'' 2004
" 2005
Windows XP Tablet Edition
Windows XP embedded

as for starter
Starter wont be offered in the US....
its only Offered in Developing Countries....
such as you can see here
Windows Starter Edition Interactive Map


and im not bashing im just stating the facts....


Edit: Lmao i was typing when i believe i see your edit.....

actually there was three...
Corp was also launched with home and Pro...

napilopez said:

Well 7 works quite perfectly on netbooks from what I've seen/read. At least as well as XP it seems.

The problem I see is that what if you are one of these users with a "lesser" version of the OS, and then you realize you want a certain feature? I always wanted to try out dreamscene but couldn't without resorting to third parties. If 7 ultimate runs fine on weaker systems, why then give them a poorer version of the OS? I mean, 7 already takes steps towards tailoring itself to weaker systems, disabling aero and certain special effects. Also, it was my understanding that vista ultimate ran the best? Its not exactly hard for the manufacturers or even the OS itself to customize windows for running best on certain hardware. I remember back in one of the old versions of windows, I think 98 or ME, there were a whole bunch of networking features that weren't activated by default which I could activate if I wanted in control panel. So you don't need to have all the features activated, I would just think it would be fairest if everyone could activate them.

Maybe I'm just saying this because I'm actually planning on buying this OS, the first time I would ever be getting a Windows OS not coming from the manufacturer or a friend's CD. I don't want to have to shell out extra money for Ultimate. As I proposed in my first post, I would be fine if they sold only one retail DVD, from which you could install any of the bazillion different builds if so you choose without having to pay extra. But unless 7 Ultimate is very attractively priced, I will probably have to go with home premium.

like i said there are many systems with many different configs.....
as for the dreamscene for me i only used it once and didnt use it again (wasted battery life and CPU and at the same time distracted me....)
i mean its nice but i didnt think i will be running it again...
now desktop slideshow that i will use....
i have so many wallpapers that would be of use here....

as for the oldie days yes you had different options that could be setup in the setup (i remember in ME [have the most experience with ME] halfway through the install)

for most users dont need these options..... (at least the masses)
thats why they removed it (windows 2000 had the same set-up too [halfway you would choose the Net options])


actually like it was said before you can...
actually vista ultimate had the most services enabled which means a bigger memory footprint (AFAIK)....



AFAIK the ultimate ver had every version (should be the same with other editions that will be avaible [home edititions and Ultimate])
so you can try it for at least 120 days (if remember correctly...)
and since you will have vista (i believe dont know....)
you can just buy the upgrade and do a clean install with no key and then once you get setup activate it.....

as for me i am planning to go back to Server 2008 workstation and seeing and installing 7 until dreamspark gives me R2 (Windows Server 2008 Release 2)....
and most likely giving 7 home premium to other machine....