July 20, 2009, 5:48 PM — Microsoft changed their tune about providing a brain-dead Windows 7 version limited to running three applications at once for netbook vendors. Now Microsoft says Windows 7's improvements make it perfectly fine for netbooks without such limitations, except for one we'll talk about soon. But if Vista bogs down your netbook, will Windows 7 really be much better?
Some people believe Microsoft, and report improvements to the way Windows handles multiple open windows uses much less memory than Vista. I hope they're correct, but it's dicey to count on anything Microsoft says during beta periods.
The Register in the UK reports that the Windows 7 Starter Edition used on netbooks will be stuck with the Microsoft-supplied desktop background and color scheme. That seems a strange way to save resources, because backgrounds and color schemes don't take much disk space to save or resources to change, so there must be more to it. I bet this is one feature that will change between now and the shipping date, whenever that is, because of pressure by big hardware vendors.
Folks like HP and Dell load plenty of extra junk on their systems. While I'd be happy to see that stuff go away, I'll be amazed if HP and Dell and others accept a Microsoft desktop image they can't change so they can add their their own logo to the systems they sell. I suppose Microsoft could change that limitation and just let vendors lock their own screen images in place and not let the users change anything. However, right now, the Windows 7 contract agreement says the vendors can't change the desktop details.
I certainly hope Windows 7 runs like a jackrabbit when loaded on my next netbook. I'm just not getting my hopes up. I don't ever remember a Windows operating system that ran faster than its predecessor. Will Windows 7 be the first to slim down and run faster rather than bloat up and run slower? We'll see one of these days.
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