Tuesday, June 09, 2009

I have to laugh. Microsoft marketing is such a crock!

Microsoft first touts that they will allow Windows 7 to run on Netbooks, but only 3 applications at a time.  Now they are considered more serious and competitive that they have lifted that restriction?!!  It's still the most basic version of Windows only, and without the cool features that the higher-end versions will include.  Plus, while Windows may take less resources, you still have to get all of the security applications (anti-virus, anti-spyware, etc.) which will take their chunk of resources leaving little for the applications you want to actually DO anything!

Meanwhile, Linux is running and as full-featured as the desktop versions you want and runs better on the lower-memory systems than the cluster-f$#% Windows that has had to be ripped apart to work on something so small!  It can run with the latest kernel with applied patches and applications of your choice. 

While I may not recommend running Blender 3D animator on a Netbook, if you really want to ... you can.  For many applications, too, not only are there alternatives, there are alternatives geared to being lighter on resources which may fit the bill.

Sad thing is, people are buying Microsoft marketing.

6 comments:

Khelben said...

If it actually is true that you say that Windows 7 only can run 3 applications at the same time, then it's a less powerful operating system than the old AmigaOS, at least on Netbooks.

Of course AmigaOS would need to be run in the UAE emulator.

Have they made this restriction for Windows 7 on Netbooks to make it more stable?

Anyway, regarding Microsoft marketing, yea, people are buying whatever they say. It's the way it's been for years.

Drew said...

They had that announced a while ago, when they first announced that it will run on Netbooks.

I think it was because of the lower-memory available on most netbooks but they got so much flack for it they did what they could to lift it.

It may have also been an attempt to keep people from WANTING a netbook so they can go into the higher-margin laptops with the better version of Windows.

Paul said...

I tried to run Win 7 on my test computer and the partition editor would not format the disk for whatever reason so I gave up. Overall it has been getting rave reviews, I just do not understand the need to have windows on a netbook. I have yet to run into any restriction by running Ubuntu on my netbooks. I am going to agree with Drew though and say that a crippled netbook market benefits microsoft so they can steer people into the larger more profitable computers. They have been practically giving XP away to the netbook makers just for the sake of market share.

konqueror7 said...

That sucks! Netbook is already limited on hardware, now Microsoft limits it on the number of applications running? I would rather go with Moblin than Windows7 on Netbooks, and much more with Ubuntu-Moblin integration.

Drew said...

That *WAS* their limitation. They announced that this limitation was lifted and made it sound all "oooo" and "ahhhh" when it was their own real/imagined limitation in the first place.

Linux never had that limitation.

Heck, until a little more than a year ago, I was running on a P3 500Mhz system and it was "alright" (didn't bother with OpenOffice, but was good for email and browsing)

konqueror7 said...

Glad they lifted it, just read it on TechRepublic.

I just don't see the purpose of having a Netbook at all, even installed with Linux or a more lightweight OS.

If you want portable computing, go with a laptop, and not go with a Netbook which faily limits you in almost anything, ultra-mobility is its only advantage.