Most netbooks today come pre-installed with Windows 7 Starter edition, and there are quite a few limitation on a starter edition. One of them is that you can’t change the background wallpaper… and the good news is, there’s now a solution for this – using Samurize, a desktop enhancement engine for Windows.
Here’s where you can download Samurize, and check out the following video to learn how to change the background of a Windows 7 Starter netbook:
We know that Windows 7 Starter edition comes with some limitation. One of them is that there’s no DVD playback feature. For those who have purchased or are planning to purchase a netbook with Windows 7 Starter Edition, but would like to have the DVD playback feature, here’s a great freeware that will solve your problem – the VLC Media Player.
VLC media player is a highly portable multimedia player and multimedia framework capable of reading most audio and video formats (MPEG-2, MPEG-4, H.264, DivX, MPEG-1, mp3, ogg, aac …) as well as DVDs, Audio CDs VCDs, and various streaming protocols.
There are certainly other free third-party audio/video software out there for viewing DVDs — VLC media player is what we recommend. The important point is, don’t spend money to upgrade to a costlier version of Windows 7 if you just want to get the DVD playback feature!
Since Windows 7 was released on 22nd October, most netbook manufacturers started to pre-install their netbooks with Windows 7 Starter edition instead of the Windows XP Home Premium. In terms of price, there isn’t much difference between these 2 OS.. so most people will naturally choose to go with the newer version. We have however seen quite a number of these customers, who choose to go with Windows 7 starter edition, being dissatisfied with the new OS due to the lack of some features on the starter edition. So when buying a netbook, it’s important to understand the limitation of Windows 7 starter, before deciding which version of OS to go with.
Below is a great video from com.puter.tv that explains the in and outs of the Windows 7 starter edition. In a nutshell, the limitation of the starter edition includes:
Many of these limitations are in fact not needed by a netbook.. except for the desktop personalization feature (not able to change desktop background) which most customers are complaining on. Also, if you have spend $50 to get an external DVD drive, the Windows 7 Starter edition will not be the OS version you want to go with as there’s no DVD playback feature.
If you have already purchased a netbook with Windows 7 Starter edition only to find out later that this OS is not what you want because of the limitation, you can consider spending $75.99 to upgrade Windows 7 Starter to Windows 7 Home Premium
