Windows licenses have always been notoriously expensive, but did you know
there used to be a few additions of Windows specifically made for regions
where users typically have less cash to spend or less high-end hardware
available to them? Collectively, they were called Windows Starter Editions and
spanned three generations of the operating system, XP, Vista, and 7.
Windows XP Starter was released in 2004,
around three years after the regular editions of XP came out and was targeted
at certain countries in South America, South and Southeast Asia, along with
Russia and Turkey. There was great demand for lowerc cost PCs in these
regions, meaning that Microsoft saw an opportunity to provide an operating
system for those PCs and get lots of new users on the Microsoft platform.
Microsoft was also concerned that Linux, which was freely available, would end up
becoming the dominant OS in those parts of the world if they didn't step in with
their own solution. Not to mention that they were worried that people would just
use pirated operating systems if they didn't make Windows cheap enough. Of
course, this stripped down version of XP had serious limitations. It could only
run three programs at once, maxed out at a screen resolution of 1024x768,
and was only licensed for the lowest end hardware. Think processors like the
Duron and Celeron and systems with only 512 megabytes of memory or less. But
despite these limitations, or maybe because of them, Windows XP Starter was
a hit. Microsoft sold over a million copies of XP Starter and followed up the
success with Windows Vista Starter in 2007. But this is where things started
to get a little hairy for the software giant. We'll tell you why right after we
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At first, it might seem like Vista Starter would be an easy upgrade from XP
Starter. It had similar restrictions designed to allow it to work well on
lower-end hardware, but with a new Vista features and a more generous 1 GB RAM
limit. Microsoft eventually decided to replace Vista Starter with Vista Home
Basic, which contrasted with the more mainstream Home Premium Edition. Home
Basic had Arrow disabled to lighten the processing load on lower-end PCs and
ended up on computers for sale outside of the emerging markets we previously
mentioned, including in the US. Part of the reason for the Home Basic release
was that Vista had already developed a reputation as a frustrating OS to run
due to the ownorous hardware requirements, and Home Basic became a
way for Microsoft to try and change this perception as well as to sell old stock
of underpowered computers originally designed for Windows XP. In fact, it
wasn't uncommon to peel off those Windows Vista basic case badges to find
a made for Windows XP sticker underneath. Your basic. But as funny as
this was, it did make a bit more sense for Microsoft to have just one lower-end
version for underpowered hardware, regardless of the geographical location.
Despite the fact Vista Starter didn't do so well, Microsoft pressed on with the
Starter lineup, releasing Windows 7 Starter in 2009. Confusingly though,
Starter was now the edition designed for the then popular netbooks, small low
power laptops that attracted users that mostly needed a PC for simple
internet-based tasks. Like the other starter editions, it had a memory
limitation, 2 GB in this case. But unlike those other ones, Windows 7
starter had a foothold in more developed nations due to being designed for
netbooks. Instead of getting the new starter, the emerging markets got
Windows 7 Home Basic, which now had a
larger 8 GB memory limit. But this would be the last time that Microsoft produced
a stripped down Windows version for certain parts of the world. As even
lower-end hardware became more powerful, running Windows became easier,
especially as Microsoft kept the system requirements of Windows 7, 8, and even
10 fairly similar. How nice of them. But the lack of starter editions following
Windows 7 actually contributed to the death of the netbook, which is a super
interesting topic in its own right. So, if you'd like to know more about how the
netbook disappeared after having 15 minutes of immense fame in the late
2000s, go watch this video