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Windows licenses have always been notoriously expensive,

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but did you know there used to be a few editions of Windows specifically made for regions

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where users typically have less cash to spend or less high-end hardware available to them?

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Collectively, they were called Windows Starter Editions

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and spanned three generations of the operating system,

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XP, Vista, and Seven. Windows XP Starter was released in 2004,

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around three years after the regular editions of XP came out

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and was targeted at certain countries in South America,

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South and Southeast Asia, along with Russia and Turkey.

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There was great demand for lower-cost PCs in these regions,

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meaning that Microsoft saw an opportunity to provide an operating system for those PCs

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and get lots of new users on the Microsoft platform.

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Microsoft was also concerned that Linux, which was freely available,

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would end up becoming the dominant OS in those parts of the world

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if they didn't step in with their own solution. Not to mention that they were worried

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that people would just use pirated operating systems if they didn't make Windows cheap enough.

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Of course, this stripped-down version of XP had serious limitations.

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It could only run three programs at once, maxed out at a screen resolution of 1024 by 768,

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and was only licensed for the lowest-end hardware.

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Think processors like the Duron and Celeron, and systems with only 512 megabytes of memory or less.

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But despite these limitations, or maybe because of them,

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Windows XP Starter was a hit. Microsoft sold over a million copies of XP Starter

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and followed up the success with Windows Vista Starter in 2007.

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But this is where things started to get a little hairy for the software giant.

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At first, it might seem like Vista Starter would be an easy upgrade from XP Starter.

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It had similar restrictions, designed to allow it to work well on lower-end hardware,

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but with the new Vista features and a more generous one-Gigabyte RAM limit.

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However, Microsoft seemed to have underestimated how graphically demanding Vista's new

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aesthetically pleasing Aero interface would be.

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Aero was one of the causes of Vista running poorly on even higher-end PCs outside of emerging markets.

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So Microsoft's decision to keep it in Vista Starter

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was a real headscratcher. Microsoft eventually decided to replace Vista Starter

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with Vista Home Basic, which contrasted with the more mainstream

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Home Premium edition. Home Basic had Aero disabled

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to lighten the processing load on lower-end PCs and ended up on computers for sale

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outside of the emerging markets we previously mentioned, including in the US.

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Part of the reason for the Home Basic release was that Vista had already developed a reputation

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as a frustrating OS to run due to the onerous hardware requirements.

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And Home Basic became a way for Microsoft to try and change this perception,

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as well as to sell old stock of underpowered computers originally designed for Windows XP.

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In fact, it wasn't uncommon to peel off those Windows Vista basic case badges

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to find a made-for-Windows XP sticker underneath.

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Yeah, basic. But as funny as this was, it did make a bit more sense for Microsoft

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to have just one lower-end version for underpowered hardware,

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regardless of the geographical location. Despite the fact Vista Starter didn't do so well,

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Microsoft pressed on with the Starter lineup, releasing Windows 7 Starter in 2009.

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Confusingly though, Starter was now the addition designed

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for the then-popular Netbooks, small, low-power laptops that attracted users

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that mostly needed a PC for simple internet-based tasks.

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Like the other Starter editions, it had a memory limitation, two gigabytes in this case,

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but unlike those other ones, Windows 7 Starter had a foothold in more developed nations

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due to being designed for Netbooks. Instead of getting the new Starter,

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the emerging markets got Windows 7 Home Basic,

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which now had a larger eight-Gigabyte memory limit.

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But this would be the last time that Microsoft produced a stripped-down Windows version

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for certain parts of the world. As even lower-end hardware became more powerful,

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running Windows became easier, especially as Microsoft kept the system requirements

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of Windows 7, 8, and even 10 fairly similar.

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How nice of them. But the lack of Starter editions following Windows 7

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actually contributed to the death of the Netbook,

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which is a super-interesting topic in its own right. So if you'd like to know more

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about how the Netbook disappeared after having 15 minutes of immense fame in the late 2000s,

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go watch this video next.