• Windows 7 Wallpapers
• Vista Wallpapers
• Windows Wallpapers

What Microsoft is hoping for is that users who buy a Windows 7 Starter edition powered netbook will be dissatisfied with the OS and use the built-in Anytime Upgrade feature to unlock a higher edition of Windows 7. The process is quick and simple and all you need is an internet connection and your credit card.

But let’s think about this for a moment. A typical netbook sells for between $200 and $500. The leaked prices for an Anytime Upgrade from Starter to Home Premium is around $85. This means that the OS upgrade costs between 15% and 40% of the original price of the system. That’s a huge chunk of change. And for what? A bunch of features that you could add using third-party free software. With the three-app limit in Starter now gone, unless you are bothered about not being able to change the desktop wallpaper, it’s hard to come up with a compelling reason to upgrade Starter-edition based netbooks (unless the desktop wallpaper says “You Suck!!!”).

Microsoft has an interest in keeping hardware prices high, because a $1,000 PC makes Windows 7 Home Premium seem a lot cheaper than if the PC cost $500. Microsoft was caught off-guard by netbooks. Not only did the new form factor make Vista seem bloated, it also made OS prices seem very expensive. Offering XP on netbooks was a stop-gap, but it highlighted technical problems with Vista that just couldn’t be allowed to exist in Windows 7.