laptop - What is Windows 7 Starter Edition?

I got my new mini laptop with Windows 7 Starter

What is the Starter Edition?
Can I install Windows 7 Pro or higher on the laptop?

Answer

Windows 7 Starter is a basic, more limited edition of Windows, designed for cheaper and/or less powerful computers. It has the following restrictions:

• The Aero theme has been disabled. This means you can't get any of that fancy transparency or UI candy.


• It only comes in 32bit. If a computer has more than 4GB of ram, it will only recognise a maximum of 4GB. For more advantages of 64-bit computing, see this SuperUser question.


• You cannot change the wallpaper. The wallpaper is locked to the standard 'Windows 7 Wallpaper'

You cannot buy this version of Windows by itself, as it is only available to manufacturers and system builders.

As long as your computer fits the minimum specs of the higher versions of Windows 7, then you should be able to buy, for example, Home Premium and install that.

For more information, refer to the Windows 7 editions article on Wikipedia