Unable to change Windows 7 Starter wallpaper!

Thankyou kindly John The Greek for this info,followed your instructions and it worked perfectly ! A friend who insisted it could not be done is now wiser and £80 worse off after paying for an upgrade !

I am sure that if Bill Gates picked up a netbook and tried to change the wallpaper he would be floored to find out there were useless gadgets insalled while wallpapers were turned off.  You can bet his netbook would be enabled immediately.  But to Microsoft employees the rest of us are just useless SOBs that happened to buy something using a MS operating system.  All they need to do is send out an update.  It is a simple fix and takes up no space compared to other enabled options. 

I am starting to believe Microsoft managers are no better than that profound idiot Steve Jobs at Apple

Changing my background is a neat feature, however it isn't my primary grienvance with my netbook.  Mine is Bloatware. If there is one thing I DESPISE is bloatware, Adware, and spamware, something big computer makers are notorious for pre-cramming on their HDD's, so you have a nice bloated HDD straight out of the box.

Furthermore, what many don't realize and what I think is further irony to this whole "upgrade your netbook OS" option is that the primary reason why netbooks come preloaded with Windows 7 Starter is specifically because they simply aren't powerful enough to run the other versions of windows 7.  I, myself, just purchased an Acer Aspire ONE netbook, with 1 GB RAM and 250GB HDD.  I think some people here are expecting a bit too much from their new product. Let's try to keep things in perspective here, we're paying for mobility, (at least at this point in time) and thus, a compromise must be made.  The compromise in this case is a drastic reduction in processing and memory capability.

On my way home I was looking forward to formatting C: and installing my Windows 7 Ultimate Edition, thus cleaning out my HDD and starting "Fresh", if you will.  Prior to doing this I was sure to do my homework.  I found some VERY valuable information in regards to various upgraded versions of win7 and how they interact with netbooks (the majority of them anyways).   I highly recommend reading this http://www.cio.com/article/490588/Windows\_7\_Ultimate\_on\_a\_Netbook\_See\_How\_it\_Runs article in reference to this.  It appears as thou our netbooks may not even BE able to run the Ultimate edition, let alone Home or Premium.

On the other hand, there is indeed a way to install these versions and "scale them back" significantly enough to be able to function properly on the system.  A very comprehensive, step-by-step article on how to perform these downgrade "tweaks" can be seen here http://www.ehow.com/how\_5633623\_adjust-windows-ultimate-netbooks.html .  This would apply obviously to any version other-than the much loathed Windows 7 Starter.

I am still considering doing a format, then clean install on my netbook. Im feel confident enough with those options disabled that it may barely be able to squeak by playing a YouTube video at 320p =).

Hi Sharon.

Thanks for your reply it was the best one yet, these guys actually found a way around most of the problems.

Now it is only a matter of leaving the wallpaper hack in place and playing with the personalization via partially hidden menus. to bad the transparent Aero theme is not there anymore. that was the only thing making win7 look better than the rest. and the preview icons..  Oh by the way.. the quick launch problem still exists("quick launch vanishes" - on this forum) and I hope MS will fix that soon... slim chances though.

Well thanks for the quick reply Sharon, I am sorry I mistook you for a MS employee but It seemed like that to me after reading some of your replies.