Windows 7 starter and "older" XP programs

This is a dumb question.

I just bought a Toshiba NB205-N325 netbook for travel, and it came with Win 7 Starter Edition. A quick review of the Starter Edition on the net reveals that it won't run "older XP programs", but I can't find any definition of what that means. Does that include programs like Office 2003? What about Paperport 11? Short of trying to load these programs, is there any way of determining of they are compatible with the Starter Edition?

Assuming that some/all of these are incompatible with Starter, what version of Win 7 does one have to upgrade to in order to run the older XP programs?

TIA

 

Not a dumb question at all, considering the complexity of the various 7 types and spurious reporting and advertising of them.

Office 2003 should run fine, not sure about Paperport, try it and see If it doesn't install correctly first time, run the installer in Compatability mode for XP then set the Paperport .exe file to run the same way too.

What they *really* mean by "it won't run "older XP programs"", is that they want you to spend more money on the higher versions of 7 that can use XP Mode (IF your CPU supports it in hardware) - a virtual machine, to run legacy programs. (If you really get stuck, there are free VM software packages you can use to run older Apps, or Linux ... ).

There's not much software over the last 5-8 years that won't run on 7.

 

"What they *really* mean by "it won't run "older XP programs"", is that they want you to spend more money on the higher versions of 7"

You're kidding! They'd actually do that!

Seriously, I was hoping that would be the case, and am willing to go trial and error as you suggested.

Thanks, and Happy New Year to everyone.

 

Hey Satrow:

I was having problems with a really old program--you may remember the old Rex PIM, which my wife uses and loves because it is about the size of a credit card. Well, I was having problems installing the Information Manager on her netbook, as it kept hanging. So, I followed your advice re running it using the Compatibility Troubleshooter on the Setup, and it took a couple of attempts for me to get it right, but it worked!

So, thanks for the suggestion--really appreciate it.

Happy New Year.