Software Missing From Vista's "Official Apps"

PetManimal writes "Microsoft has just released a list of 800 applications it says are 'officially supported' on Windows Vista. What's special about this list, however, are the programs that are not included: 'Popular Windows software that is conspicuously missing from Microsoft's list includes Adobe Systems Inc.'s entire line of graphics and multimedia software, Symantec Corp.'s security products, as well as the Mozilla Foundation's open-source Firefox Web browser, Skype Ltd.'s free voice-over-IP software and the OpenOffice.org alternative to Microsoft Office.' Another area in which Vista has found to be lacking is gaming, as discussed earlier on Slashdot."

Comments

Re:If it won't work with what you need...

[h2_plus_O]

So now that Windows doesn't have support for this and that software

Actually, it does. Don't confuse logo certification with anything but what it is: a process where a MS-certified testing organization (like these guys) verifies that your app Conforms to specific guidelines that you really want your apps doing anyhow if you want them to run on Windows. This is what they check for, so there are no surprises.

It's not like your app won't work if it's not certified (otherwise how would they test it?). Being logo-certified just means you get to put a sticker on your retail box so that shoppers who only know that 'it's gotta work for me and I have windows' have some way to know it's been verified to pass those tests on their OS.

Re:If it won't work with what you need...

[Orion Blastar]

Actually Vista has a Classic Windows mode like OSX has a Carbon mode for Classic Macintosh, it does the whole WIN32 API. Any application that does not work just needs the API interface changed to work with Vista.

Just like when applications that would not work under OSX got patches released to make them work, so will Windows programs get that Vista patch to make them work under Vista.

I am using Vista and Firefox, Thunderbird, and Seamonkey all work, but Mozilla did not bother to test them to pass the Vista certification.

While there are a lot of commercial games that won't work under Vista due to draconian security protection preventing them, one can apply unprotect patches to bypass that draconian security protection from Game Copy World or whatever with the NOCD crack. Future commercial games will support DirectX 10, and only Vista uses DirectX 10, which means future games will shut out the Windows XP and lower markets because they cannot do DirectX 10. Civilization IV might have issues, for example, but Civilization V might not and only run under Vista.

Just like everyone moved to OSX and shut out the Classic Mac OS 9 and under crowd, so too will everyone move to Vista and shut out the XP and under crowd.

Yet I got a feeling that a lot of F/OSS projects will still support XP and under, despite the commercial software companies that have contracts with Microsoft to only make Vista versions.