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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."
...then don't use it.
Microsoft isn't certifying the most popular competitors to it's own software. Pardon me if I don't appear shocked. I was a bit suprised to see Google's desktop search made the list though.
"He may be mad, but there's method in his madness. [...] It's what drives men mad, being methodical." G.K.Chesterton
Has the Mozilla Foundation or OO.org submitted an application to undergo the testing program? Probably not.
This list is just the programs that are allowed to put that official Microsoft logo on the box that says the program will work with Windows. It doesn't mean that programs whose developers haven't bothered to go through the testing program aren't going to work in Vista.
Doesn't this just mean that if you can't get an Adobe product to work on Vista you need to go to Adobe as you would under any other OS? Why should MS need to help you make an Adobe product work on their OS, Adobe should be the ones making it work. I use Adobe as my example so the Open Source fans don't get in an uproar about MS keeping the competition down (not that they aren't, but I don't feel they are here).
Oh course Vista is a turd now, like every other Microsoft release. Which is why anyone with a lick of sense waits until the first service pack before deploying. Then it will only suck, but that is about as good as Microsoft knows how to make a product so those stuck on Windows have learned to live with that level of pain.
Of course ya just gotta feel sorry for the poor schmucks who buy a new namebrand PC between the release of Vista and SP1 since they don't get a choice. Which is just one more reason why only the uneducated masses buy a namebrand PC.
Democrat delenda est
Wel from MS's perspective anyway. The main purpose of Vista is to generate huge piles of income and revitalising interest to keep MS "fresh" in the eyes of the investors.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Why should MS be doing the work? All that list refers to is the list of applications submitted to Microsoft's "Designed for Windows" logo program. The onus is on Mozilla and Adobe to submit their software, not Microsoft to try to include everything.
FireFox works perfectly in Vista, so does Acrobat Reader. Photoshop doesn't, and drops the system into compatibility mode. Is this really Microsoft's fault?
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I wish that were true. Sadly, Adobe has several products for which they have dropped the Mac version completely (like Framemaker, where prior to this decision is accounted for 60% of their market). In my experience a lot of Adobe products are held back because they take care to keep them as close on Windows and the Mac as possible, meaning they ignore most of the really cool features of OS X that MS has not yet copied on Windows.
With Adobe's acquisition of Macromedia, MS decided it was time to take action. They have already started leveraging their monopoly to cut into Adobe's markets and will be doing so with increasing regularity. Adobe now has to choose whether to try to "negotiate" with MS, which insures short term profits but will kill them in the long term unless something changes, or if they are going to play hardball and throw their weight behind OS X and Linux in order to gain a better bargaining position.
Hell, they all probably work. Firefox sure does. They just haven't been certified. The certification process takes a while and you have to pay for it. Microsoft sets the requirements and some 3rd party company administers it. After the 3rd party company has certified your product, then you can put the Vista (or XP) logo on your product. You also get listed on Microsoft's web site as having a certified product. Not being on the list means you either 1) haven't bothered to be certified, or 2) you failed certification. It doesn't mean the software doesn't run on that platform.
Just an excuse to hate on Vista which is something pretty popular here. It seems there are lots of people who are just plain scared that Vista will be a success. They are worried it will end up being a good OS and lots of people will use it. So they end up grasping at any straw they can get. Anything that can be spun as negative, they do, hoping that it will shun people away from Vista.
I think you can expect to see lots more of it for many months to come on sites like Slashdot.
They put out the OS, it is up to the software vendors to make sure their software works with the OS. They knew it was coming and certainly had the time. Also, as others have pointed out, this is just a seal of approval program and doesn't mean the software won't run in vista.
Microsoft isn't certifying the most popular competitors to it's own software. Pardon me if I don't appear shocked. I was a bit suprised to see Google's desktop search made the list though.
I don't think that's it - I think it's just a rubber-stamp list of whoever signed up, paid their fee, and jumped through the hoops. If they were excluding competitors, I really don't think Google Toolbar would have made the list.
Sure. Adobe apps generally ignore system services and do not use that mechanism to share functionality between Adobe apps, instead implementing their own, limited variant that clones the behavior on Windows. As a result, Adobe apps waste the resources needed to duplicate functionality implemented by Adobe apps and other apps as well. They ignore even the default Apple included services like the dictionary/thesaurus service.
Adobe ignores most of the core graphics APIs that make it trivial for me to do something like add a watermark to every page of a PDF in a small shareware app, but which is still very hard to do to an existing PDF with any of Adobe's tools. It also limits the OS's ability to automatically take more advantage of multiple processors for OpenGL operations that are CPU intensive.
Adobe apps tend to ignore the capable command line in OS X as much as possible, including stdout, limiting the use of Adobe apps in scripted workflows and automation, instead relying entirely upon input from the GUI, except where Adobe did not consider it at all and the system automatically lets you do things. I can pipe data to Photoshop, for example, but Adobe had nothing to do with that.
Adobe is not going to start putting commercial apps on Linux any time soon. It is a support nightmare for a company like Adobe that has to support complete idiots.Adobe has had Linux and even Solaris versions of some of their applications in the past, but cancelled them to focus on Windows. They've cancelled even Mac versions of some of their software. I don't think this has anything to do with support costs.
...I say that practically no artist types know thing fucking one about a computer.There is one glaring problem with this statement. You're assuming Adobe's users are graphics people. Half the user base of Framemaker migrated from LaTeX. Dreamweaver is the favored Web development application of some pretty hard core nerds. Your generalizations are uninformed.
...But most artists need to pay someone like me to do even simple things like hardware upgrades...So you think this is argument against Adobe supporting OS X more? From where I'm sitting OS X is easier to use than windows and has more technically un-inclined graphics people. Adobe expanding support for the Mac and other platforms like Linux as well for certain apps, is a great way to put pressure on MS by facilitating the weakening of their core monopoly.
What does Microsoft have? They have market share (ie. a customer base). They don't have particularly innovative or high quality software products/services and their revenues are largely independent of their offerings. They have you (*). They just have to keep finding ways to repackage you (*) to keep generating income. If MS didn't make Vista, they'd keep selling XP. However, it is very hard to keep dishing up left overs and still keep a straight face. Vista is a statement more than a product.
Engineering is the art of compromise.