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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).
...were submitted for "Windows Vista" logo certification? If not, then, uh, what the hell is the point of this article? If you look at the title of the page linked to, it clearly says 'Applications that have earned the "Certified for Windows Vista" logo or the "Works with Windows Vista" logo'. From further down:
"The tables in the "More Information" section list the products that currently have earned the "Certified for Windows Vista" logo or the "Works with Windows Vista" logo. There are many applications that are compatible and work well with Windows Vista but that are not listed in this article. This is because such applications have not yet gone through the Windows Vista logo program or are still going though this program."
So I guess we should blame adobe, firefox, etc. for not being on the ball and submitting their apps? Is that the point of this article? Or just more VistaFud(TM)
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
This is a non-story, sensational only in its attempt to stir up a hornet's nest. (But this is Slashdot, so why am I surprised?)
There's no story here. There is some vague hint in the summary that Microsoft is purposefully not certifying software, but this is a vague and unsupported claim at best. The only real claim that can be made is that some software is not on the list... and so what? There are dozens of reasons. The software could A) not work with Vista, b) not have been submitted for testing, C) be in the process of going through the process...
What's the point? As another poster said, if it doesn't work, don't use it.
"It is possible to commit no errors and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life." -Peak Performance
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
From TFA:
Adobe, which will face competition from Microsoft this year when Microsoft releases its Expression suite of graphics and multimedia design tools, did not immediately return a request to comment.
"He may be mad, but there's method in his madness. [...] It's what drives men mad, being methodical." G.K.Chesterton
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.
They've footdragged so much on getting universal binary versions of their software to operate on Intel, that I'm not surprised in the least that they'd also foot-drag on Vista-savvy versions of their software. In an interesting turnabout, the fastest native version of their software (for the remainder of the year) - might be - be OSX for Intel - if the damn thing is released for the Mac users by summer.
Actually I'd be surprised if Adobe's stuff isn't usable in Vista as-is. It's probably just a marketing spat between the two insofar that Adobe wasn't going to commit itself to being "Vista Ready" when Microsoft sent out the promotional packets.
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?
PocketGamer.org - For the gamer on the go!
I use Firefox all the time on Vista and it works as well as anything. I would have been surprised to see it "Certified" by Microsoft, though. I have OpenOffice installed, but I barely use it on that machine. OO Writer doesn't have any problems opening, at least. I really haven't had any problems with iTunes, other than the issue where if I use the Windows utility to Stop/Remove the iPod instead of ejecting it in iTunes, the next time I plug it into that machine, Windows tells me its hard drive may have a problem. I haven't noticed any problems with any of my files on it, though.
I agree that the surprising part of TFA was the software that did make the list. The Google Desktop Search as you mentioned, as well as WordPerfect and some others. But then I guess they have to be able to show that some (a carefully selected portion?) of their competitors' apps can run, otherwise they don't get the privilege of saying that Vista can run all of this software you use that Mac/Linux can't. I don't think MS feels very threatened by WordPerfect, so it's OK to throw them on the list.
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.
Another area in which Vista has found to be lacking is gaming...
And people still claim Vista's not an OS X ripoff. What more proof do you need?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It's not Microsoft's responsibility to make other people's software run on their OS. Obviously it's their responsibility to a fair market to not deliberately hinder other developers' software in favour of their own, and of course it is in Microsoft's best interests for the most part to make Windows as backwards compatible as possible (there's no point having a decade of software compatability lock-in only to throw it away for nothing).
But of course a new OS will create compatability issues, and frankly many of the compatability issues with Vista are because of progressive things (eg. involving stopping use of the registry, forcing the proper use of user folders). It's the software developers' responsibility to make sure that those areas are covered, and frankly with the open way in which Vista was Beta'd no developers have an excuse for not being ready.
Spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and stupid comments are intentional.
You're not using InDesign enough, or using it hard enough. It can do it too.
I've also had Illustrator not totally lock up OSX, but lock it up enough to where all I can do is move the beach ball around the screen and swear.
I agree with your sentiment, but you're forgetting about Corel. Corel Draw is/was the biggest pile of crap EVAR in terms of reliability.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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.
shhh, you are not allowed to insert logic and reason into an anti-ms thread. a pox on you and your family. :)
always mosh clockwise
I don't consider that a reliable list. Firefox works great on Vista. I don't know about any of the other products except Symantic, which doesn't really work on XP.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
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.
Many stores like Fry's and Best Buy along with "custom" order computers like Dell and Gateway have all but removed windows XP from their selection. It's been a common point in the news lately that almost everybody out there selling computers has practically ousted XP in favor of Vista. The fact is, the customers don't really have an option to buy a computer with XP and very few are going to jump at the idea of spending an extra $100 to get the old operating system.
/. reader above, but rather the generic consumer that only understands that they buy a computer, plug some stuff into the wall and their cable modem, and they can read email, hit some websites, and watch some porn. These people are still limited to windows (or a Mac, which probably doesn't suit their needs either). Linux, despite it's headway, isn't ready for the 'lowest common denominator' computer user.
Take note, I'm not talking about the average
Within a few months, saying "Don't use it" to many of these people will be like telling a one-legged person to "walk it off"
- Nobody would know what RTFA meant if it didn't need to be said all the time
Here's my experience so far:
Firefox works on the beta 2, on the RTM, and on the x64 versions of Vista.
Skype doesn't seem to know what's Unicode on Vista x86. Actually, Skype 3.something just displayed an empty contact list on me. Skype 2.something works great, thanks to oldversion.com, but doesn't handle cyrillic characters right.
From not three minutes ago, http://www.unknowing.net/pscs2.jpg - unless I'm missing something, seems to be fully Aero-ised?
these poor third-party vendors would be ready.
Not even Office 2003 or Office XP are on the list. It seems Microsoft has not even tested older versions of its own software. So much for that backwards compatibility on Windows that everyone talks about.
*I am aware that this article is in regards to certification and not compatibility. I'm just going along with the masses, since not many people commenting on this article care to recognize the difference!
Let's look at this list. (Disclaimer: I have never used Windows Vista.)
Adobe Systems Inc.'s entire line of graphics and multimedia software I don't know about this one, but I wouldn't be surprised if it had something to do with stuff like the Netopsystems FEAD Optimizer. Symantec Corp.'s security products The software that's notorious for digging its claws into the depths of your operating system? Gee, I'm so surprised that it doesn't work the same as it does on XP. the Mozilla Foundation's open-source Firefox Web browser Firefox uses XUL for widgets, so it probably doesn't behave like a native app. Skype Ltd.'s free voice-over-IP software Skype contains a bunch of weird anti-reverse-engineering code. I'm not surprised if it doesn't work perfectly without changes. OpenOffice.org It doesn't support open standards like Microsoft OpenXML. *snark*http://outcampaign.org/