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Working Around Vista Apps' Incompatibilities
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft says there are over 1,000 applications you can run on Windows Vista with few, if any, issues. However, Windows apps number in the tens of thousands. Add to that the facts that x64 Vista versions don't support legacy 16-bit code, and that the Windows Resource Protection in Vista breaks some apps, and you've got a big issue. InformationWeek lists a host of workarounds in How To Manage Windows Vista Application Compatibility. Among the tips discussed are Vista's compatibility mode, its Program Compatibility Assistant wizard, and a little-known form of file and registry virtualization that's built into the OS. What problems have you encountered with incompatible apps, and are any issues you've encountered deal-breakers that could further roil the already muddied adoption picture for Vista?"
Port WINE to Vista.
Damn, beaten to it... :-)
Seriously, why would any organisation upgrade to Windows Vista if it wasn't pretty sure all of its key software would work? It's amazing how many people seem to think there's some sort of obligation on people to upgrade. In fact, if you look at recent history, the big corporations are usually the last people to move on major upgrades like XP->Vista, often taking several years to do it. This is why.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
The application should strive to achieve compatibility with the OS, not the other way around. Microsoft has been wasting boatloads of resources on just maintaining backward compatibility with bugs and misbehaving applications (or so sayeth the leaked commented Windows OS code). This is the shortest possible explanation for how the Windows OS family has become the mess that it is today.
If they feel they need to expend the resources to get compatibility in order, here's what I think Microsoft should do:
PATCH THE APPS. Distribute or make downloadable the patches and upgrades necessary to make it happen. Hell, it could be a quality way for Microsoft to improve their relationship with vendors of all types. They'll spend the money anyway.
"Vista has proven itself to be as big a mistake as Windows ME. Nothing works with it, it is full of DRM crap that keeps you from doing anything and there is really no reason to "upgrade" to it anyway."
1) How did it prove itself to be as big a mistake as Windows ME? No one knew how bad ME was until a year after it when Microsoft was already almost done with XP. ME was an intermediate OS, which was why it sucked. Vista is far more stable than XP or even 2000 on a machine meeting its recommended specs with hardware on the HCL. 3 machines in my house run Vista without a problem, and two of them have the dreaded "Vista Capable" logo.
2) DRM crap? I bet you don't even have a bluray or HDDVD drive in the first place. Hell, I bet you torrent all of your movies, so you shouldn't be complaining. Vista doesn't DRM everything. You can still watch your torrented movies (it's the only way to get decent HD rips anyhow)
3) no real reason to upgrade. Right, well I found BitLocker to be a perfect reason. To each his own; I can see where you're coming from but there are people that disagree with you.
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I installed Vista alongside XP thinking I'd stay with XP a while yet, but I have not booted XP once since bringing up Vista. Vista application compability wasn't as bad as I'd been lead to believe. Sure I had to scratch my head a bit to get Pixel Shaders working in Media Player Classic (I used them to correct some corrupt videos I have), and some games needed a few XP files from the System32 directory, but the only piece of software I've yet to get running is 3D Mark 99 Max.
This reminds me a little about the Windows 2000 switchover. There was a lot of talk about compatibility issues with various games and apps, but the only thing that affected me was the wonky Sound Blaster Live drivers. Come to think of it, Vista actually supports all my hardware, although I had to slack my memory timings bellow specs. Tip, if you get a BSOD with Win32.sys as the culprit then run memtest86, hell run memtest86 anyway.
The list of 'Over 1000 Applications...' begins like this:
1.) Notepad.exe
2.) Sol.exe
3.) Winmine.exe
4.) Pbrush.exe
5.) Write.exe
And so on...
(UNinformed, I daresay) People here keep saying things along the lines of "The irony is that I'm not even sure why home users would move"
/informed/ (not neccesarily geek, could be joe-average, just informed) home-user, this is a HUGE advantage. Yes, it has a learning curve, yes, he will need to get a simple explanation of what the greyout means and to "Just Say NO" when he's not sure (or ALWAYS SAY NO, if he's a dumbass, and let his neighbourhood tech do the adminning), and it will save him mountains of time, money and pain paying said tech even more to clean out the malware from his computer every 3 months.
One acronym, three letters.
U.A.C.
Corps (already serious about their desktop security, using access-regulated policies and usually domains) gain almost nothing from the new User Access Control model in Vista. It's all for the home user who doesn't have a sysadmin to disallow him to touch anything in C:\WINDOWS and C:\PROGRAM FILES. The underlying ability to have user access policies on the computer has been there since NT4, effectively since forever.
It's the bolting it into a homeuser-centric UI and turning it into what is, for all intents and purposes, "sudo", integrated into every nook and cranny that requires straying into privileged space that's new.
For an
For all of you who are overfed with FUD, or haven't bothered looking at anything since you've looked an the unfinished (RC) product:
NO, YOU DO NOT NEED TO HANDLE ANNOYING POPUPS WHEN BROWSING ALL THE TIME. I keep getting that a lot, and it just doesn't happen anywhere except in people's anti-MS imaginations.
You need to handle annoying popups when you go to places you shouldn't be. Routine tasks VERY RARELY involve doing that (and if you're one of the elite few who do need open access to the system, just disable UAC altogether, it's got a big ON/OFF switch).
We've all been beating M$ with a stick for 20 years about the inherent lack of security of all OS's up to XP where the user effectively works as root. IMHO, we were RIGHT. Well, they finally fixed it. I am NOT saying windows and/or UAC is unhackable or unexploitable or mature or some such. IT IS NONE OF THESE.
However, they finally introduced a seatbelt, and when lining it up against pre-vista seatbeltless windows where the user belongs to Administrators - just about 99.99999% of the world's home installbase - (in an otherwise seatbelt-equipped world - macos, linux, etc), that's a fundamentally major change WHICH IS A GOOD REASON TO NOT RESIST CHANGING OVER (if, say, you get a new computer, or are reinstalling an old one anyway and don't mind forking out some coin - say, 100$, for some RAM if you're sub-1GB).
UAC is a major homeuser-targeted change that I think non-fanboy professionals should embrace. It'll annoy people at first (seatbelts annoyed people at first too), until they get into the habit of using the system the way it's meant (minimal straying outside userspace), at which point annoyance factor becomes minimal and people accept the extra hassle, because it's a hell of a lot better than what they had before.
In other news, some UI improvements are more than welcome, and as a poweruser, I put value on intuitive UI that makes my work more efficient. Enter Katapult-on-steroids - a SEARCH integrated into the start menu that searches the start menu and the program files. Sidebar is also a welcome UI improvement, as is a revised resource-monitor that breaks down diskIO etc. by process.
In yet other news, compatibility suffers. My vista lappie can't connect to the office Wifi network, something between its 802.11x and the radius goes bust. Same config exactly on XP works like charm.
Still, I run a LOT of stuff on it, including a cygwin environment, retro DOS games, productivity software etc, and this would be the only compatibility issue I've encountered. Had I not, I'd be sitting here saying compatibility at all.
Bottom line: Security-wise, big step up. Maturity-wise, probbably still crap, bu
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