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How To Manage Windows Vista Application Compatibility | |
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| Time: 10:20 EST/15:20 GMT | News Source: InformationWeek | Posted By: Kenneth van Surksum | ||
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As of the end of March, 2007, 129 applications were certified or designed for Windows Vista, and 922 applications worked or were compatible with Windows Vista. Think that's a lot? Well, it does add up to over 1,000 applications you can run on Windows Vista with few, if any, issues. But, given that there are tens of thousands of applications designed for Windows, this first thousand is just a drop in the bucket. Making existing applications work for Vista is a big job. Microsoft is keeping track of each application that passes its bar and is providing weekly updates through its Knowledge Base. But this obviously doesn't suit everyone. Migrating to Vista means big changes in application support. Will your applications work in Vista? Here are some strategies and tools to mitigate the impact of moving to the new OS. | ||
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| #1 By 11888 (67.70.68.162) at 4/16/2007 11:29:03 AM |
| WHAT?!? |
| #2 By 15406 (216.191.227.68) at 4/16/2007 11:52:05 AM |
| I bought a new system on the weekend. It came with Vista. I managed compatibility by blowing it away and installing XP. Now it's fast (Vista was sluggish) and runs all my apps. |
| #3 By 23275 (24.179.4.158) at 4/16/2007 12:27:04 PM |
| Ahhh, the ever positive and forward thinking, Latch. Hope you had a good weekend, and didn't off too many small mamals while XP loaded. <ribbing :) > |
| #4 By 15406 (216.191.227.68) at 4/16/2007 12:52:52 PM |
| #3: One of the things I instantly noticed about Vista was the time it took to start up, shut down and run apps. It was slow to do everything, and that was on an AMD64 X2-5200+ w/2 GB. Perhaps it was a side-effect of all the craplets HP was nice enough to load up for me to swear at. A fresh XP install boots in seconds and shuts down even faster. Granted, my old XP system is slow as molasses after 2+ years of use so it's just a matter of time before Windows cruft brings this new system to its knees. And to be fair, I only played with Vista for about an hour and a half before i pissed me off enough that I wiped the disk without ghosting it to an image. I tried to run the tool that creates recovery DVDs, but it complained about every blank media I fed it. The same blank media (a spindle of 50) has worked fine for every other burn over the past 2 months. P.O.S. app, but that's an HP widget and not MS' fault. Still, it was just one more thing leaving a bad taste in my mouth over Vista. |
| #5 By 32132 (142.32.208.234) at 4/16/2007 12:57:40 PM |
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Nice try Latch. But I don't believe a word of it.
I have an X2 5000+ with only 1GB of ram and it runs amazingly great. |
| #6 By 15406 (216.191.227.68) at 4/16/2007 1:12:57 PM |
| #6: Damn, and here my whole plan depended on making sure you believed me. What will I do now?? Hmm, the guy who can't ever say anything critical of MS says Vista is amazingly great. I guess I can take THAT to the bank, eh? |
| #7 By 3746 (72.12.166.62) at 4/16/2007 1:15:38 PM |
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#4
So you go out and buy an HP with Vista on it and have no intention of running Vista? Why would you give more money to the hated MS? You do know that you can build a computer yourself, get one without an OS or with the OS you want. Here is an idea. Maybe you should have tried running a fresh install of Vista without all the crap that HP loads. Then you might just get a fair comparison of XP and Vista. I have run Vista on a bunch of systems. And configured properly it always boots, shutsdown and is generally faster then XP. Maybe the bad taste in your mouth is your brain slowly disintegrating because of stupidity. This post was edited by kaikara on Monday, April 16, 2007 at 13:18. |
| #8 By 37047 (216.191.227.68) at 4/16/2007 1:16:23 PM |
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Hey Latch! I know the problem! You have too fast a processor and too much memory. Maybe Vista has a scalability problem! At least, that is what Parkkker seems to be implying.
:-) |
| #9 By 15406 (216.191.227.68) at 4/16/2007 1:23:29 PM |
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#7: Well, since you're such a smart guy, maybe you can help out a doofus like me. The system was purchased from a major retailer with a gift card I received. That store only sells HP and Compaq. Vista comes pre-installed, there is no option for XP and there is no recovery disc to allow you to install Vista fresh without craplets.
So here is my problem, Mr. Genius. Can you please educate a slow learner like myself as to which phone number I can call at HP to get them to change their product config? I can't call Ms. Dunn as she recently retired as CEO. What do I do? Hopefully, the brilliant radiance of your intellect can save the day. Please hurry as I don't want my brain to disintegrate any further. #8: That must be it. |
| #10 By 23275 (24.179.4.158) at 4/16/2007 1:46:53 PM |
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#4, Yeah... Toshiba and Sony are even worse about the amount and weight of aggregate shovel-ware. So, it is fair to understand your frustration in this area. Still, it takes only a short while to remove it, and frankly less time with Vista, to do a clean install, sans the bloat. Worst case, one would have to download an MSI tool and go into safe mode and simply wipe all the crud away in a few moments that one could not remove within Programs and Features at the Control Panel. <Symantec's Live Update comes to mind as an example on HP's.> The crud that ships on a big market OEM is real and weighty, but it does not necessarily reflect on Vista - more so, it reflects the decisions of the OEM - which by the way, will sell a system to people w/o an OS.
Also, Vista's search, SuperFetch and I/O scheduler are going to need a little time to do their work and settle in. While it would be really hard to communicate well, once done - .5 to about 2.0 hours, Vista performance improves, dramatically and actually continues to get better over time - as the system learns how it is used. After this initial period, all indexing, etc.. occurs incrementally. I'd give it a shot after a cleaner install and then compare how you like it over XP. Similarly, upon a reboot, Vista will read in the hibernation cache - avoiding having to re-learn what it has gathered about how a user runs a machine. This takes about 2-4 minutes on a faster drive with 2 GB of RAM - a bit longer on slower systems, and even this is mitigated by the I/O scheduler which senses when a person starts to work. Also, for about 1500 bucks, those that are interested can build their own killer laptops based upon some bare-bones designs from ASUS and obtain the processor, etc... from other sources. [if it were a laptop one bought/wanted]. The build process is actually faster than a desktop - CPU, RAM, and HDD and you're done - takes a few minutes at most. In any case, all of the above would take a lot less time to do than it would to install and update and customize an XP SP2 that was not slipped with the latest drivers and updates and since this was a new machine, it is unlikely that creating that slipped image would have been done, or take less time than a clean Vista install, etc... **Much if this is posted for people that haven't used Vista, or for those that may not understand how Vista is different in this context. |
| #11 By 37047 (216.191.227.68) at 4/16/2007 1:47:39 PM |
| #9: Just to pick a nit, Patricia Dunn didn't retire. She resigned in shame after being caught in the HP Boardroom pretexting scandal. Nor was she the only one to get the boot or otherwise resign over it. A slight difference worth noting. |
| #12 By 37047 (216.191.227.68) at 4/16/2007 1:54:57 PM |
| #10: Another problem caused by some OEMs, such as HP, is that they don't even give you an actual CD/DVD containing your OS. They have an install image on a protected or simply "hidden" hard disk partition and a restore will wipe the system HD partition and place the image on it, restoring it to the way it was when purchased, crapware and all. If the HD physically dies, no more OS image. This is one of my biggest complaints with the OEMs that do this sort of thing. I remember when a purchased computer actually came with a genuine Microsoft OS disk, with an OEM license key. Now, if you want such a thing, you pretty much have to purchase a second Windows license just to get the actual physical media. This whole "recovery partition" thing is just crap, pure and simple. |
| #13 By 7754 (216.160.8.41) at 4/16/2007 1:59:54 PM |
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There's a lot of anecdotal information out there (both pro and con), and while I'm not saying it's not true, I put a lot more weight on objective, well-conducted benchmarks. One of the best Vista vs. XP comparisons I've seen so far is from PC World:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,128305-c,vistalonghorn/article.html Considering that this test is rather old (late December) and that a lot of the drivers out there can be improved (especially videos drivers), Vista fares pretty well on newer machines, with the possible exception of games (video drivers in particular have a long ways to go to match that of XP; note nVidia's somewhat stunning recent admission about their drivers). The difference in most applications would be unnoticeable. On the other hand, on multithreaded apps, they found that Vista was ~30% faster than XP. All in all, I think that performance issues in Vista are most likely due to driver or hardware issues, and those will go away soon enough. Even though it's doing a lot more than XP, the performance is pretty close--sometimes slightly better (although noticeably better with multithreading), sometimes slightly worse. I remember Russinovich talking about this shortly after he joined Microsoft... he said that for every performance improvement the core Windows team made, it was usually offset by overhead of some new function--in particular, the indexer. All things being equal, though, it has the inherent potential to be faster than XP once it crosses a certain threshold of hardware (dual-core proc, ~2 GB RAM). |
| #14 By 23275 (24.179.4.158) at 4/16/2007 2:29:18 PM |
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#12, Totally valid - it is part of why I built my company the way I did. We sell only fully boxed retail versions of Windows and Office, deployed on hand built/delivered and ready for first use turn-key systems and networks that are connected to a variety of services we build and host. I saw just how frustrated people - especially SMB owners had become. Also, support comes from the engineers that design and build the systems, networks and services - so there is no middle man, or accounting weenies between users and experts. Latch has some very good points and installing XP punctuates his point rather more than it makes a statement.
#13, explains why - why Vista falls short in some areas so far - I wrote about that here, http://www.activewin.com/awin/comments.asp?HeadlineIndex=38897&Group=1 But he also goes into the very relevant differences and the realities attending Vista - it is doing a lot more and despite this and less than mature key drivers, does well on systems that can leverage what it does best - e.g., I/O and memory and process management and scheduling - which of course, is even better on hardware that is well suited to what it does best. Gateway used to get it right - including media and a custom installer that allowed one very granular control over what they installed - from basic drivers to bundled apps. I heard they returned to that. |
| #15 By 32132 (142.32.208.234) at 4/16/2007 3:29:35 PM |
| #9 Did you get the gift card from the FSF for all your smears and lies about Microsoft? |
| #16 By 15406 (216.191.227.68) at 4/16/2007 3:44:54 PM |
| #15: I got it as recognition for a few years worth of volunteer work I've done. |
| #17 By 32132 (142.32.208.234) at 4/16/2007 4:00:00 PM |
| #16 We know ... for the FSF. |
| #18 By 73040 (158.106.50.3) at 4/16/2007 4:43:51 PM |
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Latch and Notparker cracks me up lol
I will have to say to that Vista Runs pretty fast on my system (AMD 64 3500+ 1 GB RAM) |
| #19 By 3746 (72.12.166.62) at 4/16/2007 7:48:04 PM |
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#9
So you are blaming MS and Vista for the way HP sells their systems. And somehow this makes an HP Vista install bad and and a clean install of XP good? Or in your mind all Vista installs suck because of this one experience. If you were a genuis like me you would make a more fair comparison before jumping to that conslusion but then again that might not justify your own view about vista. At least this way you can believe what you want without any real information. |
| #20 By 15406 (216.191.227.68) at 4/17/2007 8:33:56 AM |
| #19: Oh give it up. You're just like Parkkker in that you can't detect when you' ve had your ass handed to you. |
| #21 By 32132 (64.180.219.241) at 4/17/2007 10:15:34 AM |
| #20 When do you plan to try Vista? Your pathetic excuse for not trying it has failed (no one actually believes your stupid story). |
| #22 By 23275 (24.179.4.158) at 4/17/2007 12:19:43 PM |
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One of the few things that sits alongside loyalty and consistency is determination.
Sometimes determination is needed when using and supporting Vista and any thought that we as users, or engineers that support systems may simply, at this early stage in Vista's lifecycle, blow on Vista and all the software we want, as casually as we have with XP SP2 may be in for a very bumpy ride. Simply, we have to go a bit more slowly, and methodically. Case in point: Now, I know Vista is good and can run great, but like anything that is worth it, it takes effort and where we are now, early in the cycle as I stated, sometimes it takes more effort and determination than some people have time, or energy for. Panda Software. I liked it a lot and used their products for a long time - dutifully paying out the fourth point of contact for years to renew it and paying far more in time to get it to work consistently. Enter Windows Vista and Panda Software's Stand Alone Antivirus 2007 product: Despite a pretty good Vista BETA, it simply does not work. It crashes IE 7 and then Explorer.exe and the now all too familiar "AVENGINE.EXE Has Stopped Working" entry peppers the Windows Vista Reliability Monitor with lovely little red blotches of color - accenting what we already know... yup, the system crashed. Ok, well we had to find another solution and did. The point here is that while I really like Vista, and it does really run well, it does also take some effort and in some cases, a lot of it. For a few weeks, Panda on Vista has bitten me pretty hard - killing a lot of personal systems and one customer system with great regularity. It took a few days to sort out and prove what was going on and it wasn't pleasant. So maybe, just as Latch stated, he'll try Vista when he has more time for it - after it evolves and becomes as tried, tested and comfortable as XP SP2 has become. That doesn't paint Vista with the "Suck Brush" no more than determined efforts paint Vista with the "it's perfect" roller. It does mean, like most new operating systems, that there is a lot there to like and decisions about whether the expected effort needed to make Vista run well is worth the time and energy it may take to ensure a great experience, need to be taken with care. From where I sit, Vista is worth it for many reasons - heck the image based installer and the lack of eleventy'billion patches to apply after initial boot is enough to make me move to it personally. Its search is another that I really like quite a lot. Whether it matters to him or not [and I hope it does not at all], I believe Latch and I sure respect any efforts one expends as a volunteer - that is very cool. Now.. back to considering when determination becomes hard headedness... |
| #23 By 37047 (216.191.227.68) at 4/17/2007 2:20:19 PM |
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#22: Well put. This is the same sort of issue that every early adopter of new technologies faces. As has been pointed out previously, XP had its own issues when first released. They got smoothed out by the time SP 1 was released, and became much easier to deal with at that point. And I do remember the monthly compatibility updates for the first year or so.
Now, 5+ years later, and 2 service packs later, XP is a fairly decent OS. Like Latch, I too am at a point in my life where spare time is in shorter supply than it used to be. Having a wife and kid will do that to a person. :-) I used to think nothing of getting the latest OS as soon as it hit the shelves, but now, even if I had a system powerful enough to run Vista fully (with new UI), I likely would wait until SP 1, to skip the early adopter pains. XP is working quite well for me, with crashes and BSODs being a fairly rare thing, and most apps I want to run work well in XP, with one or two exceptions, and those are old games designed for Win95. FYI: You likely already know this, but I'll mention it for those newbies who may not. XP allows service packs and other updates to be inserted into the installer process, through a rather arcane but functional process, so that subsequent installs will install with all the latest updates. I am sure Vista has this as well. |
| #24 By 32132 (142.32.208.234) at 4/17/2007 3:39:01 PM |
| #23 Its funny how your ignorance of Vista doesn't stop you from claiming you know what its like to use it day to day. |
| #25 By 23275 (24.179.4.158) at 4/17/2007 4:24:04 PM |
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#23, Oh yes, one may slip-stream their images. We create new images about every day.
Also, yes, in Vista [one of its best parts], the process of creating and deploying images per the WIAK is a lot easier - even end users may drag and drop updates and drivers into the "updates" folder with ease. Also, as many are aware, Vista uses an image based installer out of the box - it is part of why an installation is so fast. Still, for most XP SP2 users, slipping an image is not the norm - for most a clean install is now a lengthy, and boring process which takes a long time. Also, for people that may be new to Vista, or for those that are considering it, driver and compatibility coverage is a lot better around Vista than at any other point in Windows history and now that Windows Updates is a built in desktop application, updates are a lot faster, easier to manage and over all, much smoother. Just know that you'll have to do some planning right now and pick and choose how you'll use your Vista machine more carefully than you would XP SP2 based computers. I recommend basic anti-virus protection software only - Windows Vista's firewall, Defender, UAC, IE 7's Protected Mode, Hardware and Software DEP and many other security features, will be more than enough to keep processes isolated and systems safer. For AV products [some are going to hate this], look at Symantec [they have changed a lot of what they have done in the past and actually have a decent product again], NOD32, or Kaspersky. For now, skip all others, including my previous favorite, Panda AV. We are currently using NOD32 personally and shipping systems and networks with NOD32 from Eset SW. (be sure to do an advanced install). Skip the nonsense asserting that wild hardware is needed - any 40 dollar DirectX 9c vid card and 1GB of RAM is all you'll need to beat at least the feel of XP. For those that do have new hardware, yes, Vista makes use of it - it loves multi-core CPU's as much as it does multiple processors and it smacks the stuffing out of OS X and any Linuces when it comes to support for SMP - it is just so much more efficient and tuned. ***We do run seven different *nix in production - from the command line only, so we understand how each OS is best suited for different things. |
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