Although Windows Vista is generally compatible with applications written for Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 and their associated service packs, some compatibility issues are inevitable due to new innovations, security tightening, and increased reliability. Getting some older applications running on a new OS can be challenging at the best of times and completely frustrating at other times. And of course, life becomes a lot worse for the administrator when the problem occurs in production. We always recommend thoroughly testing for application compatibility when considering the deployment of a new OS, but it's surprising how often something gets missed! So we thought we'd provide a quick overview of some basic application compatibility testing - our 30 minute checklist for testing individual applications when you're planning your Windows Vista deployment ...

Basic Application Compatibility Scenarios
There are two primary scenarios for basic application compatibility checking – a clean installation of Windows Vista and an upgrade from Windows XP SP2.