Well, I gave Vista a fair crack of the whip!

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Originally Posted by kleinma

Vista came out when? It went retail Jan 2007 (and was available to MSDN subscribers a few months before that). So the OS is over 1.5 years old.

Yes they are going to be discontinuing manufacturing of Windows XP at the end of this month, but that doesn't mean you can not get copies right now.

So even after 1.5 years of Vista being out, they still are allowing you to purchase XP if you want, and some hardware vendors even give you the option if you are buying a prebuilt system. That is strong arming you how??

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It's not about the timescale. We put Vista on to the test a long time ago and found serious flaws (such as copying from the network drive taking months) which made it un-workable. We waited for SP1 to fix all fo these things before re-evaluating it (April of this year), and low and behold it still doesn't work.

Simply put, Vista is not 100% backwards compatible with XP. Now, we are not talking about some obscure piece of software that doesn't work with it (it's AutoCAD!), and we're not talking about an old bit of software (3 years old).

Look at it from our point of view as a company. We have invested very heavily in Microsoft licenses over the years, so much so that it's going to be a massive pain in the behind for us to move away from Windows.

Microsoft release a new O/S and stops selling the old one. This forces us to either
a ) Use pirate versions of XP in our new machines (which I refuse to do).
b ) Buy Vista machines and spend $4,000 per machine on new version of AutoCAD that are Vista compatible. Possibly to find ourselves in exactly the same situation in two years time when the next O/S comes out.

I would be insanse to go for option b. I would be allowing Microsoft to constantly pull the rug from underneath our IT department every few years.

so we are left with option c.

c ) Change to a different O/S (Linux?) where we can decide when and how we change over. We can keep running the same verison of Linux without license concerns until we have the time and money to swap base standards.

[qoute]
Come on man how can you say that. Of course it is autodesks fault. Why should you have to pay more for a new version of the same software. At the end of the day autodesk know how to fix the issue regardless of what caused it and instead of fixing it they bring out a new version!
[/quote]
Don't get me wrong, AutoCAD is pee-ing me off by not supporting their software, but ultimately I have to agree with their line, which is "They wrote AutoCAD to be Windows XP compatible. It's not their fault that Microsoft broke backwards compatibility, and why should they have to pay money to fix Microsofts mistake." (Especially when they hope they can use this 'mistake' to rail road users into upgrading).

Now, whether breaking backwards compatibility was deliberate or accidental, it doesn't really matter. Microsoft really seem to be un-interested in fixing this problem. Are they really that arrogant that they honestly think that corporations will follow them blindly and throw money at them for no good reason?

What is the point in us buying more Windows compatible software if they can release another O/S in a years time (and discontinue Vista in 2 years) and force us to rebuy all of our software licenses again. What kind of a business model is that? Do you see my fundamental problem as IT manager with all of this?

I honestly cannot believe that you think this is an acceptable tactic for Microsoft. Let's use an analogy. What if I bought 10 new Welding Machines for my company that use 480volts supply. I use them for two years and the power company turns around and says that it's changing to 520volts next year. I have a year to buy new welding machines and discard my now useless old ones.... oh, and they might change again in another few years......

I would be irresponsible to stay with that power company..... what if there was another power company who said "You can keep using the 480volt or you can change to our new 520volt..... and when we go to a 600volt supply you have the option of continuing using the 480volt or the 520volt....." Suddenly that makes a lot more sense from a business point of view. We will replace the welders eventually and move to the new standard, but when we decide the welders have reached the end of their life... not after 3 years of use.

As for the still being able buy XP. That's not an option as we have to change sooner or later...... the only question is, now that we are being forced to change not only our O/S but also our other software, do we change to Vista or Linux.... and Linux is looking waaaay more attractive right now.

again you can still buy XP so it makes no sense for your statements of:

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Microsoft release a new O/S and stops selling the old one. This forces us to either

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You seem to know your hardware/software requirements for your company, so if you need copies of XP, go buy them. No one is stopping you, including Microsoft. They DID NOT stop selling XP yet, why do you keep making this claim as the base for your argument each time?

Also, when did Microsoft EVER EVER say that Vista was 100% backwards compatible with XP? When has ANY operating system been 100% backwards compatible with its predecessor?

Microsoft actually ackknowledged many changes and had beta versions out far far in advance, and actually has had development guidelines dating back way before vista that would have alleviated a lot of compatibility issues, however most 3rd party developers simply just ignore them. I was testing my applications on Vista prior to Beta 1.

Again, I said it before, the publishers of the CAD software obviously have a version that works on Vista, and you simply want to fault Microsoft because the version YOU have, which NEVER said it would work on Vista, doesn't. If the CAD makers said, here is a free upgrade that works in Vista, you wouldn't have a complaint would you?

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Originally Posted by klienma

They DID NOT stop selling XP yet

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I don't think that's entirely true.
I had occasion to ring Microsoft regarding licence keys for XP. They told me that they no longer sold XP keys.
Although, given my other dealings with local phone support, I'd believe that the guy was either pulling my leg or didn't know what he was talking about.

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Originally Posted by kleinma

again you can still buy XP so it makes no sense for your statements of:

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For how long, and by jumping through what hoops... :) As far as I'm aware they stop selling it at the end of this month. So, we can stick our head in the mud and have this conversation then...... or we can tackle the problem now.

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Originally Posted by kleinma

You seem to know your hardware/software requirements for your company, so if you need copies of XP, go buy them. No one is stopping you, including Microsoft. They DID NOT stop selling XP yet, why do you keep making this claim as the base for your argument each time?

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Ah - good point, except we don't really know how many machines we will need, and whether we will be able to get XP drivers for the new equipment (HP don't have XP drivers readily available for their new line of Workstations). So again, we can delay the inevitable, but we are not solving our problem, just throwing a pile of more money at Microsoft (pre-buying XP licenses) that we might or might not need.

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Originally Posted by kleinma

Also, when did Microsoft EVER EVER say that Vista was 100% backwards compatible with XP? When has ANY operating system been 100% backwards compatible with its predecessor?

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Very true. I will conceed this point, however, I think it is a reasonable expectation of corporations that software bought in the last few years should run on the new O/S.

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Originally Posted by kleinma

Microsoft actually ackknowledged many changes and had beta versions out far far in advance, and actually has had development guidelines dating back way before vista that would have alleviated a lot of compatibility issues, however most 3rd party developers simply just ignore them. I was testing my applications on Vista prior to Beta 1.

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AutoCAD 2005 was out before Vista was available for Beta (I think??)

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Originally Posted by kleinma

Again, I said it before, the publishers of the CAD software obviously have a version that works on Vista, and you simply want to fault Microsoft because the version YOU have, which NEVER said it would work on Vista, doesn't. If the CAD makers said, here is a free upgrade that works in Vista, you wouldn't have a complaint would you?

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Let's just clarify, I don't want to fault anyone. Microsoft have created a problem for my corporation, and I cannot imagine that I am alone in this from looking around the forums. I can solve the problem by throwing more money away or I can look for a solution which will mitigate the risk of it happening again.

Regardless of who is at fault - We would be idiots of the highest degree if we upgraded to Vista, for the following reasons.
- We have to buy $40,000 of new AutoCAD licenses
- We have experienced numerous crashes etc.
- There is nothing to stop this happening again in 3 years.

Now, the bottom line is that it's not important to me who is at fault. As the IT manager in charge of all of this, I cannot justify the move to Vista given the above information..... do you agree? I know people are going to say that the crashes aren't microsofts fault, but the driver providers, well I 'm sorry but that doesn't make any difference to my users when they lose their work.

As for being happy if AutoCAD released a patch, we would still be left with the crashes. Now again, and I cannot stress this enough, saying "but that's the drivers" doesn't make an iota of difference when one of our guys has lost his work due to a crash.

Vista is not ready for the big leauge yet. Yet, they're stopping us from buying XP (which is super stable). Sorry, but I'm not going to gamble my company's IT on Microsofts wim and lack of regard for it's customers.

P.S. I would be happy if Vista was as stable as XP and our existing licenses ran on it (regardless of who issued the patch).

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Originally Posted by penagate

I don't think that's entirely true.
I had occasion to ring Microsoft regarding licence keys for XP. They told me that they no longer sold XP keys.
Although, given my other dealings with local phone support, I'd believe that the guy was either pulling my leg or didn't know what he was talking about.

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The fact that you can buy XP from newegg right now is proof that you can still get it

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...Tpk=32-116-515

This is even a brand new OEM release that includes SP3 already, which as you know just went RTM like a month ago.

Even when MS stops making copies at the end of the month, you will still be able to get it under inventory runs out at retailers.

So even if Microsoft has stopped selling copies directly (who actually buys retail windows FROM Microsoft???) that doesn't mean they are not still manufacturing it for retailers who sell their products.

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Originally Posted by SurfDemon

Don't get me wrong, AutoCAD is pee-ing me off by not supporting their software, but ultimately I have to agree with their line, which is "They wrote AutoCAD to be Windows XP compatible.

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That was their choice to ignore Vista.. I was well aware of developer guidelines (albeit in-progress) for Vista well before 2005, even though I knew they would have no effect on me for a long time (the organisation I worked for intentionally stayed a few years out of date).

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AutoCAD 2005 was out before Vista was available for Beta (I think??)

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I expect so, but the necessary information was easily available.

That version of AutoCAD could have been made Vista compliant if they wanted it to be, or at least close enough for a fairly minor patch to make it work; they could even modify it now if they wanted. However, instead of that they decided to ignore it, so that they could force your hand, and take more money from you.

If they wanted, they could charge a reasonable amount for the patch/upgrade, or offer a reduced cost upgrade to a Vista compliant version.. yet they are deciding not to do that.


The situation is obviously far from ideal, but don't blame the wrong organisation.

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As for being happy if AutoCAD released a patch, we would still be left with the crashes. Now again, and I cannot stress this enough, saying "but that's the drivers" doesn't make an iota of difference when one of our guys has lost his work due to a crash.

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Again, far from ideal - but it isn't Microsofts fault that you are being sold the wrong hardware (or the hardware manufacturer is providing shoddy drivers, when they have had years to work on them).

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What is the point in us buying more Windows compatible software if they can release another O/S in a years time (and discontinue Vista in 2 years) and force us to rebuy all of our software licenses again. What kind of a business model is that?

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Vista was a massive change (I think the biggest since Windows 95), which many people (including those in roles like yours) had been arguing for.

While in the short-term it causes you issues with other software companies, the longer term is good - based on the relatively small changes from Windows 95 to XP, I highly doubt that the scale of issues arising now will be replicated in the next 10 years or so.

Can you say with any certainty that whichever flavour of Linux you go for will have the same kind of stability?

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Sorry, but I'm not going to gamble my company's IT on Microsofts wim and lack of regard for it's customers.

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A lot of the changes were what a huge amount of customers were demanding, even if they think now that the outcome isn't quite what they wanted.

It certainly wasn't done on a whim, and MS went out of their way (over an extended period) to help developers and system builders deal with it.


You are in a nasty situation, and I'm not sure what would be the best solution for you, but blaming Microsoft for the failings of the work of other companies is not justified.

Come on, surely we're not talking about retail copies here.

ok, then talk OEM copies, those are on newegg too.

XP OEM available until end of Jan 2009:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/lifecycle/default.mspx

..plus whatever time it takes for retailers stock to run out.

plus the fact that if you have valid product keys, you can use them. Last I checked Microsoft was not going around reclaiming everyones XP cds.

Retail keys even legally permit a 1 time transfer of a product key from 1 machine to another for upgrade purposes. OEM copies are tied to the machine they came on.

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Originally Posted by kleinma

Also, when did Microsoft EVER EVER say that Vista was 100% backwards compatible with XP? When has ANY operating system been 100% backwards compatible with its predecessor?

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That's not the issue. It's not plausible to expect immediate backwards compatability when building a new system. It's easy enough to accept this. But for goodness sake, at least TRY!!! With a little bit of playing around, just about anything dating back to the Win95 era can run fine on XP. That's pretty darned good backwards compatibility if you ask me. That means there are four meaningful generations of software that XP can handle. So what's the issue with Vista? It can't even handle most software from THE PREVIOUS GENERATION, let alone five! MS seems to have made absolutely no attempt at supporting backwards compatibility with Vista, and it really does piss me off. I like XP because it's stable and compatible. I refuse to switch to Vista because it isn't and it isn't. In fact, I have yet to see A SINGLE REASON why I should use Vista. There is absolutely nothing appealing about it to me, and I reeeeeeally don't like the idea of being forced to switch, just because I'm a .NET developer.

AutoDesk released a service path for AutoCad 2007 to be Vista compatible, I don't see why they can't do the same for 2006 or 2005.

Originally, there were OpenGL driver issues, but NVIDIA released some native graphics drivers that supposedly don't affect performance.

The XP compatibility switch at least allows the program to run, and right-clicking the desktop and running as administrator helps get AutoCad 2005 to Start.

So you are left with networked periphereals being inaccessible. Which in the grand scheme of the amount of code in AutoCad devoted to CAD, the networked drives and periphereal browsing capability could easily be fixed by AutoCad if they released a patch - seriously I can't imagine it would be that difficult.

You can write a C++ program in 10 minutes that can browse a network drive. So I still lay blame on AutoDesk for this - even though I understand it is more desirable to get their userbase on the newer versions, not just from a sales perspective, but a tech support and documentation perspective as well - at the prices they charge, it is unacceptable.

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Originally Posted by timeshifter

That's not the issue. It's not plausible to expect immediate backwards compatability when building a new system. It's easy enough to accept this. But for goodness sake, at least TRY!!! With a little bit of playing around, just about anything dating back to the Win95 era can run fine on XP. That's pretty darned good backwards compatibility if you ask me. That means there are four meaningful generations of software that XP can handle. So what's the issue with Vista? It can't even handle most software from THE PREVIOUS GENERATION, let alone five! MS seems to have made absolutely no attempt at supporting backwards compatibility with Vista, and it really does piss me off. I like XP because it's stable and compatible. I refuse to switch to Vista because it isn't and it isn't. In fact, I have yet to see A SINGLE REASON why I should use Vista. There is absolutely nothing appealing about it to me, and I reeeeeeally don't like the idea of being forced to switch, just because I'm a .NET developer.

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My company actually still has a few production apps that are 16 bit MS DOS applications. They run 100% fine on Vista x86. They do not run on Vista x64 because x64 dropped support for 16 bit apps. Am I crying about it, or am I happy that at least the x86 (which all standard consumers own) versions can still run DOS applications??

My point is the compatibility problems are with the SOFTWARE, not the OS. The software was likely written wrong in the first place. How many apps write to program files? How long as MS been saying NOT to? At least since XP shipped...

timeshifter, i know you ever tried getting old applications to work on Vista? And I mean really tried, not just installing it, seeing that it doesnt work, then go on here to rant about it?

Come to think about it, have you ever used Vista enough to rant about it, at all? ;)

I use both XP and Vista for my day to day operations, and I don't have any apps that don't run on both. Maybe I am just lucky, but I do have at least 100 apps installed on both.

Sorry I had to drop out of this thread for a while..... (Don't worry, it wasn't Vista's fault ;) ). I think we are going around in circles a bit here. It's not really important who is to blame, the bottom line still comes back to the fact that we are being pushed away from the Microsoft platform, after almost 20 years as very satisfied customers of theirs. Who is actually pushing us away is debatable (Microsoft for not being 100% backwards compatible, AutoCAD for not updating their software or Hardware manufacturers for only providing buggy drivers). But as a normal company doing our daily job, we simply cannot stick with an unstable platform such as this.

Now, to be very clear, this really pains me, as I love Microsoft products (I've been a Windows fan ever since Windows 286), but my first responsibility is to my company and it's employees. Quite simply, Vista is not ready for the corporate world yet. XP was fantastic for the corporate world. Yet, they're discontinuing XP before the Vista platform has matured enough for us to use extensively.

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Originally Posted by si_the_geek

You are in a nasty situation, and I'm not sure what would be the best solution for you, but blaming Microsoft for the failings of the work of other companies is not justified.

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After re-reading my posts, I'm pretty certain I didn't directly blame Microsoft for any of this (apart from their Messenger throwing up priv problems.... ;) ). There's plenty of blame to go around here (Microsoft, AutoCAD or Drivers), but the bottom line remains that I am being forced off the Microsoft platform.

You have done a few times, for example in post #45 you said:

"Let's just clarify, I don't want to fault anyone. Microsoft have created a problem for my corporation, "

(in response to: "the publishers of the CAD software obviously have a version that works on Vista ... If the CAD makers said, here is a free upgrade that works in Vista, you wouldn't have a complaint would you?")

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Originally Posted by SurfDemon

Quite simply, Vista is not ready for the corporate world yet.

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The majority of what I have heard is the opposite.. including a company which extensively uses AutoCAD.

Unfortunately good news doesn't get pushed as hard as bad news.

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Originally Posted by SurfDemon

But as a normal company doing our daily job, we simply cannot stick with an unstable platform such as this.

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Absolutely.. so sort it out in a logical manner.

You should be getting the crashes sorted out, as that is not normal (it is way too late for there to be any kind of teething problems). Assuming that it is driver or hardware related, and the OS was pre-installed, get the PC supplier involved; If they can't solve it, get a refund and go elsewhere.

As to the CAD issue, find an decent alternative package (which you said back in the first post that you already have), or persuade the current provider to allow a reasonably priced upgrade to a Vista compatible version (as you have already found an alternative, your chances should be very good).

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Originally Posted by si_the_geek

You have done a few times, for example in post #45 you said:
"Let's just clarify, I don't want to fault anyone. Microsoft have created a problem for my corporation, "

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Yes. And I stand by that. It is a fact that everything was going smoothly, and then Microsoft changed O/S to Vista and everything went to hell in a handbag. So, Microsoft did create a problem for my corporation. Do I blame them for it, not massively, they're just trying to make a buck much like anyone else.

It's a bit like: I don't blame my granny for throwing out my $50,000 first edition of spanko-matic weekly, because she thought it was trash. I might not like it, and it might cause me problems, but I don't blame her for it.... she was just tidying the house.

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Originally Posted by si_the_geek

The majority of what I have heard is the opposite.. including a company which extensively uses AutoCAD.

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Ah - you're right, I'm making all of this up, just to make my job harder..... how silly of me... thanks for putting me on the straight and narrow.... ;)

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Originally Posted by si_the_geek

You should be getting the crashes sorted out, as that is not normal (it is way too late for there to be any kind of teething problems). Assuming that it is driver or hardware related, and the OS was pre-installed, get the PC supplier involved; If they can't solve it, get a refund and go elsewhere.

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Good in theory, but we have crash issues with some 6 different machines (4 HP, 1 Dell and 1 Custom), so it seems to be fairly wide spread. How long do I spend trying to sort these crashes out before I decide that this is just costing my company more time and money.... when I can change to something far more stable. I have given Vista a fair crack of the whip, and I really really wanted it to work, but presently I, and my users are at the stage where we've decided that this just isn't worth the effort and is consuming more and more of our daily time, for no extra benefit. The computer is just a tool to aid us in our job. If it doesn't do that, then we have to change it to one that works, just the same as we would change truck supplier if we had one brand that constantly stalled or broke down.

The only thing that bothers me at all about what you are saying is that you make it sound like Microsoft intentially changed things to break compatibility, and force people to pay more money for something...

What does Microsoft make if your printer no longer works, or your cad program no longer works when you upgrade to vista? What is going in their pockets for that happening? Nothing at all. So why do you say something like "they are just trying to make a buck".

I read an article about MS dropping 16 bit support from x64 versions of XP, Vista and servers 03 and 08. They said something along the lines of "yes we could have jumped through some major hoops, and made 2 sets of emulation runtime to have WOW (windows on windows) for the 32 bit environment, and also for the 16 bit environment, but we had to draw the line somewhere and stop supporting 16 bit applications at some point, after all things have been 32 bit for over 10 years now, and there are plenty of virtualization methods if legacy operating systems still need to be used for legacy software."

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Originally Posted by kleinma

The only thing that bothers me at all about what you are saying is that you make it sound like Microsoft intentially changed things to break compatibility, and force people to pay more money for something...

What does Microsoft make if your printer no longer works, or your cad program no longer works when you upgrade to vista? What is going in their pockets for that happening? Nothing at all. So why do you say something like "they are just trying to make a buck".

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Sorry, that wasn't my intention, I meant that they appear to me to be saving money by not putting the extra effort into making this release fully backwards compatible with XP. I have no problem with them dropping compatibility with much older software, there must come a point in time when it becomes unrealistic to support the limited number of users out there, but software like AutoCAD 2005 has a very large user base.

I can't see that they would have any motivation to deliberately annoy their user base, it strikes me more as apathy.

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Originally Posted by kleinma

I read an article about MS dropping 16 bit support from x64 versions of XP, Vista and servers 03 and 08. They said something along the lines of "yes we could have jumped through some major hoops, and made 2 sets of emulation runtime to have WOW (windows on windows) for the 32 bit environment, and also for the 16 bit environment, but we had to draw the line somewhere and stop supporting 16 bit applications at some point, after all things have been 32 bit for over 10 years now, and there are plenty of virtualization methods if legacy operating systems still need to be used for legacy software."

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WHAT?? So you mean I can't run Total Comander 16 anmyore?? OMG I've been using it for ages! It competlely ownz explorer.exe in every way. OMG M$ are suck jerks tehy force us to use thier sutff omg all dey care about is the $$.

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Originally Posted by SurfDemon

Sorry, that wasn't my intention, I meant that they appear to me to be saving money by not putting the extra effort into making this release fully backwards compatible with XP. I have no problem with them dropping compatibility with much older software, there must come a point in time when it becomes unrealistic to support the limited number of users out there, but software like AutoCAD 2005 has a very large user base.

I can't see that they would have any motivation to deliberately annoy their user base, it strikes me more as apathy.

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Most of the issues stem from this:

Microsoft says: Application Developers, you should do X and Y when developing your applications, because this is how things work now, and how things will work in the future.

Developers say: yeah but its just easier if I do Z instead, because that seems to work right now, and I will worry about X and Y when that next OS comes out.

Microsoft says: Yes but Z is not really ideal, because it requires any user to be an admininstrator on the system, and also, we may change that in the future where it won't work at all

Developers say: yeah well thats when we put out the next version and charge people for it.


I hate to keep using it as my example, but its probably the most common one to run into these days in Vista with the default limited user account tokens. You can not write to a directory in program files in Vista without being an admin and elevating your rights to do so. This causes many problems because so many apps do just this, so many in fact, that MS developed file and registry virtualization for Vista to get around it and keep apps working in Vista that worked in other operating systems.

However, MS has stated file/reg virtualization does not mean ignore the guidelines they set forth, because it the virualization may go away at some point. They say files that need to be written, should be written to specific places that a standard user DOES have access to, like their user profile.

This has been the case since day 1 with Windows XP, it just so happens that everyone runs as admin on XP, so they don't feel the pain. However ask anyone running on XP that is locked down as just a user, and EVEN LESS stuff runs on XP than it does on Vista, because there is no virtualization to handle this incorrect style of coding.

Yep, I'm aware of a few programs that won't work for me on XP as a limited user.. like ones that demand write access to the Local Machine section of the registry, when they only ever read it.

..and ones that write data to Program Files, in spite of Windows 2000 guidelines (see 4.2).

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Originally Posted by SurfDemon

I can't see that they would have any motivation to deliberately annoy their user base, it strikes me more as apathy.

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True, but they didn't. They went out of their way over a period of several years to tell people (developers etc) about the issues to expect, and how to deal with them - like I said earlier, I was aware years before it had any relevance to me.

If I knew Vista was going to be used for my software within a year or two, I would have written software to be compatible with it - rather than intentionally ignoring it, and then saying "yeah I couldn't be bothered.. pay me to re-write it!".

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Originally Posted by SurfDemon

It's a bit like: ..

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It's not like that at all - nobody is throwing anything away.

It would be much more apt to describe it as a company selling you a TV that isn't compatible with the new digital standards, even though they have all of the information they need to do it - just so that in a couple of years time (when digital is the only signal) they can sell you a new TV.

How is that the fault of the broadcaster?


I know this analogy doesn't cover the crashes, but it is much closer to the situation than yours was.

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Ah - you're right, I'm making all of this up, ...

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I never said or implied anything like that - I was just pointing out that Vista works fine for many organisations, in spite of your claim that "Vista is not ready for the corporate world yet.".

Just because you are having big problems with it, it doesn't mean that is the norm (and to be clear, nor that you are at fault).

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Good in theory, but we have crash issues with some 6 different machines (4 HP, 1 Dell and 1 Custom), so it seems to be fairly wide spread. ..

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I was under the impression they were all from the same supplier, but it doesn't change the fact this is not the norm.

You are right that you shouldn't be spending huge amounts of time & money fixing it.. but based on the amount of successful implementations, there must be a reason that there are problems for you, and possibly a fairly simple solution.

If you can't find out & fix yourself, think about getting a local consultant in for a day or two (the cost of which could be far less than you expect).

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Ah - you're right, I'm making all of this up, ... ;)

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I never said or implied anything like that - I was just pointing out that Vista works fine for many organisations, in spite of your claim that "Vista is not ready for the corporate world yet.".

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I think that was joke.

;)

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Originally Posted by kleinma

I just don't see the point in blaming Microsoft for an incompatibility that some OTHER software vendor has.

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Strange when upgrades to the various *nix flavours (unix + linux) never seem to lead to the mass failure of third party software and the requirement of patches to be released .... we're actually canned out Vista from our internal network (medium size shop) due to it being a shambles in terms of working with third party software.

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True, but they didn't. They went out of their way over a period of several years to tell people (developers etc) about the issues to expect, and how to deal with them - like I said earlier, I was aware years before it had any relevance to me.

If I knew Vista was going to be used for my software within a year or two, I would have written software to be compatible with it

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(BS!!!!!!) This is the crux of the matter:

We (USERS, developers, etc....... But primarily USERS!!!! [Get that, Micro$oft????????] want our "old" programs to run on Vista the same as they have since we bought them.

Micro$oft should not push some NEW requirements on EVERY USER at will (every 3 years, or so?).

It doesn't matter if there is a "better way." FINE!!!!!! But don't cut the nuts off of every business/individual that bought into the "old way" TO THE BEST OF THEIR KNOWLEDGE AT THE TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Originally Posted by Set me As newtype

(BS!!!!!!) This is the crux of the matter:

We (USERS, developers, etc....... But primarily USERS!!!! [Get that, Micro$oft????????] want our "old" programs to run on Vista the same as they have since we bought them.

Micro$oft should not push some NEW requirements on EVERY USER at will (every 3 years, or so?).

It doesn't matter if there is a "better way." FINE!!!!!! But don't cut the nuts off of every business/individual that bought into the "old way" TO THE BEST OF THEIR KNOWLEDGE AT THE TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Jeez, it's not Microsoft, it's the programmers.

It's the same story for Mac OS X and Linux distributions. When I first started using Ubuntu, I found out of a program called Automatix. Eventually, they stopped development and now there isn't Automatix for the newest Ubuntu (which I happen to use). This isn't Ubuntu's fault, nor either is it my fault. The developers all had jobs and were tired of trying to fit the project around their hectic lives, so they called it off.

If I do enough research, there's the same deal for Mac OS X. Sometimes these "new requirements" need to be implemented because they will give a better running of the OS.

Also, these manufacturers don't try "cut the nuts off of every business/individual", technology is a rapidly changing area. If you can't cut it with it's fast pace, then you are left as the sore loser.

The majority of the requirements have been available/pushed to developers since VB6 was released (which came with the "Windows 2000 Developers readiness kit") back in 1998. The other requirements have been known for less time, but still a few years - plenty of time for developers to take notice of them.

I still don't understand why you claim it is Microsofts fault that other companies chose to ignore those requirements for so long.

To be perfectly honest, only extremely mathematically intensive programs like 3D Modelers need to be written in C++ or other unmanaged languages. Pretty much everything else works very decently on the .Net framework which has been out for many years. I wrote a program on an old XP machine when .Net 1.1 came out, and i've had it ever since. I'm currently running Vista Business 32-bit and the program runs without a hitch. By making sure that my program was completely framework standard, it's been immune to changes elsewhere in the OS.

interesting stats about Vista.

http://arstechnica.com/journals/micr...xp-vista-and-7

The problem is not with developers or microsoft. It is with the stupid managers trying to use 15 year old software and refusing to dish out some money for upgrades.

The problem is capitalism which allows for uninformed or easily swayed individuals to voice their opinions on entities they regard as 'competition'. Cue the *nix brigade.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by kregg

Jeez, it's not Microsoft, it's the programmers.

It's the same story for Mac OS X and Linux distributions. When I first started using Ubuntu, I found out of a program called Automatix. Eventually, they stopped development and now there isn't Automatix for the newest Ubuntu (which I happen to use). This isn't Ubuntu's fault, nor either is it my fault. The developers all had jobs and were tired of trying to fit the project around their hectic lives, so they called it off.

If I do enough research, there's the same deal for Mac OS X. Sometimes these "new requirements" need to be implemented because they will give a better running of the OS.

Also, these manufacturers don't try "cut the nuts off of every business/individual", technology is a rapidly changing area. If you can't cut it with it's fast pace, then you are left as the sore loser.

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Good point kregg, one of the packages I use doesn't work with the latest version of MySQL. Pointed out the fixes to the company who wrote the software, still waiting on an "official" upgrade.

The crucial difference here is that with linux you can still carry on using older versions of the O/S for as long as you want until the newer versions are stabilised or packages fixed. i.e. We can keep the whole corporation on the same O/S for as long as we want, and we can decide when we want to perform the upgrade (after software has been tested).

Why can't you do that with Windows? Just disable automatic updates across the entire network.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SurfDemon

The crucial difference here is that with linux you can still carry on using older versions of the O/S for as long as you want until the newer versions are stabilised or packages fixed. i.e. We can keep the whole corporation on the same O/S for as long as we want, and we can decide when we want to perform the upgrade (after software has been tested).

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So is Microsoft. Just don't buy the darn product if it does not support programs, apps, driver, whatever that is used in your company.

We had this occasion during the first release of XP.

We did not migrated to XP until SP2 was released because by that time our spanking new hardware can support XP drivers and can no longer support Win98SE.

Although there are other working computers that still run Windows 98SE up to this date because their old software/hardware cannot support Windows XP.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AceRimmer

Good point kregg, one of the packages I use doesn't work with the latest version of MySQL. Pointed out the fixes to the company who wrote the software, still waiting on an "official" upgrade.

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Oh yeah, forgot to mention. Use Windows Server 2008. It has Virtual Server features so that you can simulate a testing lab on a single computer. You can install different OS's there for your testing pleasure.