Software to avoid

BD rebuilder has issues. It worked fine in Vista 64 bit but with windows 7 64 bit it just does not work right.

I have some very specialized programs that won't run on Windows 7, but they aren't worth mentioning here. However, there is one I miss, and it's a shame because it is a Microsoft program: PowerPoint Viewer 2007. I haven't tested the other Office viewers, maybe they are incompatible as well, but I used PP Viewer specifically to open .PPS files, those PowerPoint slide shows that one is always getting on e-mail (mostly very cheesy and sentimental, total kitsch, but a handful are worth keeping). PP Viewer is better to open them than the full program, both for practical and security reasons, but on Windows 7 the program already crashes on load. It is one of the few programs for which you actually get a reply when you "check for a solution and close the program": it gets an "incompatible" verdict.

Also having problems with Real Player SP. I know, not exactly the best media player around, and one has to tweak it somewhat to avoid annoying, intrusive windows, pop-ups and borderline spyware, but it is the most practical and efficient way both to download (one-click downloading directly from the browser window) and watch Flash videos such as those from YouTube, which are supported by few media players. It hangs, then crashes with just a click anywhere on its window when a media file is being played. Configuring it to run as a Vista application partially solves the problem: then it only crashes if you close the window before stopping play, with an "EXITING APPLICATION" message. Real Networks has always been slow to adapt to new Windows versions: then-latest Real Player Gold had similar problems when Vista was launched, and wouldn't run at all on 64-bit Vista.

ICU2 8.1 video chat software runs fine on Windows 7, but only if you configure it to run as a Vista application. Otherwise it will behave crazily with your camera (well, at least with my Microsoft camera), and the pal list, which has always been buggy, will not work at all.

Also a few strange freezes with Mozilla Firefox 3.5.x, but they usually recover after a few seconds.

I have had mixed luck with Zone Alarm 2010. On Win 7 Ultimate 64bit it worked ok, but on 7 Pro 64bit, it totally screwed up the Explorer browser, and resulted in all subsequent downloaded files being corrupted. The bad thing about it was that the downloaded files downloaded without any errors, but when you tried to run them you would get the error "not a win32 application".

I had to uninstall it to get Explorer to work correctly. It took me quite a while to figure out that it was Zone Alarm that was causing the problem, because it installed and ran fine.

I'm the developer of an older application called Network Chat (on Download.Com at Network Chat - Free software downloads and software reviews - CNET Download.com) version 1.41 which I made years ago (around 2003-2005).

I've only recently tested it with Windows 7 and found that it sort of works, but not quite. It will run, and will send and receive messages, but there's a few quirks. Also, Windows 7 does not support the older .hlp help file format (.chm is) so the help won't work.

Until I get the time to write a new version, I would avoid this in Windows Vista and 7.

Well I thought it best to test it out since there's been a couple of major OS releases since I wrote it lol.

Honesty is the best policy after all :)

Charles Kane said:

AntiSilence said:

Well I thought it best to test it out since there's been a couple of major OS releases since I wrote it lol.

Honesty is the best policy after all :)

Hope you find time to update it - I'll give it a spin and I'm sure others will try it and be happy to report back here.

Let us know

Thank you. I've been toying with the idea of open-sourcing a new version so it can be running on other OS's besides Windows and have other developers talents on it too. Having said that, it's only a small chat utility, nothing major lol.