No application compatibility woes for Windows 7 -- yet

[Night Hawk]

No application compatibility woes for Windows 7 -- yet

Microsoft's efforts to avoid the problems that plagued Vista are working

By Eric Lai
December 8, 2009 12:13 PM ET

Computerworld - Microsoft Corp.'s attempts to ensure better application compatibility for Windows 7 than its immediate predecessor, Windows Vista, had at launch appear to have borne fruit.

While app compatibility remains top of mind for many potential Windows 7 upgraders, Microsoft is trumpeting statistics showing impressive numbers of applications that run without hiccup on Windows 7.

And analysts agree that the problems with Vista -- partly or entirely-non-running device drivers and apps -- that burned many users and contributed to Vista's poor adoption haven't cropped up.

"I haven't run into any corporations who said, 'Gee, because of application Y, we can't deploy Windows 7,'" said Michael Cherry, an analyst with the independent firm, Directions on Microsoft. He gives Microsoft credit for "working hard -- very, very hard" to ensure that application and device compatibility wouldn't be an issue.
Last week, Microsoft released its most up-to-date spreadsheet for IT professionals (download here) listing information about which applications are compatible with Windows 7 or not.

More at: No application compatibility woes for Windows 7 -- yet

 

[Zidane24]

This is very good news; it was no secert that Application Compatibility and Driver Framework were going to be the two biggest hurdles at launch. Lets see how things shape up Q1 2010 and beyond

 

[Night Hawk]

The first thing I looked at when getting the beta builds on was finding out what would run on 7. This only further confirms what I found there and later with the RCs about getting old stuff to go on 7 far easier then seen with Vista! The troubleshoot compatibility tool now seen in the right click menu can help a great deal for installer exe files as well as a programs main executable.

I've mentioned this before about not even needing the new XP Mode since the 32bit 7 will see stubborn installs work out there. That helps for older dvd burning programs that won't work on any virtual machine.

When looking over the lists of softwares, hardwares, and other things you can provide extra information throught a gui process on the MS page also included in the article for 7 compatibility. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/compatibility/windows-7/en-us/Default.aspx?type=Software

If you know a manufacturer's product page for a particular hardware as well as some information you can provide that anomynously without providing any email addresses for MS to look up and update the overall information seen there.

 

[severedsolo]

i think it helps its built on top of vista, whereas vista was a whole new way of doing things, technically it should be called something like Windows 6.1 but i guess that doesnt have the same ring to it,

 

[Night Hawk]

One article I saw yesterday places Vista as having gone in one direction being more secure but "larger in size" there while 7 was steered in a totally different direction to make it more "usable". Out of the box, Win 7 less secure than Vista | Hardware 2.0 | ZDNet.com

The one larger improvement many are finding is the less intrusive UAC with a slide to adjust the levels rather then simply seeing a check box option for on or off. The backward compatibility seen in 7 has proven itself to be much better then seen with the previous version there. I hear more compliments from people now seeing things run on 7 that they couldn't get going on Vista!

Between the Obnoxious for many UAC and lack of backward support at times with Vista the title is well suited for the article there. Actually that fits in with the other one at the link there as well since 7 has turned out to be far more let's "User Friendly"!

 

[severedsolo]

oh i agree there, so far i have only found one app that wouldnt work with 7, and thats partition magic, but to be fair, thats a very old program now....

All this stuff about the UAC being less intrusive, at default levels it is nearly as intrusive as vista, it just doesnt ask you to triple confirm everything

 

[Night Hawk]

The default UAC setting can be raised or lowered to the lowest or off while Vista was only the on/off options there. The constant prompts for each little thing in Vista with that on was enough for most to simply turn it off completely while 7 can be lowered. The UAC is mainly for the novice user since the advanced user will generally turn it off in 7 as well as seen with Vista.

One program I use frequently on XP that would not go on the 32bit Vista Home Premium under any circumstance is now on the 32bit 7 Ultimate without a glitch! Believe it or not the updated version of that same program that will go on the 64bit 7 is the one seeing all the problems! Obviously the older XP version was apparently better written there I guess.

 

[drewpul]

I think Windows 7 has better compatibility than Vista too.

The only beef I have is with using x64 bit. My ancient 16 bit apps don't work with it but, hey, I've got Ultimate, so I can use them in XP mode.

Imagine what it will be like if Win 8 is 128 bit like they are saying!:shock:

 

[Night Hawk]

I've hearing all the rumors of a supposed 128bit OS but have to take it with a grain of salt! In other words don't simply believe everything you read. Once MS makes any formal announcement of something like this you'll be seeing something a bit more credible.

In actuality we'll still be waiting to see if 7 is the actual last version of Windows to still see a 32bit version of each edition or will the higher end editions be in 64bit only?

For those that still need a 32bit Windows for older hardwares and things like dsl modems/network adapters that ISPs are sssslowwww at keeping updated that might well be a large setup when many there. I ran into that problem with the 64bit until making one change!

As far as a 128bit OS simply look at how many 64bit programs are available now to get an idea of how fast something like that will arrive. Not anytime soon for anything other then program developers. At least most 32bit games and apps will go right on the 64bit 7 without fuss.

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there
this is all well and good but STILL doesn't address problems for legacy hardware for which the Manufactuer has gone out of business / stopped making the device so only XP drivers are available.

True compatability would allow XP drivers (or any 32 bit drivers) to run on x-64 systems. However for "Security" and other concerns I think you can't make 32 bit drivers run on W7 X-64.

Removing the restriction here would AT A STROKE allow a lot more people to finally ditch their XP systems.

I'm not of "The Ipod Generation" so I'm NOT throwing away perfectly GOOD and serviceable hardware until I really NEED new gear. In any case some of this gear I'm talking about is quite expensive such as a Plotter for producing Blueprints etc etc.

This IMO is an IMPORTANT ISSUE if MS wants "True Compatability" - many businesses won't take up W7 either until this type of problem is addressed. Some of this gear is still good for a few YEARS yet.

I'm using XP in Virtual Machines but not too many "ordinary" businesses will go down this route and "XP Mode" also is not yet good enough for this type of purpose.


MS ARE getting the APPLICATION problem licked but not THE DRIVER problem.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[Night Hawk]

I've seen some but only some 32bit drivers actually work on the 64bit 7. Likewise you wouldn't expect 9x 16bit drivers to work on XP, Vista, 7 either.

For the most part drivers(software or device/hardware( are "3rd party" drivers not written by MS or directly under control by MS. It's upto the manufacturer or software company to write drivers and other updates for each new version of Windows not MS there.

The real lame part of all that however is even when a manufacturer dumps one old outdated model let's say a modem(ADSL, Cable) the ISPs will still provide that same specific model even when the last update was seen 5-7yrs. previously and none since! Yet they promote all these new bargains for signing up?

Again that's still all 3rd party responsibilities there to keep things updated within a degree not let things slide year after year.

 

[jimbo45]

Hi Nighthawk
While I agree with you it will STILL be a problem if MS wants to get businesses to switch.

My solution would have been to get the OS developers to work on a Windows like equivalent to "WINE" although to have it built seamlessly into the OS (Ms already has WOW back from the days of Windows XP 64 bit edition -- "Windows ON Windows").

For those that don't know WINE is an application that is used in Linux to actually run Windows executable files directly without using Virtual Machines or needing to run things equivalent to "XP MODE".

As an old OS developer (worked on IBM MVS 360 / 370 systems) it actually isn't too difficult to build in a "State switcher" into the OS kernel (or "Nucleus / Supervisor" as we called it back then).

This could flip the OS state to 32 bit mode which could run the XP code for that particular application. Not too difficult. It would then switch the machine state back to 64 bit operation.

A problem however is that there's no "Privileged" state in Intel CPU's.

To make this type of stuff work in the old MVS OS you had to run a nucleus / supervisor privileged instruction to change a bit in what was called the PSW (Program Status Word) -- a special register which contained the address of the current instruction and its state - normal Application mode - or Privileged mode).

This could however be implemented without too much of a problem via some code built in to the windows kernel itself.

This feature could perhaps be disabled for those that didn't need it so not necessarily overcomplicating or bloating the OS.

Cheers
jimbo