SP1 does nothing for Vista compatibility
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Applying the&#160;SP1 update to Vista&#160;does nothing to improve its application compatibility, with almost 20 percent of software still unable to run, a study has found.Recently founded application testing company AppDNA ran a &#39;before&#39; and &#39;after&#39; on Vista using SP1 (service pack 1) using its AppTitude system, finding that it made no difference whatsoever to its ability to run a test suite of corporate 500 applications, 18 percent of which failed to work without help.As bad as this sounds, the company rated this as good news because service packs normally introduce as many problems as they solve. That SP1 left compatibility performance unchanged was in stark contrast to the experience with SP2 for Windows XP, which&#160;unexpectedly broke many applications&#160;that had worked before.&quot;Organizations have been waiting to see SP1. But people have been wary after SP2 [for XP],&quot; said AppDNA&#39;s CTO, Paul Schnell. &quot;The updates have been incremental and had no impact on compatibility.&quot;The AppTitude testing software used an algorithmic technique to look at applications for behavior known to break Vista. The company also ran usability tests by loading software and digging around to see whether there were issues, Schnell said.Customers running the tests on their own applications using AppTitude would receive an indication of the severity of compatibility issues using a red, amber and green light system, giving them the information needed to plan migration. The software also provided a report on possible fixes.According to its official history, AppDNA is in its first month of independent operation, having been spun out of application migration specialist Camwood, which remains a channel partner. The company won&#39;t be keen to annoy Microsoft too much - its early business has it working closely with the latter on migration projects.Equally, Microsoft has long given up worrying about the Vista&#39;s difficult image. The news that it might still have issues with one in five applications won&#39;t come as a surprise.Redmond has announced its own application migration tools for Vista and prepared for the long haul. The company has pursued a policy of open access to the SP1 refresh, making as few claims as possible regarding the specific issue of compatibility.Techworld is an InfoWorld affiliate.
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For a lot of users, the cost of upgrading to Windows Vista could be the first of many outlays needed to bring their system up to date. You've also got to update all those programs -- and a lot of vendors may not offer free compatibility updates.
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Here it comes: Microsoft today confirmed that the first service pack for Windows Vista is entering beta next month and is slated to ship during the first quarter of 2008. A third (and final) service pack for XP is on tap for the same timeframe.
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The reason it's called "beta testing" is to anticipate and isolate problems. But a big problem reported by some -- not all -- Vista SP1 testers is causing Microsoft to take a step back.
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(InfoWorld) - Early feedback from testers already usingÂ Windows Vista Release Candidate 1Â (RC1)Â is that the OS is more stable than expected, which bodes well for Microsoft's plan to have Vista out according to its current schedule. Microsoft has said since March it willÂ release Windows VistaÂ to business customers in November, and consumers in January 2007. Though many have suspected the release will slip further, testers now say there's a good chance the company will meet its goal if the condition of RC1 is any indication. "Overall I think Vista is looking very good at this point....I think all the worries of Vista slipping went out the window," said Brandon LeBlanc, a writer for LonghornBlogs, via e-mail on Tuesday. LeBlanc said that Microsoft has made performance and stabilization tweaks that testers requested after Beta 2, and the latest test version of the OS -- which could be the final one before Vista is released to manufacturing -- is solid enough for regular use. LonghornBlogs can be found here: http://www.longhornblogs.com/ "RC1 is quite usable for everyday work, as I am currently doing myself," he said. LeBlanc said Vista is so far along in RC1, he does not think another release candidate will be required before final changes are made and the OS is sent off for manufacturing. The previous major client release of Windows, Windows XP, had two release candidates before it shipped to manufacturers. To no one's surprise, however, there are still bugs to be ironed out before Vista will be ready for its final release. LeBlanc said the OS needs some work in terms of its user interface (UI), for example. The test version "does lack some of the UI polish we were expecting at this point," he said. In Vista, Microsoft has completely revamped Windows' user interface with a new 3D interface called Aero. Another Vista tester, Andrew Brust, chief of new technology for New York consulting firm Twentysix New York, said the latest test release of Vista feels more "grown up," even on hardware that is not necessarily optimized for the OS. "Besides the fact that it's just a really nice OS, it feels very sprightly even on hardware that wasn't designed for it," he said. Even trivial applications such as Solitaire and Minesweeper games have a next-generation look and feel in Windows Vista RC1, Brust said. "It's a trivial example, but it shows a certain attention to detail [on the part of Microsoft]," he said. Harrison Hoffman, another Vista beta tester and one of the writers of theÂ LiveSide blog, agreed that the latest test version of the OS could be used as a person's main desktop OS, even though it definitely needs some fit and finish before final release. "Although, it might not be quite ready for prime time, if you really wanted to, you could use this build as your primary operating system, but be prepared for a few applications and devices to not work correctly," he said via e-mail on Tuesday. "The OS does not hang, lag or crash as consistently as it used to. The performance has been greatly improved." However, both LeBlanc and Hoffman noted that Windows Vista is still lacking driver support, a particularly sore subject because Vista has been billed as an OS in which devices will work as soon as you connect them without any further hassle, Hoffman said. "The philosophy of Vista has been to have things 'just work' when you connect them and right now, some things just do not," he said. "Obviously this issue is going to get better with time and as hardware manufacturers work closer with Microsoft to remedy these problems." LeBlanc sized up the hardware driver situation in Windows Vista RC1 this way: "Some work, some donât," he said. "Heck, Microsoft doesnât even have Vista drivers for some of their own hardware, including their new LifeCams." Twentysix New York's Brust called driver compatibility Microsoft's "biggest impediment" to getting Vista out in time. "Driver compatibility will be key for them," he said.
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Trust us Microsoft has offered little satisfaction to Windows Vista Ultimate users frustrated by the dearth of goodies used to justify the operating system's premium price.â¦
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Some systems are thrust into endless reboots after receiving Vista SP1 updates, according to messages posted to the company's support site.
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Microsoft on Friday made available to the public a pre-release version of Windows Vista SP1. We want to know what you think.
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(InfoWorld) - In the first year of its release, Microsoft Corp. is expecting businesses to adoptÂ Windows Vista twice as fast as any other version of Windows, with 10 times as many Vista business seats deployed at launch than any previous release of the OS. Despite this optimism, analysts still don't expect businesses to begin adopting Vista in earnest until late 2007 or even 2008, with many waiting for the first service pack version of Vista before they begin considering an upgrade. One reason Microsoft is expecting Vista to be so successful is that the company has made a concerted effort to give customers the tools and training they need to adopt Vista across their businesses, said Brad Goldberg, general manager of the Windows Client Business Group at Microsoft. The company also put test versions of the OS into as many people's hands as possible. For the previous Windows migration, to Windows XP, Microsoft didn't release important tools to help businesses upgrade -- such as a compatibility toolkit to ensure existing applications will work -- until Service Pack 2, which was released nine months after Windows XP shipped, he said. However, with Windows Vista, "we made the beta of the [compatibility] toolkit available with Windows Vista Beta 2," Goldberg said. Microsoft also has opened up test versions of the OS to a wide audience, making Release Candidate 1 (RC1) available to the public. Microsoft expects that at least 5 million users will have access to Vista RC1, all of whom the company has encouraged to provide feedback about the release so it can be as polished as possible before it goes out to business customers in November. Another reason Microsoft expects businesses to warm to Vista early is that the company is doing its share to educate customers on how much money they can save by adopting it, Goldberg said. Microsoft has worked with analysts to develop customer case studies to see how much money business customers can save per PC by upgrading to Vista from their current OS. Al Gillen, an analyst with research firm IDC, does not dispute Microsoftâs calculations for the return on investment (ROI) companies will make on Windows Vista, though he says that companies âdonât get the âRâ unless they put in the âIâ first.â âThe ROI story is exciting, but it requires that customers be mature and agile enough to do what they need to do afterwards,â Gillen said. And while Microsoft may meet its ambitious first-year goals for Vista, that momentum will likely peter out, once pent-up demand has been met, Gillen said. âEighteen months out, the adoption curve will look like any other Windows product,â Gillen said. âItâs hard to move corporate customers faster than they are willing to go.â Microsoftâs bullish projections donât appear to jibe with most current third-party customer surveys, such as one online survey of 314 IT professionals conducted by Computerworld in August. Just 17 percent of IT professionals say they are considering rolling out Windows Vista in the first year. Forty-one percent of respondents said they had no plans to roll out Vista, while 35 percent said they would begin testing Vista only after it ships. Of those who said they were considering rolling out Vista in the near or long-term, the largest group (29 percent) said the cost was the biggest determinant of if and when they would upgrade. That was followed by the hardware requirements (16 percent), the amount of employee training (6 percent) and the amount of IT staff retraining (4 percent). Even if Microsoft doesn't meet its goals for Vista, it's not likely to affect the company's revenue. According to one financial analyst firm, Microsoft stands to lose only about $400 million in revenue in fiscal 2008 if Vista business adoption does not go according to the company's plan, and $2 billion in fiscal 2009. In its most recent fiscal year ended June 30, Microsoft reported more than $44 billion in revenue. While the company is optimistic about adoption in its marketing, it is being far more conservative in its financial estimates, analysts said. This is obviously good news for Microsoft, but there is a downside. The longer Vista is available, the more it will cost the company if businesses continue to hold off on adopting the OS. And any negative press or analyst feedback on lackluster Vista adoption could drive Microsoft's stock price down, analysts said. (Eric Lai is a senior writer at Computerworld.)
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Countdown faceoff Microsoft has fallen foul of the European Commission yet again over plans for its Vista operating system.â¦
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Want to corrupt your iPod? Use it with Microsoft's new operating system. Apple concedes that its music software still isn't compatible with all versions of Vista. By the Associated Press.
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Will it work with my app? The imminent arrival of Windows Vista is a mixed blessing for developers. The good bit is lots of new features to play with, along with better security and an updated user interface. The downside is compatibility problems, and with the challenge of meeting expectations for well-behaved, good-looking Vista applications. There is going to be some pain.â¦
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While the release of iTunes 7.1 does include a number of compatibility fixes that enable the software to work with most Windows Vista editions, Apple warns that users may still encounter problems. The company is working with Microsoft to resolve outstanding bugs.
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InfoWorld - Microsoft has finally broken its silence on the timing of the release of the&#160;highly anticipated Windows Vista Service Pack 1, saying the software updates should be in final release in the first quarter of next year with the company shipping off a beta next month to 10,000 to 15,000 testers.
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Not for general consumption, yet Redmond said yesterday that it has shot out another beta build of Windows Vista SP1, although this one is reserved for hardcore testers only.â¦
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If I buy a new PC with Windows Vista, can I move my iTunes music over to it and still have it work reliably?
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After fielding numerous reports of PCs caught in endless reboot loops (or not rebooting at all), Microsoft has yanked an update designed to prep Vista machines for Service Pack 1.