Re: Vista Software Requirements

It's my impression that it was only within the last few weeks that
Vista was far enough along in finalizing the security features and
to have published the spec before now would likely have resulted in
significant changes and then people would really howl.

Oh, I *completely* agree. That's why we haven't started making changes for Vista before now. (I've done basic testing against Beta 2, but the results were not good. Oddly, our app would run on Beta 1 but dies quickly on Beta 2.)

My comment was not targeted at the release date of the spec, but rather the comment in the blog "ample time to make their product compliant". I understand why the spec was just recently released. But don't try to tell me that I have ample time to do anything about it. :)

OTOH is has been real easy to get included in the Vista technical beta program
and those who participated should already have a good idea what was coming plus
Microsoft has a Vista compatibility program for ISVs and have released tools to
aid in testing existing apps for compatability.

Yes, I have some of the tools and whitepapers. While we're not in the "technical beta program", we are a MSDN Premium subscriber and have access to Vista betas through that subscription.

But see my comments above. Even if we had the time (I wish we did), we wouldn't have started making changes for Vista until at least Beta 2. We don't have time to constantly change our app as beta versions of Windows change. As with WinXP SP2, Win2003 SP1, and SQL Server 2005, we won't do serious testing until RC1.

Have you taken your new beta version for a test drive on Vista public beta 2

Yes. It dies quickly. I have not, however, setup a development environment in Vista Beta 2 to determine why it dies. But I have my suspicions regardless. Mainly a seven year old architecture that does not play well with a "Least Privileged Environment".

and are your customers likely to require a Vista version of your software prior
to Q2 of 2007?

Only new customers (or customers buying new computers) and only if their hardware vendor (or Microsoft) doesn't allow them to purchase new machines with Windows XP.

I hadn't heard what Microsoft's policy on this will be. With Windows XP, I don't think you could buy a machine with anything else once WinXP went retail.

Jon
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