[There's a reason that Yoda is the unofficial mascot of SBS. Size indeed matters not.] Response to the Response on Response Point, responding to Mark's point about Vista - THE OFFICIAL BLOG OF THE SBS DIVA
Fri, Jul 27 2007 18:38 bradley

Response to the Response on Response Point, responding to Mark's point about Vista

SBSC & MSP Buzz » Blog Archive » Response to Response Point:
http://sbsc.techcareteam.com/archives/29

I don't think it's enough to put the product in the hands of the var/vaps... because they don't have time to deal with the issues that new operating systems just natively have with them.  The problem with Vista deployment is that it's different.  It's new.  Installing hasn't been well documented.  I think there's hasn't been enough "de-fud"ing of Vista.  I'm not trying to discount the issues, but are WE personally seeing deployment issues or are we hearing about them from someone else.  And then .. is it issues that we are causing on ourselves by deploying Vista on not suitable hardware and what not? 

I'm just not convinced that Microsoft has given enough "how to get crappy application X installed on vista" hands on seminars to the consultant space.

The other day I said I hadn't met a piece of software yet that I hadn't been able to get working on Vista and someone said (forgive me for not finding the original posting) that I obviously hadn't tried to install Adobe Acrobat 5 on Vista.

http://secunia.com/product/49/?task=advisories

First off ...that's such an old piece of software to be installing on Vista in the first place that if I even wanted to install THAT OLD of an Adobe I'd rather find another third party pdf making software rather than that old and I honestly don't think it's supported anymore.

It's one thing if your line of business software doesn't support Vista (and note I didn't say it wouldn't run, just that it won't support), it's quite another when you aren't recommending that instead of that old software that is out of support that people don't look for supported alternatives.

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# re: Response to the Response on Response Point, responding to Mark's point about Vista

Saturday, July 28, 2007 12:06 AM by Matthew Clapham

Some companies are abysmally slow at updating secondary line of business applications.  I once saw an enterprise goto great lengths to get an old version (last updated in 1997) of a commercial application to work on Windows XP.  For all the time money, and human effort spent, it would've been easier and cheaper to go out and buy the latest, greatest version of the same application for the 10 or so employees affected.  I understand there's a desire to maximize the money already spent on an application, but if the enterprise IT department waits too long then the eventual upgrade costs (software, training, etc.) are probably more expensive than simple periodic modernization.  

# re: Response to the Response on Response Point, responding to Mark's point about Vista

Saturday, July 28, 2007 11:35 AM by Rob Nicholls

I saw someone make a similar complain about not being able to install a service pack for Word 2000 on Vista. I believe if he temporarily disabled UAC or ran the service pack as an elevated user then it'd work fine, but I did wonder why someone was trying to run such an old piece of software on Vista in the first place.

Adobe's official response is: Acrobat 7.0 and earlier versions do not support Windows Vista. Adobe does not plan to release updates to Acrobat 7.0 and earlier for Windows Vista compatibility.

# re: Response to the Response on Response Point, responding to Mark's point about Vista

Saturday, July 28, 2007 8:58 PM by JamesB

And I've said more than once that getting it installed and getting the LOB vendor to support are not related. I can get Groove Server to install on Windows XP x64, does that mean MS will support it? I've also ran into a LOB app where I asked very specifically about Vista support to which they responded they were "Vista Capable". When I pressed on this it meant it worked great if you disabled UAC and ran as Administrator.

# re: Response to the Response on Response Point, responding to Mark's point about Vista

Monday, July 30, 2007 8:47 PM by Tim

In response to the adobe acrobat 5.

fair comment - but.....

this is a general rant about software in general. Good software shouldnt need ugrading for the sake of upgrading. Adobe acrobat 5 is an example ill use because i have it, (Quickbooks 3 is another) They are software that I use everyday and i dont upgrade them. I dont need to. The "new features" are not selling points for me. There are no security risks with these pieces of software, they work good.

I have an old push bike - i dont upgrade this to the new one every year because the old one works fine.

i reject having to change my software because the os has changed.

As a result we are now using a free pdf maker app instead of adobe acrobat 5 - but im keeping an xp machine on my network for these sorts of apps