UK software house ChangeBasehas
developed a tool designed to speed up compatibility tests ahead
ofWindows Vistaroll-outs.
Businesses planning to install
Windows Vista will need to ensure that existing desktop
applications are compatible with the new
Microsoft operating system prior to implementation.
Greg Lambert, technical director and co-founder of ChangeBase,
said, "The main reason applications fail to install on Windows
Vista is because the installation program fails to run or complete
successfully."
The company's AOK software is based on the
Vista compatibility data of 20,000 applications taken from 50
global companies. It has been designed to identify common problem
areas and is able to take remedial steps to overcome compatibility
issues.
In Lambert's experience, applications such as
SAP or
Reuters may make up to 10,000 changes to the
Windows Registry, which hold configuration data for the
operating system. "If the installation program cannot change a
registry setting, it will fail," he said.
Another common problem Lambert has encountered is when the
application expects the user to run Windows as a system
administrator.
User Access Control is a new security feature in Windows Vista
designed to combat malware by forcing applications to run with
lower system privileges. Lambert said, "With
User
Access Control, poorly written applications do not have the
security needed to install on Vista."
Large businesses running AOK include AstraZeneca, which is using
the tool to test 3,500 applications in preparation for a
70,000-desktop global Vista roll-out in 2008.
Clive Longbottom, service director at
analyst firm Quocirca, said, "Not only does AOK enable a
company to migrate from XP to Vista, or just to get older
applications to run on
Windows XP, it also optimises the Windows registry as a side
effect."
Longbottom said this could make Vista far more acceptable to
users, who would see a good improvement in performance.