14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft is currently working on delivering important updates to the Windows 7 Application Compatibility List. The Redmond company has yet to provide any details as to what it has in stored for the list featuring applications that have been tailored to the latest iteration of the Windows client, or the deadline when the refresh will be made available. Microsoft’s Chris Jackson only promised that the update is coming, explaining why the Windows 7 Application Compatibility List hasn’t been updated to the scheduled the Redmond company promised to keep, approximately once every two weeks.
The team behind the list have “been working hard on adding some pretty important updates. And, of course, those updates have a full disclosure plan, and so I don’t get to talk about them yet. For now, I just wanted you to know that this little task is still seeing some love within Microsoft, and that the team is still hard at work to find new and innovative ways to help reduce the time you spend understanding and addressing app compat as part of your Windows 7 migrations,” Jackson stated.
If I were to guess, I’d say that the upcoming update to the Application Compatibility List has something to do with the imminent arrival of Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1) Beta, which is expected to drop by the end of this month. However, this is nothing more than a guess on my part, and needs to be taken with a grain of salt.
“We keep a list of vendor-supported applications available in a couple of places, and also move as much data as we can over into the back-end to be consumed by the ACT client. This can help save you a bit of time from having to search every single vendor’s website for support data; though you will still likely have to visit the support site of the vendor for many apps, the more we can report on in a single site, the less time you have to spend navigating their sites and searching for compatibility statements,” Jackson added.
At this point in time, users can access both the Windows 7 Compatibility Center and the Windows 7 Downloadable Application Compatibility List for IT Professionals in order to get information on apps that have been adapted to Windows Vista’s successor. Microsoft updated the Windows 7 Application Compatibility List for IT Professionals last on April 26th, 2010, more than 60 days ago, and certainly more than two weeks. Still, the promise from the company is that additional refreshes are in the works and that updating will start soon.