14 DAY TRIAL // It’s rather simple to see that Microsoft’s strong focus on application compatibly for Windows 7 has paid off. Off course, the company had Vista as a buffer to sweeten the transition from Windows XP, and as a result, Windows 7 is not plagued by the incompatibility problems that handicapped its predecessor. A new resource from the software giant is currently available for download, designed to streamline the process of evaluating apps for their compatibility level with the latest iteration of the Windows client.
In fact, customers can simply check on a list provided by Microsoft whether a certain program will play nice with Windows 7 or not. This is the main purpose of the Windows 7 Application Compatibility List for IT Professionals. As the label implies, this is a resource for IT pros that need to ensure what applications running in their environment on top of older Windows releases will continue to function without issues in combination with Windows 7. The list of apps is an Excel spreadsheet featuring in excess of 5,500 applications.
“There is compatibility status listed for both 32- and 64-bit versions of Windows 7, plus each application’s major and minor version numbers are listed to help normalize your data queries. Since October (yes, last month) we have already collected more than 5500 applications and the list is growing every day. If you are working through a list of 100’s or 1000’s of applications, this list will help you validate your applications more quickly. We will be updating this list regularly, so keep checking back to avoid any unnecessary testing. Click here to download the spreadsheet and get started,” revealed Jeremy Chapman, senior product manager, Windows Deployment.
And by all means, don’t let the “for IT professional” aspect of the app compatibility list discourage you. All users can take advantage of this resource, as it is a free download offered by Microsoft. If you have a specific application that you simply can’t live without, and can’t figure it out for yourselves whether it plays nice with Windows 7 or not, then simply check the list. Chances are that the Redmond company already knows whether a specific application is or is not compatible with Windows 7.
“For about a year, we’ve been posting regular updates to the Windows Vista Application Compatibility List for IT pros and even though compatibility between Windows Vista and Windows 7 is pretty high, there has still been huge demand for a Windows 7-specific list. If you already have a list or inventory of the applications you want to move forward in a Windows 7 deployment, the new Windows 7 Application Compatibility List for IT Professionals lets you download a spreadsheet of known compatible applications so that you can query the list against your pre-existing application inventory,” Chapman added.