Application Compatibility

Application Compatibility

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There are certain applications which can run in Windows XP or other versions of Windows but cannot run in Windows Vista. We need to find out compatibility issues before deploying Windows Vista on computers. Even after testing compatibility there can be problems after the deployment of Vista. We need to resolve them too. The following are some reasons that may lead to incompatibility issues between Windows Vista and third party applications:

• User Account Control (UAC) is a feature that helps a user to prevent unauthorized changes to a user's computer. UAC asks a user for permission or an administrator password before performing actions that could potentially affect a computer's operation or that change settings that affect other users. There are certain applications that do not support UAC. Therefore an application must be tested for UAC before installation.
• File and Virtualization feature is new to Windows Vista. It redirects any application request to write to protected system files to a safe and temporary location. Some applications can manage this redirection, but some cannot.
• A new feature called Protected Mode in Internet Explorer 7 also disallows some Internet and intranet applications to run.
• Windows Vista 64-bit edition neither supports 16-bit applications nor 32-bit drivers.

• PCA: PCA stands for Program Compatibility Assistant. It is a tool that Windows Vista includes with itself. This tool helps a user to improve the compatibility of older programs with Windows Vista. It appears immediately when Windows Vista finds a known compatibility issue in an older program. It offers help to resolve any compatibility issue. If it fails to resolve, it offers user an option to check online to fix the problem. It can run the conflicting program in an environment that simulates earlier version of Windows.
  
• PCW:
  
  
• Compatibilty Tab: You can also configure compatibility settings in the Compatibility tab within the Properties dialog box of any program. The options provided in this tab are same as in PCW.

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