Windows 8 breakthrough !

theheyes · 16 Jul 2013 at 18:59

Heliospherez said:
And in a business environment - well, don't even get me started - especially with custom written software. Virtually all outsourced software we have for controlling mechanical devices/tools/robots/machines etc no longer works correctly on Windows 7 or 8 - due to the constant prompts/security/checks that it does in the background.

I'm surprised it works in Vista, though? That's where the big architectural changes came in.

Rroff · 16 Jul 2013 at 19:05

It probably would work in 32bit Win 7 but not in the more commonly deployed 64bit Win 7 - that breaks quite a lot of older software and is quite a common issue in industry that bespoke software especially stuff for controlling machinery doesn't work on 64bit Win 7.

Tute · 16 Jul 2013 at 19:10

Funny you talk about compatibility - I've spent the day trying to deploy Windows 7 to one of our (currently XP) sites with absolutely no luck. It seems the drivers we use just aren't going to play ball, and after BSOD central we gave up and took it back to the drawing board.

theheyes · 16 Jul 2013 at 19:21

Rroff said:
It probably would work in 32bit Win 7 but not in the more commonly deployed 64bit Win 7 - that breaks quite a lot of older software and is quite a common issue in industry that bespoke software especially stuff for controlling machinery doesn't work on 64bit Win 7.

Surely there would be someone with enough IT nous to figure that out, though. In which case the solution would be simply to run x86 Windows.

theheyes · 16 Jul 2013 at 19:24

Heliospherez said:
Any manufacturing business that has tools/machines controlled by windows based PCs would be mad to install Win8.... and when you have some factories with 2000, 3000 or more computers essential to their daily work - can you imagine how ridiculous a metro interface would be on factory critical equipment.

That would be entirely dependent on the environment though wouldn't it? Touch screens aren't exactly rare and you would have to say a metro app would be a more suitable solution than Windows forms. Horses for courses.