Sep 09
11
It’s coming and you know it. As Microsoft gets ready to release Windows 7 to the general public, it is very important for small business owners to start thinking of how to migrate to the new OS. Unlike, Windows Vista, there is no reason why enterprises should not start planning for the move now.
Of course, with every new iteration of an Operating System, there comes the headache of application compatibility. Will that legacy application that worked flawlessly in Windows XP be able to deliver in Windows 7? While there seems to be a lot of tolerance for legacy apps built into Windows 7, there could be a few problems along the way.
One of the many features built into Windows 7 is the compatibility feature. One such tool is the Program Compatibility Troubleshooter which can be launched automatically by Windows 7 when you try to run an incompatible application, or manually from the Control Panel.
Another method is through the Compatibility Mode of Windows 7. In this case, the user has the option of manually selecting a compatible mode for the application, say Windows XP Service Pack 2 mode.
Compatibility modes for applications are set in the following registry key (depending on whether the options are set for all users or only the current user, the setting will either be in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE or HKEY_CURRENT_USER:
SoftwareMicrosoftWindows NTCurrent VersionAppCompatFlagsLayers - there are two parts for each compatibility setting:
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Key Name: Full path to the executable to which we are applying the compatibility flag
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String Value: Name of the Compatibility Mode being applied
For example, if you wanted to run Windows Live Messenger in Windows XP SP2 Compatibility Mode, you would right-click on the exe file, choose properties and select the Compatibility tab. You can then select the compatibility mode you want to run the program under.
Windows 7 Compatibility Mode
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