I'm going to be upgrading my compter soon, but have run into the OS nightmare of what software will work. Right now I have XP, but the new comp will have Win7 as an OS (or worse yet Vista), however I haven't a clue whether the software I need are compatible with either. Also where would I go to find out?

Have now and want to continue with;

Bryce
Vue
Apophysis
Choascope
Grobroto
PSP8
PS
Genetica
C4D
Amapi8
asst'd screensaver apps
Pinnacle8

I've tried some of their websites but few mention Win7 or Vista...depressed

You should be good to go at this point. Vista has been out long enough and Windows 7 seems to be fairly friendly to most things that work with Windows XP.

Pray for your pc to come with Windows 7, it is the way to go.

Win7 was the os on the HP I was looking at recently, so that's what I'll get...can't wait to be fast again, the comp I'm on is my oldest and 2gigs of ram went bye-bye, they were the most expensive kind so I was left with just 2, and it's so slow to render anything,or try to do more than one thing at a time. Can't wait...=)

Hi Zhann, I attended a Microsoft launch event on win7 and I was impressed. The 64-bit version of WIndows 7 Ultimate includes Windows XP-32bit in Virtual PC, fully licensed. That allows you to run 32-bit apps made for XP as if theyr'e on the native win7 system. The Virtual PC system allows you to integrate the XP app's windows into win7. You can then launch it from such things as desktop shortcuts and it still runs in a VM. When you save files from it, they get exported into win7 automatically if you so configure it. Sh-weet. That's great to know and have in the rare case where the apps you have don't run natively in windows 7.

If you have 64-bit version of win7 or Vista, be aware that the folder named

C:Program Files

now is intended for 64-bit apps, and a separate folder named

C:Program Files (x86)

is intended for 32-bit legacy apps. However, some installers of some older apps may not see the x86 version as its target and place themselves into the regular folder. An update patch thereafter might not find the pre-installed version. If that's the case, just try to specifiy the installation folder explicitly.

Also, some apps may create subfolders (such as Temp) in the installation folder, and UAC may prevent that. You may thus need to run the apps once as Administrator so as to allow it to create needed subfolders.

This reflects my experience with Project Dogwaffle in Vista and WIndows 7. Your mileage may vary.

Chances are that you'll be able to run yours apps, in general.

-Philip
www.thebest3d.com - beyond digital painting

Staigermanus beat me to it with the virtual machine bit! hehe I attended such a launch event too. It's really quite impressive, the various tools they've made available to maintain compatibility with old software!

I have Vista. Bryce 5.5 and PSP8 both run on it.

Many installers give you the choice of installing for everyone or just the user logged in. If you choose everyone in vista it puts parts of programs in a program data folder instead of just programs. Some programs like blender won't run when split like this.

If you tweak any programs it's a nightmare. Blender or other programs that use python or java scripts are almost impossible to edit. The system sees additions as malicious code and automatically locks them. You have to go in manually and edit properties.

Games in vista have to be loaded into a games folder or the desktop to run.
Games that run Quicktime 6.3 won't run on Quicktime 7 and you can't dig it out once it's on your machine. If you ever visit the web your browser will scream for quicktime 7 the first time you hit a movie file.

Looks like they took a step back from this crazyness with windows7. If you get to make the choice I'd pick windows 7.

Nice to see you about again, Jan!

Hi Zhann! Vista and (I'm assuming) also 7 allow you to run older programs under emulations of previous versions of Windows built in. Not perfect but works OK.

Quote - Amapi8

You are one of the chosen ones.