Application compatibility for different OS

Question

Hi,

We have a VC++ MFC application which is basically developed for Windows XP. With customers upgrding to Windows 7, we need to conduct an exercise to identify at a high level the areas of the application that will require changes. Has anyone done something similar before. What are the typical things that we need to do to begin work on this. Any help on this topic will be appreciated.

Thanks in advance

np

Answer 1

The MFC parts should me OS independend. I did not have problems with my VC2005 apps that were created for XP to run with Windows 7. The parts that were coded in plain API may need changes since Vista / 7 has a few enhancements (structure sizes larger due to enhancements...) or API changes. An exqample. The power management stuff changed more or less completely from XP to Vista. But there is no general list that has to be checked, or at least I do not know this list.

I'd check the application under a windows 7 system and take a look if there are problems and in case there are problems I'd check this problems with the debugger and would fix it in the way it is XP and 7 compatible.

Answer 2

Hi,
 
We have a VC++ MFC application which is basically developed for Windows XP. With customers upgrding to Windows 7, we need to conduct an exercise to identify at a high level the areas of the application that will require changes. Has anyone done something similar before. What are the typical things that we need to do to begin work on this. Any help on this topic will be appreciated.

The most common problem is file and registry access. Many programs written for XP and earlier assumed that it was possible to write to Program Files and HKLM. On NT/Win2k and XP this only worked because most user accounts were administrators. On Vista and Win7, even administrators cannot write to Program Files or HKLM (unless the program requests elevation).
 

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David Wilkinson | Visual C++ MVP

Answer 3

Hi David,

Thanks for your response. Thanks for pointing out that the programs written for xp would write to program files and registries, do you have any recommendation as to how this can be handled better for a win 7 application, I mean what do we need to change in the existing application to make it work in Win 7 environment.

Regards,

np

Answer 4

Hi Bordon,

Thanks for the reply. I see that probably the easiest way is to check for compatibility problems by making the application work in win 7 environment and noting down the issues. But, if we were to take a different approach to the problem, if we were to identify the major change areas of Win 7 over Win XP from the perspective of developing the application and deploying the application, we would probably have an application which would be more suitable for Win 7. So my question is basically to know those things which we needs focus on while we change the application to be compatible with Win 7.

Regards,

np

Answer 5

Hi David,
 
Thanks for your response. Thanks for pointing out that the programs written for xp would write to program files and registries, do you have any recommendation as to how this can be handled better for a win 7 application, I mean what do we need to change in the existing application to make it work in Win 7 environment.

You need to modify your program so that it does not write to HKLM or Program Files. You were never supposed to do this even on XP (and your program would not work on XP if user was not an administrator).
 

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David Wilkinson | Visual C++ MVP

Answer 6

See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb757005.aspx<F ONT face="Times New Roman"> for guidelines on Vista (same as Win 7) compatibility.

 

-- David

 

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