For those of you who are moving your computing life over to Vista there is a featrue that may get you over the hump if one or two of your apps don't run on Vista.
Run it in compatibility mode. This feature has been around since XP. My limited experience with XP was that running an app in compat mode rarely made it work In Vista I've had better success, but I suspect it still depends on WHY it is failing.
So if you have an app that does not run properly under Vista (even if it is an installer) try this:
- Right-click the executable and select Properties
- Click the Compatibility tab
- Check the "Run this program in compatibility mode for:" checkbox.
- In the dropdown select an OS that you know it worked on. you can choose from Windows 95, Windows 98/ME, Windows NT4.0 SP 5, Windows 2000, Windows XP SP2 or WIndows 2003 SP1. (the default is Windows XP SP 2 and will probably work for many apps).
- Do Not be tempted to check the "Run this program as an administrator" checkbox as a matter of course. If running in compatibility mode does not work you may want to try running as admin, but any time you run a program as admin where you don't need to you weaken the security of your system. You can always try this latter if compatibiltiy mode alone does not resolve the problem.
- Click OK.
That's it. Cross your fingers and your toes, poke your tounge out at just the right angle and then double click the icon to run the application.