Well, I think I've got everything installed and setup (with the exception of the latest MSDN download).
I grabbed my copy of the Vista RTM late last night and it finished downloaded in the wee hours of the morning. So when I got up this morning, I started my monster backup (big backups for me are about 3-5 GB of data and take a few hours). Before lunch I was already installing the release of Vista. After lunch, it was configuration time, and getting my myriad of applications reinstalled. I decided to go with an entirely clean wipe (including reformat) because I've been running Vista since the pretty early CTP drops and hadn't reformatted unless forced to. I thought it would be best to start off with a clean slate.
Mmm, so pretty. So pretty. :-)
Here's a few tidbits of information for people who may be curious about how well REALbasic is working on Vista. The IDE runs great and looks great, as do built applications. Everything is using the correct look and feel, so your applications will continue to get the proper theme support that they've always had. What's more, if you're worried about Office automation, I just tested REALbasic 2006 Release 4 against Office 2007 release and all my simple tests worked. I don't have any complex tests because I've never really automated Office before, but I'm betting those work as well. Also, the HTMLViewer works with IE 7 release. So that should account for all of the major changes in OS and software which RB interacts with.
I was thinking of installing Virtual PC 2004 on here so that I'd have a handful of different testing OSes, but I keep getting warnings about VPC not being compatible with Vista. Ho hum. So I signed up for the Virtual PC 2007 beta and am downloading that now. We'll see how well I like it.
But yeah, it's been a long day of installations. I'm looking forward to having a weekend to sit back, relax, and do very little. I have some RB Library submissions I want to get edited so we can get them up on the site quicker. I've also got some ideas for another article of my own kicking around in my head, which I may get a start on. Should be a fun weekend regardless.
So, I've had a lot of silence on the Advanced Graphics for Windows post in terms of what people seem to think about it. Anyone have thoughts? Too early to tell? It sucks and you don't want to hurt my feelings?
It's been a long time since I've run Virtual PC, but man, 2007 is awesome. I've got Win2k and Ubuntu up and running, and can remote debug to them trivially. I think this weekend I'll install Windows 98 just to have it around. I'm quite impressed with how seamlessly it's been integrated into the OS. Also helps that hardware's made huge advances since I played around with virtualization software.
OS X ? You know I had to ask :)
VPC has come a long way since I first used it on Mac OS in ... 94 / 95 ish
Glad you're enjoying yer new machine
LoL, pretty sure that's impossible without breaking a licensing agreement with Apple. ;-)
This isn't the new machine either -- I reformatted my current dev box (the Dell). It was running Vista RC 1 last, but now it's running the RTM.
Oh you didn't load Vista on your new laptop ?
I just assumed you did.
Haven't gotten the new guy yet -- Nov 28th is the estimated arrival date. :-)
Why Virtual PC versus VMWare?
@Aaron - ahhh I see ... should be there the same my my new MacBook Pro arrives here. Had to buy a new one of those since wife dropped her iBook. it should run XP nicely. No idea about Vista
@Joe - VPC comes from MS now so it probably integrates with Windows in ways that VMware does not (or cannot ... lord knows)
About the Advanced Graphics for Windows:
- It sucks! Not your project, but the fact that GDI+ is only available by default on XP and up.
- I downloaded it but I didn't have time yet to on XP - I use Win2K for developement and FYI if I try to run it on Win2K I get this error: "Runtime Error 4: Failed Assertion - Classes.cpp: 1727 - Failure Condition: gContext->mCurrentProperty" and not the "GdiPlus is not supported, quitting now." error message.
hmm ... 1 disk 1 partition 66gb data and a full bootable backup (no incrementals)takes about 3 hours here
Backup? Whats that?
@Carlos - I get the same Runtime Error 4 attempting to run either of the Example GDI+ Projects on Windows XP (Media Center Edition), SP2...
@Carlos & Chip -- thanks for bringing that to my attention. I hadn't been able to run it on a system which didn't have GDI+ installed, so I didn't realize I missed a few places using regular declares instead of soft ones. Now that I have Virtual PC, I'm able to test these things better. I've fixed that issue, as well as added a few more polishing touches to the project.
I just uploaded the new release (1.0.1), so if you can download that and give it a shot, that'd be awesome!
@Aaron: Same error with 1.0.1 when trying to run the 4 examples with 2006r4 on Win2K.
@Carlos -- I'm unable to reproduce that assertion with r4 or r5...
As for the VPC vs VMware, my two cents are that VMware runs significantly faster than VPC 2004 on Windows. Can't compare to VPC 2007 beta, since I don't have that installed.
But one BIG reason why you might consider VPC over VMware is.... IT'S FREE :P
My personal preference (so far) is VMware Workstation. I was getting 4x the performance out of VMware compared to VPC. I'm betting though that MS has made huge strides since 2004 in the VPC 2007 beta.
@Scott P -- VPC 2007 on my machine works almost as fast as a native install (at least Win2k, Win98 and Ubuntu). It's really awesome -- I've been very impressed. It was trivial to track down and fix some bugs for AGW last night; just start up, remote debug and fix.
Good to know! Even though VPC 2004 was free, I ended up going VMware since VPC 2004 was _painfully_ slow. My VMware install is almost as fast as a real install as well.
I'll be looking forward to a seeing VPC 2007 going RTM :) Hopefully it will perform just as well as VMware on our hardware and with WinXP (guest & host).
@Carlos -- found the issue! You have a plugin installed which also exposes a class named Rect. If you remove your plugin, the issue will go away. Looking into fixing the bug, but not certain what to do about the name clash.
@Aaron: You're right. In my situation is the #TypeLib.rbx plugin - removing it the error does not happen.
@Carlos -- yup, another person was having the same issue with the same plugin.
Ok, Advanced Graphics for Windows has been updated again. This update involves a name change for many of the helper classes, so you may want to get your hands on this update sooner rather than later.