Program Compatilibity Assistant - How Does It Work?

[David Gintz]

I'm a developer of a program that runs properly under Windows 2000 and
Windows XP and am making sure it runs under Vista as well.

When I try to run the program under Vista, it runs properly but first puts
up a "Program Compatibility Assistant" message box that says "This program
has known compatibility issues"... Where does Vista get this information
from?

(I have another (identical) version of the program which is branded for
another OEM and it does not report the same thing so I think this must be in
some database somewhere - not due to the program itself.

Any insight?

Thanks.

- David

 

[Richard Urban]

There are about 70, or so, Microsoft newsgroups that have to do with
programming of some sort. Suggest you ask where the programmers hang out,
not in a "general" Vista trouble shooting news group..

--

Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[David Gintz]

There are about 70, or so, Microsoft newsgroups that have to do with
programming of some sort. Suggest you ask where the programmers hang out,
not in a "general" Vista trouble shooting news group..

--

Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

I don't see any Vista programming-related newsgroups on the
msnews.microsoft.com news server. What would you suggest?

 

[Richard Urban]

Try ANY of them. You will find a lot more programming type people in any of
those groups than you will find here.

--

Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[Andre Da Costa[ActiveWin]]

Because Vista uses the same development platform as previous versions of
Windows, Visual Studio. If you are referring to the Presentation,
Communication foundations and .NET 3 check the following ngs:
microsoft.public.windows.winfx.general
microsoft.public.windows.winfx.avalon
microsoft.public.windows.winfx.indigo
microsoft.public.windows.winfx.sdk
microsoft.public.windows.winfx.collaboration
microsoft.public.windows.winfx.fundamentals
microsoft.public.windows.winfx.aero

 

[David Gintz]

Thank you Andre:

Your response was a lot more valuable than the previous one that said to
"try any of them" when I'd said that there weren't any Vista groups listed.

 

[Richard Urban]

I am not a programmer. But it does not take a lot of smarts to know that a
"general" Windows Vista "users" (not developers) help group is not going to
get you many answers.

Conversely, typing "programming for Vista" in Google gives you 20,400,000
hits. I would bet that there are at least ten in the first 100 hits that
would be good for your purposes.

Sorry you don't know where to go for help.

 

[Clint]

It's ironic that you ask this... The 2nd link on the MSDN website
(msdn.microsoft.com) currently shows the "Windows Vista Application
Compatability Cookbook"
(http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnlong/html/appcomp.asp),
which includes the "Program Compatibility Assistant (PCA) in Windows Vista"
(http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa480152.aspx#appcomp_topic18).

Clint

 

[David In NH]

I understand all that you are all saying. I am not asking on this group as a
first resort but as an almost last resort.
It is not "ironic" that I ask this because of two things:

1) I already have read all of the pertinent stuff on the MSDN website and
have been unable to find anything that explains how Vista knows about the
Compatibility issues. My program is compatible and in fact, I'll explain
what I found later on in this message.

2) "Ironic" does not apply anyway because it is defined as "poignantly
contrary to what was expected or intended" and I don't think that applies.
Another definition is "coincidental or unexpected" which also doesn't apply.
There is no coincidence in the PCA being the first thing listed - it was
totally expected. (As an aside, it is interesting to note that many people
use "ironic" incorrectly and that these people also probably believe that
the penultimate is the best or last of something.

Anyway, somehow, Vista knows that the program I was working on "Pantone
huey" had some report of being incompatible. I assume that someone must have
reported this to Microsoft when the program crashed and it got entered into
some database which is part of the distribution. I installed a new version
(for a future release) and got the message box I described in my initial
email although I know the program has been updated to work with Vista and
works properly.

I know that the information about a compatibility problem was not obtained
over the net since I purposely disconnected my network cable, installed a
fresh copy of RC2 and got the message. Trying it again with a one-character
modification to the program's properties (changing the "Company Name" field
from "Pantone" to "XPantone") made the program run without the warning. One
would take from this that the name without the extraneous 'X' was in some
database while the addition of the 'X' made the name not found in the
database.

I'll get a call into the MSDN folks for support but thought that with the
number of people on this group, there would be some programmers familiar
with this issue.

Apparently, I was wrong.

Thanks for all the assistance nonetheless.

- David

 

[Clint]

Another definition of ironic is "humorously sarcastic or mocking", according
to several on-line resources. Consider yourself mocked for not finding the
answers you wanted at the MSDN website, where a prospective solution was
rather clearly posted on the first page. I found it humorous, anyway.
In any case, my apologies for use the same definition as "many people" (as
you put it), rather than the official Webster's definition. I'll try not to
let it happen again.

With regards to your actual problem, the document I sent you explains that
there is a System Application Compatibility database, which, if you drill
down some more in the volumes of MS documents, should be located in the
%windir%\AppPatch directory. See this link for some more details:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/plan/appcmpxp.mspx#EUD.
This is a carryover from the Windows XP architecture.

So from what I can see, that confirms your suspicion that Vista figures your
application is incompatible, and that inclusion comes with either the
initial install, or possibly (I'm imagining) a HotFix/update. Doesn't help
you much in figuring out how to remove the program from the list, however.

Clint

 

[David In NH]

Another definition of ironic is "humorously sarcastic or mocking",
according to several on-line resources. Consider yourself mocked for not
finding the answers you wanted at the MSDN website, where a prospective
solution was rather clearly posted on the first page. I found it
humorous, anyway. In any case, my apologies for use the same definition
as "many people" (as you put it), rather than the official Webster's
definition. I'll try not to let it happen again.

With regards to your actual problem, the document I sent you explains that
there is a System Application Compatibility database, which, if you drill
down some more in the volumes of MS documents, should be located in the
%windir%\AppPatch directory. See this link for some more details:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/plan/appcmpxp.mspx#EUD.
This is a carryover from the Windows XP architecture.

So from what I can see, that confirms your suspicion that Vista figures
your application is incompatible, and that inclusion comes with either the
initial install, or possibly (I'm imagining) a HotFix/update. Doesn't
help you much in figuring out how to remove the program from the list,
however.

Clint

I am humble that I didn't find the correct page on the MSDN site but
sincerely thank you for your helpful response. I'm still confused as to how
the database is configured. I hacked into those files and still didn't find
my application! It must be encoded in some way.

Once again, thanks for your truly helpful (and good humored) response.

- David

 

[Clint]

Don't know if this will help, or if you've already seen it, but here's a
link of a bunch of resources for Dev's to check/achieve compatibility:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsvista/appcompat/default.mspx

Good luck, and if you do get an answer, can you post back?

Clint

 

[David Wilkinson]

There are about 70, or so, Microsoft newsgroups that have to do with
programming of some sort. Suggest you ask where the programmers hang out,
not in a "general" Vista trouble shooting news group..

Richard:

So you prefer repetitive postings about dual booting, downloading, .iso
burning, guessing the RTM date and final build number, etc., etc.

Although there are several specialty vista groups dealing with "new"
features in vista, to my knowledge there is no group dealing with
getting conventional Win32 programs running correctly on Vista. This is
true both of the public groups and the MVP private groups.

I don't think David is talking about the "program Compatibility
Assistant" that uses supposedly detects failure of setup and uninstall
programs by observing that there is no change in the "Programs and
Features" database (a deeply flawed methodology, totally riddled with
false positives). Rather he is of the opinion that his program has
somehow gotten itself on some database of incompatible programs. and he
wants to know how.

Personally, I would like to know the answer to this question.

David Wilkinson

 

[Richard Urban]

Richard:

So you prefer repetitive postings about dual booting, downloading, .iso
burning, guessing the RTM date and final build number, etc., etc.

############################################################

No I don't. I wish people would scan previous posts for 10-15 minutes to see
if their question has possibly already been answered - 25 times!

############################################################

Although there are several specialty vista groups dealing with "new"
features in vista, to my knowledge there is no group dealing with getting
conventional Win32 programs running correctly on Vista. This is true both
of the public groups and the MVP private groups.

I don't think David is talking about the "program Compatibility Assistant"
that uses supposedly detects failure of setup and uninstall programs by
observing that there is no change in the "Programs and Features" database
(a deeply flawed methodology, totally riddled with false positives).
Rather he is of the opinion that his program has somehow gotten itself on
some database of incompatible programs. and he wants to know how.

Personally, I would like to know the answer to this question.

###########################################################


The following is not ment to disrespect David Gintz in any way!


I would like to know the answer to these type of questions also. The General
news group is where you would ask. If someone has found a work around for a
program that has issues, you are likely to get an answer here. If not, most
will tell you to contact the manufacturer and find out when they will update
their program to be compatible with Vista. I have already contacted many
companies to ask just such questions.

Unfortunately and sadly, in this case, the original poster <**IS**> the
manufacturer, whether he is a private individual or working for a company!
People having problems with "his" product will/should be calling him and
asking "him" these questions.

I am not a programmer, but if I were to decide to get into programming this
late in my life, and had specific programming and compatibility questions, I
would certainly hunt down a more suitable forum that deals with those
issues.

That being said, I would likely find more "programming" type people
answering questions in ***ANY*** of the Microsoft news groups that
specialize in ***ANY*** type of programming than I/you/he will here.

###########################################################



--

Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[Alexander Suhovey]

-----Original Message-----

From: David Gintz [mailto:[email protected]]
Posted At: Monday, November 06, 2006 7:17 PM
Posted To: microsoft.public.windows.vista.general
Conversation: Program Compatilibity Assistant - How Does It Work?
Subject: Program Compatilibity Assistant - How Does It Work?

When I try to run the program under Vista, it runs properly but first puts
up a "Program Compatibility Assistant" message box that says "This program
has known compatibility issues"... Where does Vista get this

information from?

David,
In addition to what was already suggested, you could run your app thru
Application Compatibility Toolkit and/or Application Verifier. They
should give you an idea on compatibility problems in your app (if any):
http://blogs.technet.com/all_things_appcompat/default.aspx
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windows/appcompatibility/ap
pverifier.mspx

 

[David In NH]

-----Original Message-----
From: David Gintz [mailto:[email protected]]
Posted At: Monday, November 06, 2006 7:17 PM
Posted To: microsoft.public.windows.vista.general
Conversation: Program Compatilibity Assistant - How Does It Work?
Subject: Program Compatilibity Assistant - How Does It Work?

When I try to run the program under Vista, it runs properly but first puts
up a "Program Compatibility Assistant" message box that says "This program
has known compatibility issues"... Where does Vista get this

information from?

David,
In addition to what was already suggested, you could run your app thru
Application Compatibility Toolkit and/or Application Verifier. They
should give you an idea on compatibility problems in your app (if any):
http://blogs.technet.com/all_things_appcompat/default.aspx
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windows/appcompatibility/ap
pverifier.mspx

Hi Alexander and thanks for the suggestion.

However, I think what you are missing is that the application (although
crashing on Vista in an earlier version of my program), is now compliant and
runs without any problems. I have to figure out how to get it out of the
database of non-compliant programs.

 

[Dennis Pack]

David:
I'm not a programmer but I might have a solution. With MS Works 8 an
incompatibility flag was set. With Works 8 plus the update for Works 8 was
installed no flag was set. The only thing that I noticed is that the version
numbers were different. Maybe changing the version number may eliminate the
flag. Just a guess on my part.

-----Original Message-----
From: David Gintz [mailto:[email protected]]
Posted At: Monday, November 06, 2006 7:17 PM
Posted To: microsoft.public.windows.vista.general
Conversation: Program Compatilibity Assistant - How Does It Work?
Subject: Program Compatilibity Assistant - How Does It Work?

When I try to run the program under Vista, it runs properly but first puts
up a "Program Compatibility Assistant" message box that says "This program
has known compatibility issues"... Where does Vista get this

information from?

David,
In addition to what was already suggested, you could run your app thru
Application Compatibility Toolkit and/or Application Verifier. They
should give you an idea on compatibility problems in your app (if any):
http://blogs.technet.com/all_things_appcompat/default.aspx
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windows/appcompatibility/ap
pverifier.mspx

Hi Alexander and thanks for the suggestion.

However, I think what you are missing is that the application (although
crashing on Vista in an earlier version of my program), is now compliant
and runs without any problems. I have to figure out how to get it out of
the database of non-compliant programs.

 

[David In NH]

David:
I'm not a programmer but I might have a solution. With MS Works 8
an incompatibility flag was set. With Works 8 plus the update for Works 8
was installed no flag was set. The only thing that I noticed is that the
version numbers were different. Maybe changing the version number may
eliminate the flag. Just a guess on my part.

Thanks for the suggestion. The old version (which did have the error) was
1.0.4 and the new version is 1.0.5 - I'd thought of this but it didn't seem
to make a difference. Maybe a higher numbered version 1.1? would be required
but I'm afraid the customer already has been using the 1.0.5 numbering
system. We'll see.

Thanks again.