[Absolutely-OT] Vista Users

wxPython Users
1

Hi All,

I apologize in advance for the (probably) most off-topic thread of the century. I have been reading quite a lot of material about Windows Vista, but I haven’t seen such a “Wow Effect” in general. In the wx* community, it seems that the spread of the new OS is far below what it was expected. I have no idea how wxPython apps look like on Vista, and as usual I am hungry of screenshots if someone could be so kind to provide one (maybe of the demo?) :smiley:

However, I have read so many Bad Things about Vista; a friend of mine, an hardware/software expert who usually builds my machines assembling components for faster computing, almost laughed at me whan I asked him about Vista and still refuses to include Vista on new computers he sells. I was just curious to know about the feelings/performances/issues of wxPython-Vista users: I believe Werner has a working Vista installation, but my memory might fail here.

I don’t have any plan to upgrade soon from XP (it works too well for me). In any case, the profusion of negative-oriented articles about Vista I am finding on the net will probably force me to eat my ancient words [1] and switch to Linux when an upgrade will absolutely be necessary.

[1] “Thanks God for Windows.”

Andrea.

“Imagination Is The Only Weapon In The War Against Reality.”
http://xoomer.virgilio.it/infinity77/

2

I am running Vista (the 64-bit business edition) and so far it's been a quite good experience for me. wxPython apps look like any other apps, they just get a fancy transparent glassy border (if you have Aero whatever it is called now enabled). That's about the main visual difference to XP.
The performance seems to be very well, I have no issues at all. Stability is also great. I have no driver problems either. The only annoyance is the UAC (User Account Control iirc) sometimes. Basically you are prompted for every program that needs admin rights. I like this security feature, but it can get a little annoying if you have a build system which asks 20 or more times if you want to allow the "compiler" to run. I found out that you can disable UAC entirely, but since this tampers with security too much imo I left it on. I thought about creating a special user account which has UAC disabled for running build systems and the like, but haven't tried this yet. Unfortunately you can't disable UAC for a specific program, Microsoft says that the application writers need to fix the applications that require admin rights to run with lower priviledges when possible. I agree with this policy and I guess in a few months most UAC related "problems" will be history.
Another thing I had to get used to was networking. Vista just refused to share entire drives. There were some changes between XP in this area and maybe I just need to get used to the new, more secure way. Also I am not a network guru.
The last thing that gave my some headaches was the virtualization of folders in vista. I googled up this here for some more info: http://www.mail-archive.com/metacard@lists.runrev.com/msg13584.html . This folder virtualization makes some sense for backwards compatibility, but it really made me scratch my head when the file had different contents when openend from my app and when I viewed it from explorer. This is a thing I don't like very much, but I have to admit that it makes sense. It also forces app programmers to use the proper directories which is a good thing imo.
All in all Vista isn't bad. It's nothing revolutionary, has some nice additions (like the search in explorer), is more secure and stable than xp and almost all of my apps work with it (except some old 16-bit app since I am running on 64-bit).
I am sorry to say that, but as much as I like linux (tried several distributions for years), it has never had the ease of use or the quality of windows (since xp). At least not for my usage profile. So I'd rather switch to Vista than to linux, but this is just a personal opinion.

-Matthias

3

Hi Andrea,

Andrea Gavana wrote:

Hi All,
     I apologize in advance for the (probably) most off-topic thread of the century. I have been reading quite a lot of material about Windows Vista, but I haven't seen such a "Wow Effect" in general. In the wx* community, it seems that the spread of the new OS is far below what it was expected. I have no idea how wxPython apps look like on Vista, and as usual I am hungry of screenshots if someone could be so kind to provide one (maybe of the demo?) :smiley:

Yes, the "Wow effect" is mostly if not all MS marketing hype. I would not upgrade an existing machine unless it is very very recent. I mainly got a computer with Vista as I had planned to get a new PC anyhow, and Dell (were I get my PC's from) only does Vista for some time now (also I heard something that they will also offer Linux soon) and as some users reported problems with my app on Vista.

Problems with my app were:
- issues with listctrl fixed in wxPython 2.8
- a couple issue with my installer
a) had things like error log files in "program files/myapp/prog" with the new UAC "program files" should only contain program files, i.e. a normal user has no write access to that folder hierarchy. Moved the error log files to a folder under "users/yourlogin/myapp".
b) Installer should not offer to run application at end of installation (as at that point the admin user is active and not the user running the installation)

Other things to watch out on Vista installer (the ones I remember):
a) watch out how you use the registry. A normal user only has write access to HKCU, they can read from the others.
b) make sure that the icon you assign to your application scales nicely (e.g. have a icon file with 16, 32 and 48 pixel versions), otherwise it will look ugly in the MS Explorer
c) localization can be confusing (I got a French Vista version - I am not sure that was that good an idea, as I am searching things pretty often, but it also allowed me to see things like this) so Program Files is called Programmes in the MS Explorer but when you go to e.g. a command prompt and dir C you will see Program Files. If you look for one of these "localized" folders in your installer or program you can use the English name.
d) WinHelp is not supported (except with a user download), so you should use HTML help

However, I have read so many Bad Things about Vista; a friend of mine, an hardware/software expert who usually builds my machines assembling components for faster computing, almost laughed at me whan I asked him about Vista and still refuses to include Vista on new computers he sells. I was just curious to know about the feelings/performances/issues of wxPython-Vista users: I believe Werner has a working Vista installation, but my memory might fail here.
I don't have any plan to upgrade soon from XP (it works too well for me). In any case, the profusion of negative-oriented articles about Vista I am finding on the net will probably force me to eat my ancient words [1] and switch to Linux when an upgrade will absolutely be necessary.

I had quit a lot of applications I had to get new versions for, but beside that the installation was quit painless and I think it is at least as stable as XP is.

Werner

P.S. I send you a few screen shots to you directly.

4

Hi Werner, Matthias & All,

<snip>
<snap>

Yes, the "Wow effect" is mostly if not all MS marketing hype. I would
not upgrade an existing machine unless it is very very recent. I mainly
got a computer with Vista as I had planned to get a new PC anyhow, and
Dell (were I get my PC's from) only does Vista for some time now (also I
heard something that they will also offer Linux soon) and as some users
reported problems with my app on Vista.

Problems with my app were:
- issues with listctrl fixed in wxPython 2.8
- a couple issue with my installer
a) had things like error log files in "program files/myapp/prog" with
the new UAC "program files" should only contain program files, i.e. a
normal user has no write access to that folder hierarchy. Moved the
error log files to a folder under "users/yourlogin/myapp".
b) Installer should not offer to run application at end of installation
(as at that point the admin user is active and not the user running the
installation)

Other things to watch out on Vista installer (the ones I remember):
a) watch out how you use the registry. A normal user only has write
access to HKCU, they can read from the others.
b) make sure that the icon you assign to your application scales nicely
(e.g. have a icon file with 16, 32 and 48 pixel versions), otherwise it
will look ugly in the MS Explorer
c) localization can be confusing (I got a French Vista version - I am
not sure that was that good an idea, as I am searching things pretty
often, but it also allowed me to see things like this) so Program Files
is called Programmes in the MS Explorer but when you go to e.g. a
command prompt and dir C you will see Program Files. If you look for
one of these "localized" folders in your installer or program you can
use the English name.
d) WinHelp is not supported (except with a user download), so you should
use HTML help

<snip>
<snap>

P.S. I send you a few screen shots to you directly.

Werner and Matthias, thank you for the extended explanation. I know
nothing about Vista and I was curious to have some impressions from
actual users. I feel I will continue to work with XP as long as my
machine will be "not so obsolete". At that point, I'll see which is
the best alternative.
Werner, thanks a lot for the screenshots, and thanks to have included
also CustomTreeCtrl and FlatNotebook in the pictures :smiley:

Andrea.

"Imagination Is The Only Weapon In The War Against Reality."
http://xoomer.virgilio.it/infinity77/

···

On 5/21/07, Werner F. Bruhin wrote: