Solving Win 8 compatibility issues with v10.5

[jkwrpc]

I installed Win 8 on an laptop. It has been running Vista so I have targeted it for upgrade months ago. I was not a fan of Vista.

Anyway after installing Win8, I installed some other programs and it a night. Last evening I installed A5 v.10.5 Developer on the laptop. As other experience the install went fine but when I went to run the software the "this is not licensed' error message displayed and the A5 closed.

I then went the Alpha.exe file, right clicked and selected troubleshoot compatibility. I let windows run through the test. It asked me to to Test the compatibilty. I did it opened A5 but it was all wonky looking. So still using the wiziard I report it was still having issues and it gave me choice to list compatibility modes. It had by default selected WinXPSp2. I chose WIN 7. I retested the app and it ran for the most part as I built it.

I selected the option to save the setting and exited the wizard. I then opened A5 from the new Start Menu and it opened A5 with no error messages.

Keep in mind this is a desktop app. I then opened an earlier copy of my application. The app was located in a folder on my desktop. The app opened and everything looked and worked as designed...for the most part. I had in earlier versions used a grid as a web component in a dialog. While I have stepped away from that design it was in this version. That dialog continued to be wonky and really none functional.

My guess and its only a guess is that the real issue in Win 8 for this version of A5 will be with the web side of things. Since my app for the desktop this will be a non-issue.

In an effort to see what would happen to the compatibility settings if I did a restart and then a full shutdown and power up. I went through those exercises. Everything continued to work as before with no errors showing. I will look later but I am guessing that when I saved the settings earlier it wrote to the registry. I will look later at the registry and see if I can find those setting. If I can find them then I will need to find the means to create them programatically.

[DaveM]

Re: Solving Win 8 compatibility issues with v10.5

This is a good one:

We have put together this special offer for our customers who are using a version of Alpha Five prior to v11. If you act by Wednesday, November 14th, you can purchase 2 Alpha Five v11 Developer Edition licenses - a $498 value - for only $199. And, you can add an Alpha Five v11 Unlimited Runtime Edition, and the Alpha Five v11 Application Server, for only $99 each!
Just got the emailed newsletter.

[Ray in Capetown]

Re: Solving Win 8 compatibility issues with v10.5

John
thanks for publishing your findings. ie. Win 7 compatibility. Desktop.

[DaveM]

Re: Solving Win 8 compatibility issues with v10.5

I do not have win 8 just yet:

Once We do have the tested and agreed on solution, I/we would like to make an update with Astrum that could be shared with all, if possible. It would simply update the registry(and/or) with whatever is needed. Anyone want to help? It could be posted in one of my/your websites somewhere so all could simply download it. Should be quite small.

This is not to harm alpha in any way, but should be a stop gap for the apps that do not covert quickly to v11 or for the ones not able to upgrade just yet.

[jkwrpc]

Re: Solving Win 8 compatibility issues with v10.5

I spent part of yesterday looking for the where the compatibility settings were saved in the registry. I could not find them. I am wondering if Windows 8 does not save them in a shim database. I will be doing some more research on this over the weekend. All I know at this point is the settings are being saved I just need to find out where. As of now I cannot find them in the registry.

Dave - I agree if we can find out what is needed to make a v10 desktop run on Win 8, it will buy us time to convert any apps to v.11 with its new features or a different platform if that is the choice we make. I think it would be nice to have a so called quick fix for customers with v10 being a legacy product if and when the move to Win 8. I fail to see how doing this hurts Alpha.

[DaveM]

Re: Solving Win 8 compatibility issues with v10.5

I fail to see how doing this hurts Alpha.

Revenue from sales of v11 at any price. I have and still do hold majority allegance to the developers and then alpha. They hold to gaining revenue, even if small and that is what they should.

If a shim database is needed, I am sure that can also be included in the update. The update with astrum can be made almost totally quite. I don't know if a reboot will be necessary after the shim is installed or not.

In a runtime environment, the runtime is all that needs to be addressed. The path to the runtime exe may need to be addressed also. in essence, there may be factors to be dealt with. My runtime exe is alda.exe and the path is always c:\alda. Others are surely different. Users(where the problem lies most) need to be inconvenienced as little as possible.

It is all up in the air right now until we know what has to be done. I am sure it can be done. I just wish I had a win8 to work on.

[DaveM]

Re: Solving Win 8 compatibility issues with v10.5

In windows 7 registry, the compatibility for alda.exe is here:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Layers]
"C:\\The Print Shop Products\\The Print Shop Premier Edition 5.0\\PSPE5.exe"="WINXPSP3"
"C:\\alda\\alda.exe"="WINXPSP3"

If you notice, another application is already in there. I made the exe campatible with xp 3 and this showed up. These are the only apps I have running in compatibility on this new computer so far.

[jkwrpc]

Re: Solving Win 8 compatibility issues with v10.5

I have decided this will be my next experiment. I will take my A5 v10 runtime and install it on the Win 8 machine I will see if it raises the error. If it does then I will download and use the compatibility toolkit from MS. I use it to create a shim database and then see if I can get that process to work. If it does, it may prove to be the better solution.

I may not get this done until Monday, but I will report what I learn.

[jkwrpc]

Re: Solving Win 8 compatibility issues with v10.5

For what its worth, I took advantage of the 'special A5 v11 offer' . So that is my fix.... I will try the shim database later, and then let someone else pick up the mantel on resolving the issue.

[jkwrpc]

Re: Solving Win 8 compatibility issues with v10.5

Last night I install v11 on my Win 8 laptop. The I went back to the v10.5 issue. I downloaded the application compatibility toolkit from Microsoft. I opened the application compatibility manager. In the manager which looks a lot like the computer management or group policyeditor I could see the setting I have made for v10.5. I correctly showed the path to the alpha.exe. It also showed the compatibility setting as WIN7RTM.

Again what I could not find was where those setting are stored. I search the registry a number of times in various ways without success. It appears you can open and query the compatibility or shim data base. I did that without success.

As of right now, at least for me, it is a mystery where those settings are.

I then installed the v.10.5 run-time, it gave the anticipated not Licensed error. I used the application toolkit to create an entry in shim database. The toolkit failing at the point of creating the database, its SQL Server. However, when I opened SQLServer Management Studio that database and tables were there. I use SQLServer 2012, so its possible it is not compatible with that version.

I suspect the answer is to make a registry entry in the AppCompat section. I may try that later this week to see if that works.

***Side note: My app which was created in v10.5 used a web component grid in a dialog. Even after setting compatibility on Win 8, that piece of the application was all wonky looking under v10,5 and did not function. Opening the app in v11 the same piece is now working as designed. I mention this because there may be more issues than I first realized.

[aschone]

Re: Solving Win 8 compatibility issues with v10.5

John -

Dave gave the registry location in post #7 of this thread.

Do you check this location?

Alpha 5 stated in another thread that they had to do numerous changes with version 11 to get it compatible with windows 8. Might I suggest that you run version 11 of 10.5?

[jkwrpc]

Re: Solving Win 8 compatibility issues with v10.5

Andrew:

Yes, that is the registry location for Win7 but in Win8 nothing is stored there. I suspect it is the place to add the key, but my A5v10 setting on Win8 it must be stored somewhere else.

[Stan Mathews]

Re: Solving Win 8 compatibility issues with v10.5

John,

I admire your persistence but .....

Just because you are able to run v 10.5 under some circumstances, do you want to guarantee your clients that they will experience no data loss, etc? Are you going to disclose to your customers that v 10.5 was not designed to run under Win 8, the company has stated that it shouldn't be run under Win 8, but you've "tricked" the system and you think it's good enough to get by?

[jkwrpc]

Re: Solving Win 8 compatibility issues with v10.5

Stan:

Your comment raises valid questions and really should be discussed or considered by developers. I really had no intentions of tricking anyone or software platform. I was simply trying to use the tools MS makes available, there is no trickery in my mind. They are the ones who created compatibility mode and the toolkit to make it work. I certainly would have explained that to anyone who demo'ed or purchased the software, that it ran in Win 7 and would run in Win 8 using compatibility mode. If I could not have gotten the compatibility mode to work, I would have stepped away from it. As of now I have not gotten it to run in a way I judge completely satisfactory. In fact I tried to make clear even though A5 v10.5 was running in compatibility it was not clean, hence my comments about the web component dialog not being right.

However, when Richard made us the 'Special Offer' I opted to buy in to v11. So all of this while remains a curious exercise for me, is no longer part of my solution.

As it stands the jury is out for me as whether A5 is the best platform for my application. Its a very good product, but I really need something can deal OS changes. I VB6 apps out running since 2000, undergoing numerous OS changes, even MS continues to keep its VB6 viable through the life cycle of Win 8.

Short-term I hope to get the current app rolled out the next few weeks. Then I will start to move it to a browser based desktop app. Its not likely I will use A5 to do that given the need for WAS and the cost it adds to my app. I also really don't have a desire to take on server administration.

Again Stan, your question was great and thanks for asking.

[DaveM]

Re: Solving Win 8 compatibility issues with v10.5

VB app built in 1998 is also still running and doing well in win8. I just called this morning to check on it with my buddy who owns it. It never had an overhaul for os conversions.

That is where browser based begins to look good to me too.

I am going to upgrade to 11 for my use and to be able to keep my customers running, but it probably will be my last move with alpha.

Alpha needs to move to 64 bit at this time and go back to the ways that would not be so os dependent. We know 16 bit is done and 32 bit is about dead. I am speaking of desktop.