Does Vista play nicely with others? (Blue Ribbon)
Probably by now, you've seen the messages from Extension IT, telling you that beginning on April 15, all new computers WILL be loaded with Windows Vista--no exceptions allowed. Let's talk about Vista and how it interacts with Blue Ribbon first. There is a separate post about Vista and Filemaker.
In Iowa, we are using Blue Ribbon version 2.5 because 2.6 is buggy and has not been fixed yet. Eventually I'm sure there will be a version 2.7, and I'm hopeful it WON'T be buggy. But, we don't know when that will be released. Stick with me here--this is a trickle-down explanation from this point on. Version 2.5 will not install and work with Vista. There is no work-around or fix. However, there IS a separate installation package for version 2.6 and Vista. One install package for XP, a different one for Vista. This where it gets interesting.
Version 2.6 changes the data file structure, so if one person in an office updates to that version, everyone else will be forced to do that as well. So far I'm seeing two different CDs for that office--one Vista, one XP. It gets worse. Once one county updates to version 2.6, I'm also going to have to do that in order to be able to use the data. Once *I* have updated, the REST of the counties will also have to do that... now we're looking at two CDs for every county, and a forced software update across the state, never forgetting the original problem: version 2.6 is buggy. So everyone would be doing that software update to a flawed product, instead of one that works right. Hm.
What should you do about Vista, then? If you are going to order a new computer (to run BR) this year, you have a couple of choices--if the current BR computer is running well, order a Vista computer, and just leave the old computer set up and running BR until I release version 2.7, then load 2.7 on the Vista computer. If your current BR computer is NOT functional, then you'll have to think about ordering a new computer before April 15, and asking for it to be loaded with XP. I can't guarantee we'll see version 2.7 by April. Or September even. All I know is that I'm not going to release version 2.6 because the problems are significant enough to override any benefits.
If you need more information before the April 15 ordering deadline, please email me or better yet, post a comment to the blog!