Until now there were a couple of ways to determine if your applications were compatible with Windows 7 – you can test everything, look them up one-by-one in the Windows Compatibility Center, or inventory your production machines using the Application Compatibility Toolkit 5.5 and synchronize your inventory with hosted compatibility data from Microsoft and ISVs. For about a year, we’ve been posting regular updates to the Windows Vista Application Compatibility List for IT pros and even though compatibility between Windows Vista and Windows 7 is pretty high, there has still been huge demand for a Windows 7-specific list. If you already have a list or inventory of the applications you want to move forward in a Windows 7 deployment, the new Windows 7 Application Compatibility List for IT Professionals lets you download a spreadsheet of known vendor-supported applications so that you can query the list against your pre-existing application inventory. This list represents a sample of the total ecosystem focusing on top products as defined by customers and deployments with a public statement of support provided by the vendor.

As you can see, there is compatibility status listed for both 32- and 64-bit versions of Windows 7, plus each application’s major and minor version numbers are listed to help normalize your data queries. Since October (yes, last month) we have already collected more than 5500 applications and the list is growing every day. If you are working through a list of hundreds or thousands of applications, this list will help you validate your applications more quickly. We will be updating this list regularly, so keep checking back to avoid any unnecessary testing. Click here to download the spreadsheet and get started.

If you are in the process of testing in-house developed applications, download the Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT) and use its in-box evaluators and test tools. Although we released ACT 5.5 back in April coinciding with Windows 7’s RC release, there were no changes needed to support the RTM version of Windows 7. Even though you will see an occasional “RC” in ACT’s reports, ACT 5.5 is the RTM-supporting version.

To access these and other application compatibility resources, check out the Springboard Application Compatibility Zone where we host the latest application compatibility content for Windows 7.

Jeremy Chapman
Windows Deployment

Thank you again for all of you who tuned in live for our most recent virtual roundtable. We had so many questions asked during the broadcast, we were unable to get to all of them so I am dedicating this blog post to the questions and to the answers provided by our product teams involved in the broadcast.

To view all the questions and answers, click here.

For more information and resources on application compatibility with Windows 7, please visit our page on TechNet here.

Did our VRT wrap-up post wet your appetite for more? Looking to learn about virtualization as a application compatibility tool? No need to worry if you missed the live event as the is now available to stream or download here.

Windows 7 Application Compatibility Part 2: Virtualization

In part two of this Springboard Series Virtual Roundtable on Windows 7 Application Compatibility, you'll hear from Microsoft Technical Fellow Mark Russinovich and a panel of experts on how virtualization tools can help you with application compatibility concerns whether you're migrating from Windows Vista or Windows XP.

 
Here’s your chance to get powerful insight into how presentation virtualization, desktop virtualization and application virtualization can reduce testing times, expedite deployment, and ultimately help you streamline PC management. Also covered are the latest desktop virtualization technologies from Microsoft including Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V), Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (MED-V), and Windows XP Mode for Windows 7.

To see part one of this Virtual Roundtable or to view any of our previous roundtables, click here.

As always, visit the Springboard Series for the latest tools, walkthroughs, FAQs and information for IT pros around Windows 7 and visit our Talking About Windows Event Portal to see all the latest IT pro events worldwide on Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 in your area. More events are being added every day!

Thank you to all of you who tuned in and posted or sent in questions for our most recent roundtable and made it another huge success. We will be posting all the questions and answers in the next few days so keep an eye out.

Missed the VRT? Here is the promo of what you can look forward to when the replay become available later this week.

To be the first to know when the replay goes live, follow our Twitter feed @MSSpringboard or watch for our blog post here.

Date: Thursday, September 24
Time: 9:00am Pacific Time

https://ms.istreamplanet.com/springboard

Hear Mark Russinovich, Chris Jackson, Jeremy Chapman and our panel of experts chat about how virtualization tools can help you with application compatibility concerns whether you’re migrating from Windows Vista or Windows XP. Join us to discuss how presentation virtualization, desktop virtualization and application virtualization can reduce testing times, expedite deployment and ultimately help you streamline PC management.

We’ll cover the latest desktop virtualization technologies from Microsoft, including App-V, MED-V and XP Mode for Windows 7. Plus we share tips and tricks and demonstrate free tools to analyze and fix applications while answering your questions live during the event. Join live on Thursday, September 24^th, 2009, 9:00am Pacific Time. Missed Part 1? Watch the replay.

For IT Pro tips, tricks and resources for Windows 7, visit the Springboard Series

As part of the “virtual” experience, you may submit your questions about Windows 7 Application Compatibility to the panel live during the event—or submit questions in advance to vrtable@microsoft.com.

I just wanted to take a moment and post a few quick reminders.

• The Windows 7 Beta expires on August 1^st.
• The Release Candidate download ends on August 20^th. You will still be able to get a product key beyond that date but, downloads will not be available. So if you have not downloaded the release candidate, please do so soon.
• Looking to start a Windows 7 deployment? Questions on application compatibility?  Check out these key resources
  • How To Start A Windows 7 Pilot Deployment
  • Windows XP to Windows 7 Migration Walkthrough
  • Windows 7 Deployment FAQ
  • Windows XP to Windows 7 Hard Link Migration of User Files and Settings
  • Getting Started with the Application Compatibility Toolkit  (ACT 5.5) Video series
  • The Windows 7 Support Forum

As always, your key source for Discovering, Exploring, Piloting, Deploying and Managing Windows 7 are available on Springboard at www.microsoft.com/springboard.

For the latest tips and trick, follow us on Twitter at @MSspringboard