Vista anyone?

I'm looking forward to this: is it any good?

I won't see it for years. These people just discovered XP and only because they hit a wall with Win2K. One concern I heard expressed about Vista was its wavering support for OpenGL. I haven't been able to find anything definitive on this regarding the production version. All the propaganda is slanted to gamers and Direct3D. Other things I've seen imply that OpenGL is part of the API which Pro/e ignores. Perhaps this is no different than it was in XP, but I can find no unambiguous statement to that effect.

Other concerns would be whether they've gotten beyond the traditional Windows idiocy on networks and networking (profiles? roaming profiles? "mapping network drives" [is it a network or isn't it?]) And have they finally included a system level programming language for access to all their APIs which would get it close to being a real, networked OS. And finally, since it is "closed source", how hostile is it to Open Source and endeavors such as Java which is more and more the GUI foundation of Pro/e.

David Janes

I don't know about any of this stuff... I just want something that works. Seems to be doing that so far. I think th interface looks better than XP which was too cartoony IMO. Not that it maters - I just set it back to windows Classic anyway.

I've been told to go easy with downloaded programs like Firefox tho because they aren't set up for Vista yet.

I have a demo version of Vista 64 bit that I'm going to try at home, although I guarantee it won't receive significant testing.

As usual, Vista will probably add 'features' that turn out to create some bugs with applications, and Pro/E is especially fidgety in this regard. If it were a character on TV, it's sensitivity and catastrophically dramatic breakdowns would cast it on a soap opera. So I don't see any reason why XP->Vista will be much different than

2000->XP was, especially if all of your hardware is functioning well on the new OS.

It's the 64 bit I feel is much more critical to worry about. If you make the jump to 64, you'll have much less support w.r.t. printers and hardware and that trip is no fun right now.

Dave

No, it's 32 bit. I believe there's a lot of tweaking that needs doing in order to run other apps on a 64 bit computer.

I've been wondering for some time whether PTC would move to DirectX - any thoughts? (I quite clearly ain't an expert)

Generally speaking, the 32-bit emulation is very well supported from what I hear. So while it's wise to test every app on a new 64 bit setup before assuming the world is round again, it is safe to say that most 32 bit apps should have no trouble in the 64-bit world. They will of course not get any of the 64 bit memory addressing advantage, but most apps will never need that.

It's the device drivers and apps that work with hardware at a lower level that make 64 bit hard to swallow. It seems that the majority of printers, for example, have little or no support. Given how hardware-dependent Pro/E's stability is, I'm not going to bother with the 64 bit migration until it's needed.

Dave

I should say my computer is a 64 bit job but the version of ProE is 32 bit. I don't know how that works tho. One of our guys was running the

64 bit version on his computer (although he doesn't use ProE much - he's an industrial designer and tends to use Alias) but I know his other apps were a problem. I'm guessing that you use a different version of the operating system with 64 bit.

I am also being set up to be the official guinea pig at work for determining weather our apps will work with vista or not. Are you saying that you are running pro on vista now?

Yes, I'm running Pro on Vista. Have been for a couple of months. I'm finding it crashes a bit more often than I would like, but not enough to call IT our of their cave.

Did you have any issues installing it? I just tried installing it on vista but got some sort of error. It didn't tell me much. Just that the application failed to install and that it was going to close. I didn't get a chance to look into it further yet.

Cumon, this is XP+, man! One bump in the road and your getting excited!?! Don't go 'chickenlittle' on us. Of all the programs I've ever installed, Pro/e, under any operating system, has always been the most difficult, the most quirkiest. It certainly didn't take Vista for users to have trouble installing Pro/e. Acourse, I'm always mor'n a little interested to hear what these problems might be, so let's hear from alla you users. (Or should I say, alla you guinea pigs?)

David Janes

No issues. Our IT guys did it so I don't know how it went for them. We're running WF 3.0.

I just got WF 3.0 M060. Its just seems to be a bit jerky when rotating the solids. Have you experienced this? I think it has to do with vista not supporting openGL. Everything else seems to be working fine though.

Compared to what? We're running M040, it isn't jerky. The image quality is lower than 2001 though.

Have you experienced this? I think it has to do with vista

John, the reason for this is because Pro/E is programmed to be portable across several operating systems. OpenGL was and still stands as the only common graphics programming method that exists on both Unix and Windows platforms. DirectX is currently a Windows-only thing, and unless OpenGL goes obsolete I really doubt PTC would care one bit about switching over.

Several years ago, OpenGL barely existed on windows, and was just a Unix thing. About that same time, there was the push to make CAD applications run on Windows, to take advantage of the cheaper hardware. Bill Gates released Direct3D and DirectX at about that same time and pushed very hard to make it the 3D programming standard on Windows. But the market forces of the 3D CAD industry and one game software writer: John Carmack, of iD software with his game Quake3, pushed back hard enough to make OpenGL work well on Windows. There were other factors, but IMHO those two things were pivotal. Bill Gates provided the least possible support for OpenGL on Windows (since obviously he wanted Direct3D to take over), but the market forces were so strong that nVidia, 3Dlabs, and ATI all spent substantial money making OpenGL happen. I consider it to be a huge success, when you look at the cost/computing power of the windows and unix workstation markets. Long live OpenGL!

Dave