Windows 7

[pixelhaus]

Having read a few contrary thoughts on Actinic under Win7, I've taken the plunge and invested in a new pc for my Actinic activities (still no replacement for my mac!).
So, it's a quad core i5 intel processor with 8Gb of ram running 64bit Windows 7 Professional. Apart from being light years faster than the machine it replaced, Actinic (Designer 9.0.5) is working exactly as it should. No crashes, hangs or dumps. It's even running AVG which I had head a few comments concerning it.

It's a shame in a way, that we this sort of thing is taken as the exception rather than the norm! Anyone else have 'nothing to report' with win7 ?

[AndyBorrett]

I have been running Actinic 9.05 on the Windows 7 Evaluation with no problems what so ever since it came out

[NormanRouxel]

Anyone else have 'nothing to report' with win7 ?

I've just got a tiny Acer Revo 3610 nettop running Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit. I got it so I could see if there would be any issues moving to W7 for a development system.

So far it's running nearly all the tools I need with a few minor substitutions.


System:

ZoneAlarm Security Suite V9.1.008.000 (Firewall / anti-virus, etc)

UltraVNC Win32 Server v1.0.8.0 (For remote control when I'm out and about)

Acronis True Image Home 2010 (For those essential backups)

Server:

Apache_2.2.14-win32-x86-no_ssl

ActivePerl-5.8.9.826-MSWin32-x64-290470

War FTPD 1.67-05 (An old release because I'm familiar with it - I don't expect any problems with the current 1.82)

Utilities:

EditPad Pro V6.5.2 (For writing all that PHP, JavaScript and Perl, etc)

WinMerge 2.12.4.0 (For seeing what's changed between Actinic versions)

WinRAR-x64-39 (For looking inside .acd files. I used to use WinZip 7 for this but it's too old for W7).

Paint Shop Pro V6 (Ancient but I'm not a graphics person so it's enough for me)

With all that lot running in 2Gb (and it's happily driving a 24" 1920x1200 monitor too) it's not the fastest of systems but is an excellent testbed for making sure that it's safe to take the plunge.

[cbarling]

It's a shame in a way, that we this sort of thing is taken as the exception rather than the norm! Anyone else have 'nothing to report' with win7 ?

I think this is a reflection of the difficult last couple if years. The sequence in the case if W7 has been:

- person gets W7

- Loads Actinic with trepidation

- Experiences a problem

- Assumes it's down to Actinic

- Complains about lack of Actinic testing of W7

- Everyone gets very nervous, people who haven't had a problem stay quiet, as no-one wants to provide a false sense of security

- Discovers it's a problem with something else

- Worrying impression is left behind

In fact Actinic have been testing Windows 7 all along. There don't appear to be any major problems, although I would be astounded if some small niggles don't come out in the next few months.

The only way to break the sequence above is to deliver a series of good quality releases. That's what we're endeavouring to do.

Chris

[TraceyHand]

I've been spouting good things about W7 since I upgraded our order processing machine to it!
It's light years faster than Vista at ALL processes within Actinic (from 'completing' orders to just loading up the 'completed' tab)

I haven't been able to comment on overall compatibility with Actinic, however, as it is only on our order processing machine so only downloads and processes. It never uploads/designs etc so I can't comment on that and other people only seem to have posted negatively.

If people now come forwards and 'admit' that their Win7 and Actinic is working fine all round, I will definitely consider upgrading my XP design/upload machine too though (well, replacing with a new Win7 one, anyway)

It's good to hear that people are finding no/few problems too!

[NormanRouxel]

It never occurred to me that Windows 7 wouldn't run Actinic. Or if there were any niggles they wouldn't be fixed real soon.

My concern was that some other essential bit of software needed for a development system would not work. So far I see no deal breakers.

[pinbrook]

It never occurred to me that Windows 7 wouldn't run Actinic.

Me too, why wouldn't it run?

[NormanRouxel]

why wouldn't it run?

Exactly! I expected (and found) no problems with Actinic.

It's all the other bits and bobs of software that I rely on that needed proving.

[TraceyHand]

I had assumed it would work fine too which is why I didn't hesitate to upgrade our Vista machine to it.
If my development machine wasn't on XP, I'd have upgraded that too but upgrading from XP requires more time and is more complicated (whereas I could just upgrade 'over the top' of Vista) so I'm leaving it til after Xmas and replacing the machine with a Win 7 one instead.

I'd certainly taken the approach that I assumed it would be fine unless I'd experienced/heard otherwise (I can't begin to tell you how glad I am that I did too!)

[pinbrook]

If my development machine wasn't on XP, I'd have upgraded that too but upgrading from XP requires more time and is more complicated

I must admit i am not planning on upgrading my XP machine I shall buy a new desktop with W7 on it.

Why?

1 I prefer to keep an XP machine inhouse
2 its a good excuse to buy a better spec desktop (XP machine is 3 years old)
3 cant be bothered to spend time upgrading
4 cost of w7 licence plus time to upgrade = new machine

[TraceyHand]

I must admit i am not planning on upgrading my XP machine I shall buy a new desktop with W7 on it.

Why?

1 I prefer to keep an XP machine inhouse
2 its a good excuse to buy a better spec desktop (XP machine is 3 years old)
3 cant be bothered to spend time upgrading
4 cost of w7 licence plus time to upgrade = new machine

all the same reasons why I am doing the same! (especially No 2 )

[malbro]

Anyone else have 'nothing to report' with win7 ?

I have run V9 under the Win7 beta and currently have it running on Win 7 release candidate. Nothing to report on either as far as Actinic is concerned, like the others I find Win7 streets ahead of Vista.

[pixelhaus]

I reinstalled V8 (on win7) to do some fixes for a client and that was fine too. I think the assumption of any kind of Microsoft upgrade is like going to the dentist. We assume it will be much more painful than it actually is!

[Duncan Rounding]

I use Macromedia DW MX2004 and Photoshop CS which run fine on XP but I understand have issues on Vista. I don't wish to upgrade them just to maintain compaibility with W7.

Does anyone know of they will run on W7?

[pinbrook]

I use Macromedia DW MX2004

Me too... and Fireworks

I do so little HTML coding nowadays that i dont really want to shell out for new DW. However i have started to use The Gimp for graphics - still prefer photoshop though.