Hi Ari, The entire problem with Vista for us is that Microsoft is being very silent and tight jawed about Vista except what they want you to know. I've only managed to find out tidbits through talking to other devs who have tested it, and stuff I read between the lines on the Vista Platform SDK. However.... The message I have recieved through the info I have heard and read so far is the message they have quietly implied to us is the adapt or die attitude. In some ways I can't blame them as they have been running the same old libraries for ages, and now the new platform SDK is completely new and different. That is why many programs and even games or going to die when Vista comes out. Naturally, Vista games will not be backward compatible unless the company is using the .NET Framework which is backward compatible to any operating system that uses the same framework, and in the case of games DirectX as well. I do know they will be releasing .NET Framework 3.0 for Win 2000, XP, and Windows Server 2003, sometime next year so those operating systems will have some compatibility with Vista for sure. 95, 98, ME apps will be dead. As for DirectX 10 I believe it will bre backward compatible with DirectX 9.0 managed. I specified managed which is he .NET version of the DirectX libraries. 9.0 had 8.0 compatibility libs for say VB 6, Visual C++ 6, etc, but Microsoft has discontinued support for Visual Studio 98, which is 6.0, and you can expect anything written in that era of languages are going to die a quick death if they don't adapt soon. I saw this coming in 20904 and started off with .NET to get ahead of the screaming that will accompany the old line VB 6 devs if Vista doesn't support those apps. The good news our accessible game developers are slowly but surely moving to C#.NET or VB.NET. I know Justin knows VB.NET, Che knows VB.NET, Josh I think went to C#.NET, I believe it was Liam playing with VB.NET a little bit, I am using C#.NET for all my titles, and that is a good sign that developers are in the process of making the switch. However, the status of our older titles will have to wait for Vista to come out. Perhaps it is not as bad as we think it will be, and it could be worse than we think. I know most of the games for accessible games are VB 6 like the Kitchens Inc games, the GMA Game Engine, Lone Wolf, Trek 2000, Liam's Games, and plenty of others, and if Vista doesn't have proper support for those older apps those games are going to crash, and the accessible gaming market will come to a screaming hault in that event. Either way, Vista is probably going to be a highly expensive upgrade for the accessibility community. We will have to upgrade to the latest screen readers as I have been told for a fact that anything, I do mean anything older, than the latest Jaws or Window eyes will not run on Vista and work properly. That is tough as I know people still running Jaws 4.5 and 5.0 on XP, Window Eyes 4.2, and so on and they will be paying through the nose to fully upgrade screen readers to run with the thing. If, I mean if, many accessible games don't work, need to be rewitten, I can imagine upgrade or repurchase prices would be in order for the work involved in porting them to the new operating system which would have to be done sooner or later to maintain some kind of value. Else will end up like the old dos games fforgotten and unplayed. I can see several other programs requiring updates, and the entire upgrade becoming an investment. However, XP still has allot of life in it and even though Vista will hit the seen next year there is nothing wrong in holding to XP for a couple of more years buying the necessary upgrades one at a time, and of course wait for the accessible games to test and figure out if the products will work on Vista or not. All of this is pretty much the hypathetical long view on my part.
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