I had the opportunity to test 7.5.1 last night under some moderate to high-stress circumstances, and it performed with measureable improvements in stability over 7.5. Let me quickly explain:
I do a three-hour Internet radio show, and under 7.5, I could count on Window-Eyes spontaneously aborting twice during one of those three-hour broadcasts. I use those words somewhat loosely; I'm sure there was something I was doing as the operator to cause the program to simply quietly go away. It would so thoroughly and completely go away that a simple press of Control+Alt+W would bring it back; I didn't have to end processes or anything like that. Last night, not once during the three hours of the program did Window-Eyes quietly take its digital toys and go home. It operated steadily, faithfully, and as advertised until the end of the three hours when I shut the entire machine down. Additionally, during those Internet radio shows in the past, I could absolutely count on Outlook 2010 and Window-Eyes engaging in digital hatred for one another at least twice and maybe three times during that three-hour block. With Outlook 2010 open, having written a message, I could tap F7 to engage the spell checker. That would be the point at which Window-Eyes would talk no more and Outlook would be unresponsive. The solution was to bring up JAWS 12, open the task mangler, and kill the Outlook process. At that point, both JAWS and Window-Eyes would speak, and I could send JAWS scurrying back to its little corner. Not once last night did that occur. I sent out scores of emails, all of which I spell check before I send, and not once did Outlook 10 and We 7.51 engage in their usual rivalry for supremacy or whatever used to go on inside the laptop. I'm sure all of this drama was exacerbated by the fact that my laptop was encoding and streaming music, but last night, I didn't get a single error message. Additionally, the Station Play List scripts worked extremely well. In the past, I could presume that I would lose the 10-second warning to alert me to the end of a track that was playing. Reloading the app would fix that every time and restore the warning. Last night, I didn't have to reload the app once. The beginning and ending of track warnings remained in place and operable. I realize that this message is one of those not-so-valuable ones. We're all more fascinated when we read about problems and failures of this or that, I guess, but it doesn't hurt for the developers to know that, at least from the perspective of one user, things do seem to have demonstrably improved with the latest release. I don't want to give the misinterpretation that 7.5 was somehow problematic. My four-year-old Dell laptop is the problem, not WE 7.5. That said, 7.5.1 just seems to work better and with greater general fluency with that clunky laptop than did 7.5. Respectfully, Nolan Nolan Crabb Director of Assistive Technology The Ohio State University 281 W. Lane Ave., Columbus, OH 43210 (614) 735-8688 If you reply to this message it will be delivered to the original sender only. If your reply would benefit others on the list and your message is related to GW Micro, then please consider sending your message to [email protected] so the entire list will receive it. GW-Info messages are archived at http://www.gwmicro.com/gwinfo. You can manage your list subscription at http://www.gwmicro.com/listserv.
