Support Notice for Windows Vista at the New York State Psychiatric Institute

Recently the Microsoft Corporation released their new Operating System called VISTA. Reviews have been quite positive regarding many aspects of its attributes including security and graphics. Most newly purchased PC's can have VISTA pre-installed.

A major issue confronting VISTA users is the fact that many non-Microsoft applications do not function properly. These include important applications that are used at PI including but not limited to: the Symantec Antivirus (version less than 10.2); SPSS v 15.0.1; SASv 9.1.3; and GroupWise 7.0. In addition many printers that function under Windows XP do not have drivers that work under VISTA.

Because of these problems the IT Department of OMH has announced that they will not support applications running under the VISTA OS. We at TIS agree with their assessment and accordingly cannot support applications and hardware under the VISTA OS at this time.

Many companies have announced that they will be releasing VISTA compatible versions of their applications in the near future. GroupWise has announced the release of a compliant version at the end of this month.

I recommend that any office or person who purchases a new computer within the next 6 weeks, do so with Windows XP OS installed but with a provision to upgrade to the VISTA OS when compatible applications and hardware become available. Most computer companies provide for this as a free upgrade.

This restriction is temporary as most hardware and software vendors will release compatible updates in the near future.

If you are interested, you can check to see which applications that you presently use are compatible with VISTA by downloading the Vista Compatibility Test from: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/buyorupgrade/upgradeadvisor.mspx?wt_svl=20029a&mg_id=20029b

If you have any questions please address them to this address: TIShelp@pi.cpmc.columbia.edu