Support for compiler use on Windows Vista deprecated?

[IanH]

From the release notes for 12.0.5:

1.3.2 Support for Microsoft Windows Vista* and Microsoft Windows Server 2003* Deprecated

In a future major release of Intel Visual Fortran Composer, support for installation and use on Microsoft Windows Vista or Microsoft Windows Server 2003 will be removed.

But XP will still be ok??

(What's the problem with Vista that's driving this?)

Will you still "support" the running of executables generated using the compiler on Vista? Or is that going to be "it might work but we don't test" like current support for running on Win2K etc?

Is see VS2005 support may get the chop too with "a future major release". Any indications of when that unspecified release might be out and about?

(It is sort of obvious that support for these things would be dropped eventually ("in Composer XE 2999 we finally drop support for VS 2005") so the non-specific wording in the release notes might be nice and safe but it isn't terribly useful!)

[Steven_L_Intel1]

It really means that we will no longer test on Vista and if you run into Vista-specific problems, we won't fix them. XP is still supported because there are still a lot of XP systems, though I expect XP to be dropped eventually. I am not sure if the compiler will actually refuse to install on Vista at that point. But you shouldn't have a problem running executables on Vista when built with that version.

The "future major release" referred to does not have a specific schedule yet, but assume it will be in the second half of 2012.

We generally track what Microsoft does as far as support of Windows versions. We put the warning in to alert you, but we might change our mind so we don't want to be definite.

[davidspurr]

Ouch. Have only looked at this forum intermittently lately - just noticed this.

Windows 7 was only released in Oct 2009 so intention is to drop support for an OS that was the newest that could be bought just 2 yrs ago (or 3 yrs by the time the policy comes into force). Seems extraordinary (even more so given that much older XP systems will still be supported).

My main system is Vista and I have had no problems with it & hence no intention to replace it. But it looks like I may in effect be forced to!

[SergeyKostrov]

Quoting Steve Lionel (Intel)

...XP is still supported because there are still a lot of XP systems, though I expect XP to be dropped eventually...

Microsoft tried to do this, unsuccessfully, but later decided to continue support for Windows XP until 2014.