TS Application Compatibility Tools Updated

With the RTM release of Windows 7, Microsoft is upping the revs on it's compatibility tool-sets on the desktop and their server platforms (Windows 2008 R2) with the latest version of the Terminal Services RDS Application Analyser.

Drawing straight from the TS Application Compatibility documentation, this tool is intended to cover the following areas;

• Application Installation: dealing with issues such as concurrent application installation and configuration that may cause issues with applications that are designed for single-use installations
• Concurrent Application Usage: this area covers file, registry, IP address and named pipe issues caused by multiple instances of an application
• Performance: this section with application performance issues for application usage over the network
• Devices on the TS Server: This is the "big" problem area as clip-board and drivers may not deliver full integration from the server to the client.

This updated run-time application verification tool is available at the following link:
http://connect.microsoft.com/tsappcompat

In addition, there was a posting from the Brian Madden blog site relating to application compatibility issues on Terminal Services.

This posting raised the question of whether Terminal Services causes application compatibility issues any more? The posting can be found here: http://www.brianmadden.com/blogs/brianmadden/archive/2009/08/18/is-application-compatibility-still-a-problem-for-terminal-server.aspx

I feel that in general application compatibility issues have been greatly reduced over the last few years with the recent updates to the Windows Server platform and Terminal Services in particular. However, there are a still a number of issues that plague applications, notably platform support (you still have to get an application working on the server before you can TS it...) including the following application compatibility topics;

• 16-bit API References
• Legacy Installation Routines
• Virtual Memory Issues
• Process Creation API and privilege issues

That said, Terminal Services is a great platform for a deploying a selection of your application portfolio in a very cost effective manner.