Vista Not Compatible With SQL Server

kiran_n sent in an article by Fortune's Owen Thomas on Vista not being compatible with SQL Server. An excerpt: "But now Microsoft has a problem. Vista, its long-awaited update to the Windows operating system, can't run the current version of SQL Server. The company is working on a SQL upgrade that is compatible with Vista — called SQL Server 2005 Express Service Pack 2 — but it's in beta and can be licensed only for testing purposes. Microsoft hasn't set a release date for the new SQL program."

Misleading Article

[carlislematthew]

The article is about SQL Server *Express* Edition not working on Vista! This has NOTHING to do with the normal SQL Server edition that doesn't run on "workstation" OSs anyway. The express edition is a local (no network connections) version of SQL Server that developers use to develop against so that they don't need a full server to develop against.

The article implies (and pretty much states) that Vista doesn't work with SQL server, implying that your client/server programs that depend on SQL Server won't work on Vista. They may in fact *not* work, but it has nothing to do with SQL Server!!!

The article is written by someone that doesn't know what they're talking about, or they DO know what they're talking about and they wanted to get readers and ad-clicks.

I am running SQL Server Standard 64 bit

[SeeManRun]

I dunno what the problem is, I am running SQL Server 2005 64 bit Standard edition on Vista Ultimate RTM. Works fine. Only using it because the application I am developing uses ODBC to the Jet engine which has now been deprecated according to MS, so I had to try something else. Seems to work fine, though I don't use it too in depth yet.

Ironic

[Broken Bottle]

It's kind of ironic that SQL won't run on Vista when Vista was originally slated to have a file system BASED ON SQL. They must have had some serious issues with that file system :)

Re:I can't help but wonder...

[xoundmind]

RFTA
Indeed. And perhaps the real question: Why the hell should we care about the compatability virtues of a workstation SQL server?

Re:Must have really bad code

[DrDitto]

SQL Server is Microsoft's best code. It is clean and well-designed. This is well-known in Microsoft's circle of internal developers. The current incompatibility on a desktop OS probably stems from performance optimizations. It is often said that operating systems just get in the way of DBMS systems.

Re:I am running SQL Server Standard 64 bit

[quazee]

Although there is no official word from Microsoft about Jet deprecation, Microsoft has stopped actively developing Jet.
There are numerous clues which may indicate Jet deprecation:

1. Jet is not ported to x64 platform, and probably will never be, according to MS devs.
You can only install 32-bit Jet 4.0 SP8 on an x64-based Windows OS.
Since Jet is an in-process component, it is not possible to use a Jet database in a 64-bit application.

2. Access 2007 uses its own, non-redistributable database back-end, codenamed Ace. Jet databases are supported only for legacy reasons.

3. Jet libraries have been removed from MDAC 2.8 package. You have to install Jet 4.0 separately.

4. Many newer MS articles and whitepapers suggest using SQL Server 2005 Express as opposing to Jet, as a superior technology.

Re:I can't help but wonder...

[pete6677]

Considering how Vista doesn't really have all that much to offer over XP anyway, I'm surprised by how many software packages are incompatible with it. Did Microsoft take a copy of XP, tweak it just enough to break compatibility along with system stability, throw in some trivial new features, then call it Vista?

I'd be very surprised if anyone can make a business case for "upgrading" to Vista. Other than a small handful of situations, I can't imagine it would be worth the trouble.

Re:If anybody...

[Tony Hoyle]

It has been released. It's been out of beta for a while - the RTM is available from MSDN right now. The RTM is what the release discs are pressed from.. MS aren't going to make any changes now, except fixes via Windows Update.

Of course the old rule applies - never install version 1 of anything. The last beta was so poor I haven't even be able to bring myself to install the RTM on the test machine dedicated to it... and there's no customer demand yet (takes about a year to filter through normally. Just starting to get Solaris 10 interest for example).

Re:Other Software

[HappySqurriel]

Likely, many people will express their anger over the incompatibilities, but not attach any hard consequences.

The unfortunate problem is what kind of consequences can actually be "given" to Microsoft?

From a buisness perspective, if you stop using Microsoft's operating system you'll have dozens (or possibly hundreds) of applications which are either not supported or not functional on Linux/Unix/OSX; these applications represent Millions of dollars in licences or development that would have to be re-spent immediately.

From a personal standpoint, I (like most people) am lazy and don't want to switch operating systems and learn another office suite unless I have to.

Personally, I have spent most of my time convincing companies to switch to web-based development using Java and Hibernate with a focus on abstracting the product from both the Operating System and the Database; one of about 12 products I have developed in the past few years have taken this approach.

Essentially, we're stuck with Microsoft/Windows until something drastic happens