34405A, Intuilink and Office 2010

[Stonent]

We've got a user that is getting a new computer with Windows 7 and Office 2010 and we need to get Intuilink working correctly with Office 2010 but it seems the toolbar that it installs wasn't designed to work with Office 2010 and that was a function this person at my job needs with his 34405a benchtop multimeter.

He keeps telling us that Intuilink doesn't work at all with Windows 7 but unfortunately we have to get all the XP systems replaced by the end of the year so we don't go out of support with Microsoft.

[Stonent]

I'd like to add that the toolbar installs but they can't drag it off to the side like they could in Office 2003.

[Leon]

If it's a business PC then most likely you have Windows 7 Pro. This has a feature called Windows XP mode, which allows you to run older software in a virtual machine almost 100% like you would on the original XP machine.

[Stonent]

Yes we have used that for a few business critical legacy programs that without using them would put a stop to production, but it requires a special approval to add another XP system (real or virtual) to the network.

And it just so happens I'm managing the project to eliminate XP (and also ironically am also the one who has been deploying the XP VMs to the network )

[Leon]

If you really wish to get rid of even virtual XPs, it'll simply cost the company more. Latest software for the 34405A is for Vista and Office 2007, meaning you can choose to go to Windows 8 as a base OS and use hyper-V to run Office 2007 on a Vista VM or buy a DMM with Windows 7 support.

But I don't see the problem. XP mode is part of Windows 7, for which the support is far from over. It is even possible to move the VM to HyperV (Windows by doing a merge. Let me assure you: XP mode and hyper-V is built into those OSes for a reason, and that's not because Microsoft wants to refuse to support you if you want to use that functionality. And if you really want to annoy Microsoft support: start using a PC with XP embedded. That has support till 2016 

[Stonent]

Well MS said they will stop supplying patches to XP in 2014 and the company sees that as a potential risk.

Also the main program that's requiring legacy XP around is used for firmware programming and diagnostics of an embedded computer module that's in one of our products and a division of our company wrote it. They have a new program that they released that could be just used for programming but not diagnostics and it worked ok in Windows 7, but then a new revision of the firmware came out that was required to address a regulatory requirement on our product and it would no longer work with the new application and we had to go back to the old one again.

Now they have written another variant of it for some of our field service managers so they can do some basic onsite troubleshooting, but it's a dumbed down version which is not suitable for us to use in production.

It's a mess sometimes.

[Leon]

That is not what end of support means. End of support means just what is says: Microsoft no longer offers support on it. Meaning: if a problem you have is caused by using XP, it'll remain unsolved. Unless you can also reproduce it using Windows Vista, 7 or 8.

Security updates often are made even well after the end of support (at least for fi. Windows 2000). In particular if an issue is found that is also present in later versions, the earlier versions will often also get patched. And as I stated: XP embedded is still not in it's end of support. For that reason alone, XP will receive security updates at least till 2016, no matter what Microsoft says about it's "normal" OSes. Plus there's of course the XP mode in Windows 7, which is nothing more than a recompiled XP source with a few minor changes so it plays nice with Windows 7 as a host OS. They can't stop support for that, as it's officially part of Windows 7.

But heck, if it's corporate policy to remove everything called XP then you shouldn't object, but point out they should at least give you the budget to purchase a few nice and shiny new DMM's that don't rely on XP to get any work done.