SQL Native Client and Vista

After upgrading to Vista, I tested a form in one of the apps I was working on. What used to be a snappy split second load of the form now took about 3 seconds.

I tried loading other forms that used the same SQL Server connection, which was an SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition instance on my dev machine and got the same slow load time. I changed the connection to a production server with an SQL Server 2000 Standard Edition and got a quicker load.

I tried to create a File DSN with the same local connection and got the same connection load time. I change the driver form SQL Server to SQL Native Client and viola! a much snappier load. I'm not sure why I didn't have this behavior back in XP, though I'm sure this is just the first of one of those quirks during development after switching to a new OS.

Adminpak on Vista

Great tip here.

First steps towards Office 2007

As with my previous post, I'm also trying out the new Office 2007 along with Windows Vista on my laptop. If everything goes smoothly, I'll be upgrading my desktop at work and at home.

Of course the first thing I thought of is I'll be the only one using the new Office in the office so I checked out Word's save settings. And as I was hoping, there is an option to set the default save format to Word 2003 or earlier.

I then opened Excel to see if there was a similar option. And as expected, there it was, Save As Excel 97-2003 Workbook.

So far everything seems to be running smoothly, a few more days tinkering...

First steps towards Vista

Am planning to upgrade my desktop PC to Vista. I've been trying it out on my laptop for the past week now and found several glitches with applications I use. But nothing that couldn't be fixed by an SP here or an app update there. Most notably was MSXML SP2 which was needed to display VFP's Task Manager properly.

Compatibility with some of the most popular apps can be found here. I'm sure similar sites will be sprouting out of the web due to the advent of this new OS.

And if you're not yet ready to upgrade and still using XP but want that Vista feeling in your OS, you may want to try this.