Upgrading to Microsoft Vista (IM)

One of the most significant changes in Windows Vista is the introduction of User Account Control (UAC). UAC is the mechanism Vista uses to limit the default privileges users run with on Vista. Limiting these privileges is intended to make it less likely that a user's actions affect the configuration of the system or other users' state and settings.

Running PowerBuilder (IM)

PowerBuilder typically writes to multiple files in the Program Files directory, including pb.ini, PB110_sysam.properties, and code examples, tutorial, and demo database files. If an application is run without administrative privileges, Vista restricts it from writing to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE subtree in the registry, the Program Files directory, and the Windows directory. Instead, changes are written to a writable area in the registry and to the user's local directory. This is referred to as virtualization.

For example, if you start PowerBuilder without administrative privileges, the pb.ini file is written to Program Files\Sybase\PowerBuilder 11.0\pb.ini in the C:\Users\<your_name>\AppData\VirtualStore directory.

To avoid the issues that would result from this behavior, on Vista, you must start PowerBuilder 11.1 with administrative privileges by right-clicking pb110.exe in the Start menu or Explorer and selecting Run as administrator from its pop-up menu.

Signed DLLs required for deployment (IM)

When you run an application on Vista, Vista warns you if the application uses any DLLs that have not been signed with an Authenticode certificate. If you want to deploy your application with Windows Vista Logo certification, all the DLLs that you distribute with it must be signed. PowerBuilder runtime DLLs, and all other PowerBuilder DLLs, are signed.

IIS 6 compatibility component requirement for Web Forms on IIS 7 (Vista)

If you deploy a Web Forms application to a remote server running IIS 7, or if you publish a smart client application to a local or remote server running IIS 7, the Vista Metabase Compatibility component of IIS 7 must be installed on the server. This component is not installed by default. It is not required to deploy a Web Forms application to a local server.

You can install it from the Programs and Features page in the Windows control panel. Select Turn Windows features on or off, then select Internet Information Services>Web Management Tools>IIS 6 Management Compatibility>IIS Metabase and IIS 6 configuration compatibility.

Permission requirements for Web Forms applications on IIS 7 (Vista)

When you deploy a new Web Forms target, a temp directory is created in the Inetpub\wwwroot\application_name directory, where application_name is the name of your application, and several subdirectories are created in the Inetpub\wwwroot\application_name_root directory. Files are written to and deleted from these directories, therefore the IIS_IUSRS group must have full permissions on temp and application_name_root.

Before a PowerBuilder .NET Web Forms application connects to a SQL Anywhere database, you must either start the database manually or grant the IIS_IUSRS group on IIS 7 default permissions for the Sybase\Shared and Sybase\SQL Anywhere directories, making sure to replace permissions of all child objects in those directories. Full permissions are required for the database and database log files used by your application.

If you do not grant the appropriate user permissions for Sybase directories and your database configuration is set to start the database automatically, your application will fail to connect to the database. SQL Anywhere cannot access files unless the IIS_IUSRS user group has the right to access them.

Some calendar properties are not supported on Vista (IM)

The Vista operating system does not support several properties for the DatePicker, EditMask, and MonthCalendar controls and the drop-down calendar in a DataWindow column. The following properties are not supported on Vista:

  • DatePicker properties: CalendarBackColor, CalendarFontName, CalendarFontWeight, CalendarItalic, CalendarTextColor, CalendarTextSize, CalendarTitleBackColor, CalendarTitleTextColor, CalendarTrailingTextColor, CalendarUnderLine

  • EditMask properties: CalendarBackColor, CalendarTextColor, CalendarTitleBackColor, CalendarTitleTextColor, CalendarTrailingTextColor

  • MonthCalendar properties: FaceName, MonthBackColor, TextColor, TextSize, TitleBackColor, TitleTextColor, TrailingTextColor, Underline

  • Properties for column controls in DataWindow objects with a drop-down calendar EditMask style: DDCal_BackColor, DDCal_TextColor, DDCal_TitleBackColor, DDCal_TitleTextColor, DDCal_TrailingTextColor

In addition, the Vista operating system does not support the WeekNumbers property for the DatePicker control. When this property is true, the DatePicker control is not displayed correctly. The same limitation applies to the MonthCalendar control when WeekNumbers is true and Autosize is false.

JSP targets are not supported on Vista

On the Vista operating system, you can create a JSP target and a JSP page, but the component used to implement the HTML Editor's Page view and its built-in Script editor is not supported on the Vista operating system, therefore JSP targets are not supported on Vista.