March 6, 2007 Cache', Ensemble and Microsoft Vista

InterSystems testing has revealed a number of issues that prevent
installation and operation of existing Cache' and Ensemble versions on
Microsoft Vista. Many of these are related to new operating system
security features. Based on what we have discovered to date -- and we
need to keep in mind that more issues may yet surface -- our plan is as
follows:

1.The 2007.2 versions of Cache' and Ensemble will fully support
Microsoft Vista for both server and client configurations.

2.It is possible that the 2007.1 versions of Cache' and Ensemble
will run on Vista with certain limitations and some manual "work arounds".
For instance, Vista introduces a new version of Microsoft's IIS Web server
which drops support for the mechanism (called ISAPI) which is used to
connect CSP to IIS. The work around is to manually re-enable ISAPI
support in IIS. (Alternatively, customers may decide to use Apache
instead of IIS.) In 2007.2 we will move to a new IIS connection mechanism
for CSP.

3.Cache' and Ensemble versions prior to 2007.1 will not be
supported on Microsoft Vista.

From a licensing standpoint, Microsoft Vista is not a new platform. We
will continue to have three Windows platforms: x86 32 bit, x86 64 bit, and
Itanium. Moving from one Windows version to another does not constitute a
platform change. Moving from one processor family to another is a
platform change, whether or not the Windows version changes. For
instance:

Moving from Windows XP on an x86-64 computer to Vista on that same
computer is not a platform change.

Moving from Windows XP on an x86-32 computer to Vista on an x86-64
computer is a platform change. (Making the same change from an x86-32
computer to an x86-64 computer with Windows XP on both is also a platform
change.)

If you have any additional questions about our plans for Vista, please
contact Andreas Dieckow (Andreas.Dieckow@intersystems.com).