Windows 7 - 64 Bit Operating System
Windows 7 64 Bit Support for Timer Pro
Timer Pro Professional will run on Win 7 64 bit except with Office 2010 64 bit.
If you are using Win 7 64 bit we recommend using Office 2010 32 bit
We are aware that many clients are upgrading from XP to Windows 7. A small percent are moving directly to the 64 bit version of Windows 7. We have the 64 bit configuration in house and have been evaluating its use with Timer Pro.
Please read more about it directly from Microsoft:
http://blogs.technet.com/b/office2010/archive/2010/02/23/understanding-64-bit-office.aspx
The most telling paragraph is near the bottom of the discussion:
“For these reasons, we recommend running 32-bit Office 2010 even on 64-bit Windows operating systems for better compatibility. On 64-bit Windows, more applications and documents may be opened at once, and switching among them will be faster because the machine can have more physical memory for the processes to share. When the 64-bit ecosystem for Office is more mature, you’ll be able to easily migrate to 64-bit Office!”
Ted Way,
Program Manager, Product Lifecycle and Engineering Excellence (PLEX)
Microsoft Office
As background, Microsoft Office 2010 for Window 7 offers the option of support for 32 bit or 64 bit operation. Basically 32 bit computing has been around for many years and is a stable environment – XP is a 32 bit operating system. 64 bit computing is certainly the future but it may take some time to stabilize the environment. The main benefit of the 64 bit install is that it supports bigger spreadsheets – but one wonders how many people will have spreadsheets bigger than 2 GB?
Please see the following article that summarizes the current situation:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/197415/beware_of_office_2010s_64bit_shortcomings.html
Synopsis of Win 7 64 Bit / Office 2010 64 Bit Impact on Timer Pro
Office 2010 64-bit has all of the hallmarks of a traditional Microsoft “version 2.0” product — it works, but not like it should, and it doesn’t play well with others. Wise folks will wait until version 3.
Given our current evaluation we have to agree with this assessment.
While many issues are raised in the 64 bit version of Office that you may wish to consider, in Timer Pro the main areas of impact that we have identified so far is that the 64 bit version of Excel 2010 handles macros differently than previous versions. Our tests also indicate that the macros also work inconsistently compared to the 32 bit version of Excel.
In addition Microsoft has provided no support for Pocket PC operating system other than Windows Mobile in the 64 bit version of the operating system. The support for Pocket PC is available in the 32 bit version.
We estimate that the lack of ability to support older Pocket PC operating systems would directly impact over 400 of our registered users.
We have limited development resources and have outlined above the plans that we believe will add significant add value to all clients use of Timer Pro.
Given the issues reported in the 64 bit version of Excel 2010 in Excel Macro handling area and the complete lack of support for older PDA devices:
There can be little doubt that Microsoft is aware of these issues and will address them as future version updates. We will of course review these updates and revisit our support plans at that time.
