ARM with Windows Vista and Office 2007

The recent Microsoft release of Windows Vista and Office 2007 resulted in many questions about ARM compatibility with Vista and Office 2007. Following are conclusions from GDM testing.

Windows Vista

• ARM 7 works well on Windows Vista, there are no major compatibility issues.

• When installing and first running ARM, Vista displays some special dialogs to:
  1. Request permission to run Setup.exe and other programs used by ARM 7. It is quite important to allow these programs to run, otherwise ARM will not be correctly installed.
  2. Apply settings using the Program Compatibility Assistant so ARM runs correctly.
  See Installing and Using ARM on Windows Vista for more information.

• When Vista recommends a certain action for program compatibility, accept the recommended choice. Using default Vista file locations and compatibility settings helps avoid issues.

GDM supports ARM 7 or newer with Vista. The basic structure and storage settings used in ARM 6 or any PRM version are not compatible with Vista.

Office 2007

• ARM 7 works well with Office 2007. There were only two compatibility issues with Word 2007 that were detected during testing:

1. Information copied from Word 2007 cannot be pasted into rich text format comments fields in ARM versions older than 7.3.6 (Second Edition) dated February 21, 2007.
   
   The issue for older ARM 7 versions occurs because Word 2007 rich text format contains much more information than previous Word versions, and the commercial rich text control in ARM 7 does not support some of the new rich text information. A simple workaround is:
   a. Open the Windows WordPad program
   b. Paste text from Word 2007 into WordPad.
   c. Mark the text in WordPad, then select Copy.
   d. Paste text copied from WordPad into ARM.
    

2. The message displayed about breaking links, which comes after Print Excel Report Link Workbook has finished printing study information to Word. There is no longer an Edit menu in Office 2007, so links that remain after using Ctrl-Shift-F9 to break links must be located manually, then use right-click menus to display the Links dialog and break the remaining links.

• Excel 2007 supports worksheets with up to 16,384 columns. ARM 7 limits worksheets printed to Excel to 255 columns, to maintain compatibility with all Excel versions.

Comments about Windows Vista

Several clients asked about Windows Vista at recent meetings, so here are some observations about Vista.

• Question: Should I get Vista when buying a new computer?
  Answer: Yes, provided that:
  1. The computer is Vista capable.
  2. Other software you wish to install on the computer will run on Vista.
  3. The computer will have a fast (broadband) Internet connection, because Vista downloads many features and updates over Internet.

• Question: Should I upgrade my existing computers to Vista?
  Answer: Probably not. If the computer is less than 2 years old and meets recommended hardware requirements for Vista, then it may be feasible to install a Vista upgrade. Run the Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor from Microsoft to help determine whether the computer can support Vista.
  
  It is quite likely that many hardware drivers and programs on the computer that also need to be updated for Windows Vista, so installing Vista may be a very complicated process. A computer professional should install the upgrade unless you are very experienced with updating drivers and searching on-line for solutions.

Please contact your computer support resource with general questions about using Windows Vista. You may also submit to GDM any ARM with Vista questions you would like added to this page.