Plex on Windows 7

[Legacy User]

Dear all
An old colleague ask me if it is possible to install Plex 5.0 on Windows 7. His first try was positive, but he found incompatibilities with Visual Studio 6.0. Then, fine tunning the question, someone have tested VS 6.0 on Windows 7?

[Legacy User]

Dear Jorge,
we didn't try to install VS6 on Win7 because we heard of some incompatibilities and won't get in trouble with this.
We switched to Java generator a while ago and do some testing with PleXML, the XML/XSL Framework for getting out-of-the-box (nearly) web-clients from allabout software GmbH, Hamburg, Germany.

As soon as I hear from somebody testing VS6 with Win7, having success, I will post it for you.

I hope you are pretty well and healthy, having fun with Plex.
Regards,
Axel

[Legacy User]

Thanks you, Axel
Your experience match ours friends case...I also have thought on java, but It seems that Niels have found a good solution. Maybe you have interest on it...
Kindly
Jorge

[Anon Anon]

Hi Jorge,

My current setup is Windows 7 64bit UK - Professional Edition and this is what you need to do in order to install and get CA Plex versions 6.0 and prior version to work successfully.

You will need to enable Windows XP Mode (not available if you are running Windows 7 home edition).
Information on downloading and installing Windows XP mode can be found at the Microsoft site.

You will not get VS 6.0 to run under Windows 7 - only through Windows XP Mode. The same goes for parts of VS 2003.

So what I have running now on my system is:

CA Plex v4.0, v5.0, v5.1, v5.5 and v6.0 in Windows XP Mode and CA Plex v6.1 in pure Windows 7.

If running CA Plex v6.0 and only using RPG/ILE RPG and/or Java you can run CA Plex v6.0 under Windows 7 (but no WinC support).

You can of course also replace Windows XP Mode with an instance of VMWare Player where you install Windows XP as the guest operating system, but then you will need a Windows XP license (with Windows XP Mode you get the license for "Free")

Windows XP Mode integrates with the Windows 7 desktop enabling you to start your CA Plex v5.0 like any other application from the Windows 7 start menu.

I have found that running Windows XP mode requires additional memory I have 8gb (4gb is recommended)

Hope this helps! And by the way I would recommend upgrading to Plex v6.1.

-Niels P.

[Legacy User]

Thanks you Niels, for you valuable experience. Indeed it will be very useful for our colleagues. I agree with you that there are great reasons to upgrade to Plex 6.0/6.1. I hope they finally will follow that way, but it´s a very good news to know they can take as many time as they would need to upgrade...
Thanks again
Jorge

[LouKurrelmeyer]

Thanks Niels,

That is really good stuff to know, and very specific and detailed.

I have decided to take the VMWare approach. That allows me to deal with mixtures of Windows XP, Windows 7, Mac Snow Leopard and anything old that comes alone, like an ancient game that wants to run in DOS mode.

Question is, what to use for a host operating system? Windows 7? Windows XP? Linux? 32 bit? 64 bit?

I just can't decide what the best foundation is or a rationale for deciding.

[Anon Anon]

I am a heavy user of VMWare, in fact do all my development and especially Plex development on VM images, sales demos for WebClient, 2E migration, etc.

My experience - you need a 64 bit host because you need a lot of RAM - the 3.5GB available under 32 bit isn't enough, especially if you want to run 2 or more VM's simultaneously. I use Windows 7 enterprise for the host, and the free VMWare server. You might be able eek out some more performance with Linux (we have a debate at the office on this), but at least for me I prefer Windows.