Resolving Application Incompatibilities

When you encounter application compatibility problems, you need to prioritize them and then assign someone to resolve them. You should have a plan for how you will assign problems. For example, problems with commercial applications are handled differently from applications that you develop internally. Assigning the appropriate personnel to research and resolve problems is critical to the success of your application testing. Problem resolution might encompass a wide variety of activities, such as the following:

• Researching Web sites for known problems and solutions.
• Contacting vendors for patches, setup programs, or migration DLLs.
• Contacting Microsoft Product Support Services.
• Debugging internally developed applications.

As you research the cause of a problem, consider various approaches to determine the most effective solution. For example, you might choose to:

• Fix the problem if you developed the application.
• Ask the vendor to fix the problem if you purchased the application.
• Replace the application with a new version or application.
• Ignore the failure if you have a way to work around the problem.

Always be sure that a problem does not occur on your current platform before researching it as a Windows 2000 compatibility issue. Some of the resources for researching Windows 2000 compatibility issues are:

• Windows 2000 Application Specification

  For more information about how to download the specification, see the Application Specification Download link on the Web Resources page at http://windows.microsoft.com/windows2000/reskit/webresources.

• Windows 2000 Compatibility Guide

  This guide, available on MSDN and Technet, includes valuable information about diagnosing compatibility problems.

• Microsoft Technet

  This resource contains product updates, white papers, and other technical information. For more information about Technet, see the Technet link on the Web Resources page at http://windows.microsoft.com/windows2000/reskit/webresources.

• Directory of Windows 2000 Applications

  This includes support information and links to vendor Web sites. For more information about the directory, see the Directory of Windows 2000 Applications link on the Web Resources page at http://windows.microsoft.com/windows2000/reskit/webresources.

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