DIAS-iS is now certified for Windows 7

I've been playing with Windows 7 for quite some time and the internal deployment at the company i work for is also coming along quite nicely. A few machines are still on the RC and our branch office is still running on Vista, but this should be resolved until the end of the next month.

However, we're also an ISV. DIAS-iS has been running on Windows Vista since the release – thanks to the efforts of our developers, who fixed everything during the beta phase of Windows Vista. As such, our software ran on Windows 7 since the beginning.

During the past few weeks, i did all the necessary administrative work to get our Software certified with the "Compatible with Windows 7″ Logo.

Doing this isn't that hard, but it requires you to jump through quite a few hoops.

Here's a basic rundown of steps:

• Obtain a MS Authenticode certificate from Verisign. Note that other code signing certs won't work (e.G. Thawte)
• Create a WinQual Account here
• You'll need to sign a sample .exe with the code signing cert from step one
• Download the Software Logo Toolkit
• Download the Windows 7 Logo Requirements Document
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• Both of these packages contain all the documentation you need – most of the requirements are easily satisfied if you have an application that behaves nicely, uninstalls correctly, works in TS environments
• Create an empty Windows 7 x64 VM. Note that it must be x64.
• Install the Software Logo Toolkit on the machine
• Start the GUI, start the Session Server in a second session on the same machine
• Run through all the phases, make sure the report says "Pass" or "Pass with warnings" (verify that the warnings are not real errors)
• Submit the .xml through the WinQual account. You'll immediately get certified

So it's not that hard.

The key point to delivering a good user experience is to ensure that your application uses standard installation technology like .MSI, that it doesn't require administrative privileges, that all configuration is stored in the userprofile (Registry or %APPDATA%) and that it's multi-session capable.

And that's all the "Compatible with Windows 7″ logo verifies – so if you already have a well-behaving Windows application, getting that logo is easy as pie. It does not cost anything directly – the only costly requirement is the fact that you need a VeriSign Authenticode certificate. This will set you back 400$. Microsoft does not want any money from you for this Logo – and it can be great in Marketing your competitiveness and readiness as a software vendor