Windows 7 and Microsoft Dynamics NAV

Windows 7 LogoEat your own dog food—they say around here. If it was always this yummy, I’d do it every day.

Yesterday, I’ve got my laptop upgraded to Windows 7 Beta. I’ve loved betas ever since I became a geek. Once a geek, always a geek, and although nowadays I primarily do consulting or project management, the geek inside me pops out his head through the necktie every now and then. When new versions of products come out, he goes bananas.

Windows 7 has entered beta a while ago, but I had no time to upgrade yet. Projects, customers, presentations, documents and chores of the sort intervened.

Then I kind of avoided the upgrade. Microsoft Dynamics NAV is my bread and butter, and if Windows 7 wouldn’t want to run it, then my machine is as good as a brick.

“Will Microsoft Dynamics NAV work on it?”—I asked the guy in charge of installations.

“If it won’t, you can always run it under a virtual machine.”—he said casually as he confirmed the are-you-sure-you-want-to-format-drive-c message.

Yeah, sure. It brought back bitter memories of Vista beta, when to my horror after the upgrade I wasn’t able to run either NAV or Virtual PC. For a while, anyway. Making NAV run under Vista beta was a challenge. Back then, I had time for this kind of challenges. Today, er, I don’t think so.

But this time, it was a different story altogether. Microsoft Dynamics NAV 5.0 SP1 and 2009 both installed smoothly, without a complaint. Then the moment of truth came, and I clicked the colorful fan icon. And it did what it was supposed to do—it worked.

Two days into my Windows 7 experience, there’s only one word I can say about it: wow!

Windows betas are no news for me. I’ve ran most Windows betas since “Chicago” back in 1994. Some of them were useless, some of them were pretty good, some of them I ran live for months until they RTMed. I’ve first done that with XP back in 2001, then again with Vista in 2006. These two betas were exceptionally good (except for the fact that the latter didn’t run NAV) and were better, more stable and reliable than some of previous RTM releases. At least in my own experience.

But Windows 7 changes it completely. This time I have absolutely no feeling that I am running a beta product. It’s stable, fast (faster than Vista), reliable, runs all my hardware and all the software I need. I haven’t found a single product I can’t run. Plus, it’s usability innovations are simply amazing.

So, if you had any second thoughts about Windows 7, specifically because of bad experience with NAV in the first months of Vista, this is history. Windows 7 runs NAV, and does so equally as well (if not even better) as any previous Windows. If you can, grab yourself a copy and install it, you won’t regret it.

Vjeko

Vjeko has been writing code for living since 1995, and he has shared his knowledge and experience in presentations, articles, blogs, and elsewhere since 2002. Hopelessly curious, passionate about technology, avid language learner no matter human or computer.

This Post Has 8 Comments

  1. Bibo

    Sounds like 1st Aprils jock 😀

    1. Vjekoslav Babic

      @Bibo: but it isn’t, Windows 7 does work like a charm. Actually, I wanted to publish the post on March 31, but I was a minute too late.

  2. Bibo

    I’ m joking. I also have tried Windows 7 and indeed its works great. My opinion is that Vista should be like Windows 7. Only I was surprised how Windows 7 reminds me KDE 🙂

  3. erwin yovitanto

    just tried on windows 7 enterprise (full release) and it can not be installed….

    anyone have this experience….else ….i think i need to try the “XP mode” now….

    1. Vjekoslav Babic

      @erwin: if you tried to be more specific than “it can not be installed”, maybe someone could help you. Which version were you trying to install? What was the error message? Did you contact your partner (if you are a customer) or your Microsoft representative (if you are a partner)?

  4. erwin yovitanto

    turn out it i just have to install visual c++ runtime (but this is not happening in Vista)

    works great now

  5. phong

    Has no one a problem with the speed of Navision (5) on a windows 7 os (32 or 64). Tebels seem very slow compare with Xp os

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