SysAdmin1138 Expounds: Novell client for Vista

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Novell client for Vista

One of the things that I found out today was Novell's plans for a client for Vista. This was one of the prime questions I was sent to BrainShare to answer. And the answer is...

Novell will release a preview client for Vista 60-90 days after Vista releases. There will also be a Vista64 client. But there will never be an XP-64 client due to XP-64 missing key bits of the network stack.

So there you have it. As for how long it'll take until there is a release-quality client, that remains to be seen. But it took Novell quite a while to get an XP-compatible client. Here is hoping that it doesn't take that long with Vista. But rigarous testing by all of us and reporting defects back to Novell will help that process long.

[update 2/5/2007: the 'technology preview' client is out. See here]

[update 6/28/2007: the Public Beta client is out. See the beta page]

[update 7/27/2007: Jason Williams says that it should be out in mid-August]

[update 8/20/2007: The 1.0 client is out. Get it here.]

Tags: novell, brainshare, vista

Labels: netware, novell, OES

<permalink> posted by riedesg : 3:10 PM

Comments:

I've always had the greatest respect for Novell, even though I've had limited experience working with it.

But one thing I can tell you. After reading how irritated (esp university/college admins) are about the fact that no Vista compatible client is available as yet, not even a Beta, I am to say the least dumbfounded. And this is in Nov, while Vista RTM is imminent.

Some would of course blame MS for this; I say shame on you Novell!! Don't expect any loyalty from current customers and do not be suprised when in the next round of budgeting and migration cycles you find several customers moving to AD.

<permalink> posted by