Vista Compatable

bc77399 · Joined: 25 Mar 2007 Posts: 1 Location: Texas

Is Firstspot Vista Compatable?
_________________
BC

sdwedemeyer · Joined: 18 Oct 2006 Posts: 21 Location: Atlanta, GA, USA

Yeah, this is becoming a hot one, it is getting harder to buy pc's with XP. Even if you do find one, they are charging more for it than the systems with Vista. If we have to re-load the systems with XP - that is an additional cost. Many systems come with Vista preloaded and a recovery cd that cannot be used on another system so you are paying for both XP and Vista.

I have been buying licenses with the 1 year maintenance because of the free upgrade, which PS claimed was less than a year between major versions. It is now much more than a year since the first production version of 4.x and Vista rollout has been much anticipated. If PS does not have a positive answer to this then there is a serious problem - no more development which means a dead end to this product.

I have just purchased 3 licenses this week alone. If I don't like the answer, those charges will be refuted and we will look elsewhere for a solution.
_________________
Stephen D Wedemeyer

alan · **Forum facilitator** Joined: 26 Sep 2003 Posts: 4435

The upcoming v5 will definitely support Vista.

For existing v4, we are still testing and evaluating (we are hoping v4 can run unmodified in Vista). Will post an update on this issue very soon.
_________________
~ Patronsoft Limited ~

sdwedemeyer · Joined: 18 Oct 2006 Posts: 21 Location: Atlanta, GA, USA

I need an answer for version 4 - I am getting more and more people calling in. Some are getting out and some are not. On etrick, thaqt does not always work, is to send them to the internal address on either port 5786 or 5788 - there is a difference I do not understand. Also, IE7 appears to cache something and repeated results are unpredictable.
_________________
Stephen D Wedemeyer

alan · **Forum facilitator** Joined: 26 Sep 2003 Posts: 4435

Our preliminary testing shows that FirstSpot is compatible with Vista/IE7 client. Nevertheless, we are still currently doing more testing to ensure FirstSpot works well with Vista/IE7 client.

Also, if you can give us more information (such as a test case) that Vista/IE7 client fails to work with FirstSpot, it will be really helpful.
_________________
~ Patronsoft Limited ~

sdwedemeyer · Joined: 18 Oct 2006 Posts: 21 Location: Atlanta, GA, USA

The problem seems to lie in the redirect. It appears that MS is trying to do too much by checking if a specific network connection has a path to the public network (internet). When a connection is made, Vista apparently tests the connection and if no access to the internet exists, it treats the connection as a private network. You can see this in the Network Connecitons box in Vista.

Our best guess right now is that when IE is asked to go to a public address, it thinks there is no path so does not even try to go out. By going directly to the FirstSpot and logging in, everything works fine. But that means every Vista user needs to be told how to connect.

If we are right, Microsoft has broken captive portal technology by not letting IE attempt to access the internet when it cannot see the internet. We are just not sure if it is Vista, IE or both. We will test FireFox and see if it makes a difference.
_________________
Stephen D Wedemeyer

hmarcbower · Posted: Thu May 31, 2007 2:55 pm **Post subject:**

Have you had any further progress with the testing on this? I have had a couple of people come in with Vista (we're a public library, and most of the wifi users that have come in have XP so there's not much of a problem) and neither were able to connect. It sounds like you're onto something, but I don't have a Vista box around anywhere to do any more testing and I hate to ask our patrons to hand over their laptops while I fiddle around with them. :)

alan · **Forum facilitator** Joined: 26 Sep 2003 Posts: 4435

Our repeated test shows that the default IE7/Vista setting works well with FirstSpot.

We still have difficulty finding out the "offending" setting, any more clue is appreciated.
_________________
~ Patronsoft Limited ~

sdwedemeyer · Joined: 18 Oct 2006 Posts: 21 Location: Atlanta, GA, USA

I have 5 different servers currently running and while most users are fine, I have seen different problems.

Windows ME and FireFox 1.0 - redirects fail altogether. Gets to the Welcome page, creates account, selects option on shopping cart, clicks checkout, ends up at Welcome Page. Manually grant access to the account, attempts to login, ends up at Welcome page. At that point, enters a public URL and gets out fine. The system logged in the account, but cannot redirect. Asked the user to upgrade FireFox which they claimed to do, but next day, same problem.

Windows XP and IE 6. User cannot open the Welcome Page, reports Page cannot be displayed. Google and PayPal are fine. Tried entering the address of the server with the 5788 and the 5786 port, same problem. Tried just the ip address of the server and gets the expected 404 error, index.html not found. Also tried keywords and those work. Without access to the Welcome/login page, user was not able to use the system. Other users were having no trouble at the time. This was a corporate laptop and had Group Policies assigned to it, but I cannot see how it would be blocking a specific page.

As for Windows Vista, it has mixed results. I have personally seen the problem when two systems, 1 XP and 1 Vista, side by side, and the XP has no trouble and the Vista did. Not everyone has trouble so am unable to determine for sure what the problem / fix is. We have seen the problem on both Vista Basic and on Vista Ultimate. Can only suggest that PatronSoft continue to perform extensive testing with different installations of Vista.
_________________
Stephen D Wedemeyer

alan · **Forum facilitator** Joined: 26 Sep 2003 Posts: 4435

Couple of points:

1) As a workaround, you can always access the FirstSpot login page directly. See http://www.patronsoft.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1088

2) Try a forced refresh in your browser. In IE, press and hold the Ctrl key while pressing F5 (or the refresh button) will force the browser to load from the web server rather than cache. This will solve some cases.

3) Sometimes your DNS server is not stable. As FirstSpot DNS server is a DNS relay and it will pass the DNS requests to your DNS server (by default, FirstSpot will use the DNS server specified in your Public Network Interface), you need to check the stability of your DNS server. The easiest way is to use command nslookup (run from both the client and FirstSpot side).

Stephen, I think your problem in ME or XP is different. Try to make this thread Vista-only. If you still have problem with other non-Vista Windows, open a new topic and we will go from there (please post your config.ini and ipconfig/all for both your client and FirstSpot).
_________________
~ Patronsoft Limited ~

alan · **Forum facilitator** Joined: 26 Sep 2003 Posts: 4435

Just want to update everyone that we are still working on this issue.

One test can definitely helps us to narrow down the issue. If anyone encounters problem in Vista, can you run FireFox as a test to see whether you still have similar problem? This test can help us tremendously as we will know whether it is IE7 or Vista which is causing the problem.
_________________
~ Patronsoft Limited ~

hmarcbower · Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2007 2:03 pm **Post subject:**

I'm pretty sure it will only happen on Vista and that it has to do with the Protected Mode of IE7 (which only can be applied when running Vista - it can't be enabled on XP). I don't have access to a Vista machine to connect to FirstSpot, but occasionally our customers come in with them. It's a little hard to say "Oh, can I have your computer for about 10 minutes while I do some testing on our network?" However, I think adding the firstspot address to the "trusted sites" might solve the problem. I don't know if there is a way, programmatically, to do this. I also don't know why a local address wouldn't come up in the Intranet zone already, which should be trusted.

Anyway, hopefully that gives someone some ideas on what to try. Once I get my hands on a vista machine I will test some of these things myself.

hmarcbower · Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2007 2:04 pm **Post subject:**

Oh, I also meant to say that disabling Protected Mode would be a good test as well, but that does render most of the IE7 advances in security useless so I doubt customers should really be doing that....

alan · **Forum facilitator** Joined: 26 Sep 2003 Posts: 4435

We just re-test IE7 on Vista with Protected Mode on (actually UAC must be on too, which is the default setting), and unable to find any problem.
_________________
~ Patronsoft Limited ~

hmarcbower · Posted: Mon Jun 18, 2007 11:16 am **Post subject:**

Yes, UAC must still be enabled or else Protected Mode doesn't come on, I think.

It's very weird that every test you guys run works yet we're having so much of a problem with this.

What version of Vista are you testing on? Is your firewall on or off?

I'm not going to have a machine with Vista on it until late July when we do our next rollout, so I can't really test until then, unfortunately.