After Extensive Testing and Some Changes,
Seagull Formally Declares BarTender v7.75 SR2
Compatible with Windows Vista

BarTender v7.75 SR2 is Vista Compatible

At Seagull Scientific, we have always taken great pride in making BarTender and our printer "Drivers by Seagull" the most Windows-compatible software solution available for label printing. That means staying current with the latest revisions from Microsoft and ensuring that our own label software is updated in a timely manner.

BarTender version 7.75 Service Release 2 (released on January 18th, 2007) is the first version of BarTender to be modified, tested, and approved by Seagull specifically for operation on Windows Vista.

Free Update for most users that Bought Since July 5th, 2005.
Users of version 7.7x (versions 7.70 and higher) can update their software with a free download from:

http://www.seagullscientific.com/aspx/service_releases.aspx

Since version 7.70 first shipped on July 5th, 2005, this means free Vista compatibility updates for 18 months worth of new BarTender users!

Users of BarTender prior to version 7.70 must pay for a software upgrade in order achieve Vista compatibility. (Users of 7.70 and 7.71 should download the free upgrade regardless of the operating system on which they are running BarTender.)

The Importance of "Vista Aware" Operation
The Vista edition of Windows introduces numerous enhanced security measures to protect computer systems against Internet viruses and other invasive software. Accordingly, some software coding methods that used to run fine on older versions of Windows will now generate cautionary pop-up messages of the "Are you sure you want to continue?" variety. More serious "Security Violations" can also occur, causing some processes to simply fail because they were not allowed by Vista to properly continue. Certain previously accepted and established coding practices can even result in a "critical error" when running on Vista. Therefore, almost all software programs will require at least some changes in order to be stable and properly usable on Windows Vista. This includes BarTender and is why we strongly recommend using service release 2 of version 7.75 (or newer) when running on Vista.

Although Windows Vista has a variety of powerful and interesting new features, it also introduces operational and security system changes that are too important to ignore. That is why software products described by their manufacturers as "mostly" Vista compatible "for most functions" may at times generate serious operational problems. Users are strongly cautioned to only use software that has been fully tested and declared "Vista compatible" by its maker.

About our Self-Certification
At this time, BarTender 7.75 Service Release 2 has been self-certified by Seagull Scientific as compatible with Windows Vista. After completion by our developers of a variety of coding changes to address the enhanced security structure of Vista, a team of Quality Assurance engineers worked over several weeks to extensively test all components, including:

• The main BarTender program
• Commander
• Seagull License Server
• Seagull Printer Drivers
• Various Install Programs

A broad suite of manually run and automated regression stress tests were performed, including:

• Design functionality
• Printing
• Performance
• Peak load handling
• Memory leakage
• Stability and consistency under regression
• Security access

Compatibility issues with older versions of BarTender were found during this process and software modifications were made as necessary as part of Service Release 2.

BarTender has been officially certified by Microsoft as compatible with previous editions of Window for many years, which is why we can use the "Designed for Windows" logo. BarTender continues to be formally "logo-certified" by Microsoft for use on Windows editions prior to Vista. Seagull will extend its proud tradition of Microsoft certification to include Vista compatibility in an upcoming future release of BarTender. In the mean time, our self-certification process has been extremely thorough and there are no compatibility problems of which we are currently aware.

Vista Compatibility for Windows Printer Drivers
Very few changes were required to our Windows printer "Drivers by Seagull" in order to achieve Vista compatibility. As long as you are using version 7.0 or higher of our drivers, you should not have any trouble on Windows Vista. (BarTender v7.75 service release 2 ships with version 7.0.5 of our drivers.)