Hoster 4.05 - The Factory Status - Released 9/29/08

[admin]

For those who want to know... last Monday we stopped trying to get Hoster 4.00 to work correctly with XP and Vista. What works for XP, fails with Vista! We commented out the "Vista patches", and our Beta Testers are now able to play KMA files correctly in XP.

We are now on Beta 39, scheduled for Wednesday evening. It handles all the weird problems some Karaoke producers have created over the decades, that Hoster 3.321 and prior handles correctly. We couldn't upgrade our rewritten code until the lyrics sweep worked.

Current target is to release Hoster 4.00 for XP on Monday, June 23rd or Tuesday the 24th.

For those who want to know, as soon as 4.00 is released, we will work on version 4.01 to run on BOTH Vista and XP. We have learned much about how Vista really works over the past 10 months, so we hope this will happen quickly.

FYI... Hoster 4.00 Beta 38 contains Hoster 3.40 also, which is Hoster 3.321a upgraded to run with 4.00 Registration Codes. If you find something wrong in 4.00, you can drop back and run your shows with 3.400 until we release a fix. We want everyone to upgrade to 4.00.

Hoster 4.00 has a major security upgrade. Some of you know MTU has worked hard over the years to make our security invisible to you. However, the worst problem we hadn't overcome is when your show computer dies and MTU must intervene to allow you to install on a third computer.

In 4.00 you will be able to remove Hoster from one of your 2 computers, and install it on another WITHOUT MTU HELP. In addition, you will be able to install 4.00 on 3 computers to replace loosing one to a failed computer that it can't be removed from. Initial testing shows this is working perfectly.

Vista is here to stay. We have to accept that fact, and spend much longer than ever before to make applications work on Vista.

Is MTU happy? NO!

Is XP more stable than Vista RIGHT NOW, YES.

Will Vista be stable within 12 months? I DON'T THINK SO.

What do I recommend? You must make your own business decision. Vista will continue to have problems running programs for some time. We'll do our professional best to make Hoster "behave" on Vista.

Microsoft is again forcing Computer Makers to install Vista ONLY in 2 more days. Last time they tried this, computer sales dropped to ZERO. No one wanted Vista then. Can they pull it off this time? Wait 2 weeks and we'll all know. If XP resurfaces again, Microsoft failed again to control the Earth's personal computer users.

Personally, I hope they fail and reverse this poor decision.