Do Cel"url links no longer work in Windows Vista?

[fsgregs]

Hi everyone. I just got this email from an educational activity user in Italy.

He claims that cel:url links embedded in MS Word documents no longer work in Windows Vista. Here is the text of his message:

Dear Mr Gregorio,
first of all my best compliments for the work you did with Celestia.

I introduce myself, my name is Jader Monari and I'm a researcher in a
Northern Cross Italian radiotelescope (http://www.ira.inaf.it)
In the last year we realize a Visitor Center for the school (http://www.ira
inaf.it/visitorc/index.html).

Celestia and the educational Activities are very attractive for teaching the
basis astronomy issues to the young people. So many thanks for this very important free-teaching tools.

Unfortunately the last month we upgrade the computer's SO with Microsoft
Vista and the links "cel:// ......." of educational activities don't work anymore. The version of Office is 2003.

Do you have any suggestion to fix this problem?

Regards and please let me know
Jader Monari

Can anyone help shed some light on this? Could this be true? Has anyone else experienced the problem? If so, that would be a major disaster. Any suggestions for fixing it would be most welcome.

Frank

[Adirondack]

What OS and Word-version were used before (when the links worked)?
What means "the links cel:URL ....... of educational activities don't work anymore"?
-) Celestia doesn't start at all?
-) Celestia starts but positions are wrong?

Maybe the problem can be solved by pressing [Strg] while clicking the link?
Since I don't use Word under Vista this is just a humble suggestion.
If it works, one can change the behavior of Word concerning the execution
of links in the options menu.

Maybe Vista prevents to start (execute) an "unknown" software?
Maybe the file associations were disabled while installing Celestia?

Adirondack

[fsgregs]

Adirondack:

Thanks for the suggestions. It is possible that when installing Vista, the cel:url file link association was lost. I will ask the user to reinstall the Activities, and see if that fixes anything.

In general, has anyone else discovered that cel:urls don't work in Vista?

Frank

[Don. Edwards]

Hey Frank,
Well I don't know about the cel:URL problem, but I can't get Celestia to anything in Vista but crash and lock-up. So I have to dual boot into XP to get anything to work right. As a rule because Vista is still a infant Operating System, things like this are going to happen until it becomes a mainstreame OS. That should be about 2 years from know.

Don. Edwards

[rra]

I have no problems using the cel-URL links
in word (2007) in combination with Vista (32 bit version);
however you have to use the CTR-mouse-click to start the
associated program and also Vista's security policy says there is a" potential security concenr" ,
clicking OK will eventually start Celsetai with the
proper CEL-URL loaded.



Ren?©

[fsgregs]

rra and don:

Thanks for the feedback.

If Vista crashes Celestia, Vista users are in for a major disappointment. This is serious. If Vista will not work well with Celestia, it should be a MAJOR announcement and a Sticky note in all forum categories! Shouldn't we warn everyone not to install Vista, if they plan to run Celestia?

I recommend we have the development team comment here, and make a decision. What do you think?


rra, MS Word automatically requires the use of [Ctrl] + click to launch a hyperlink, but there is a menu item to eliminate the need to press [Ctrl]. Go to the Tools/Options/Edit menu, and uncheck the box that says, "use Ctrl+Click for hyperlinks". Click OK. From that point forward, simply pointing and clicking once on a cel:url or hyperlink will launch it.


Frank

[selden]

Frank,

Unfortunately, Celestia is not the only program that demonstrates incompatibilies in Vista. There are quite a few commercial business appications that don't work at all. Most large institutions are recommending not installing Vista, IE7 or Office 2007 until after SP1 has been released. This doesn't help the people who have bought new systems with Vista pre-installed, though.

My impression is that the problems seen in Celestia under Vista have turned out to be due to bugs external to Celestia.

(FWIW, I'm using IE7 under XP with Celestia with no URL problems.)

Don,

Which version of ForceWare is installed in your Vista partition?

Supposedly both AMD/ATI and Nvidia have released drivers recently that fix many types of crashes.

[fsgregs]

Selden:

I understand that problems with Vista may not be limited to just Celestia, and may be a Windows bug that will take Vista SP 1 to fix, but my suggestion to WARN Celestia users with a sticky note in the forum not to use Windows Vista is still just as valid. Should we not do this ASAP??

Frank

[t00fri]

...

[selden]

Frank,

Except for Don's crashes -- which may or may not be due to having either out-of-date or beta graphics drivers, I'm waiting for clarification on that -- my understanding is the Celestia works under Vista if you have up-to-date graphics drivers. This issue is exactly the same as when running Celestia under any operating system.

However, considering the large number of people who'll be having Vista inflicted on them, it does seem reasonable to have a sticky thread for "Celestia and Vista"