FRC Blogged - Awards and 2014 Operating System Support

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by FRC Blog, 11/12/13

The software has not been certified to work on Windows XP. This doesn’t mean it won’t work, just that we can’t guarantee it, and we won’t be able to provide anything beyond cursory support if you decide to use it.

It would be nice if teams were given the opportunity to upgrade their existing programming computer OS to Windows 7. I wonder if Microsoft would consider making licenses available to FRC teams.

[FrankJ]

The 2014 Beta DS does not currently run on XP. It is on the bug list to get fixed though.

Microsoft has said the end of support for XP is April 2014.

[dcarr]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

It would be nice if teams were given the opportunity to upgrade their existing programming computer OS to Windows 7. I wonder if Microsoft would consider making licenses available to FRC teams.

Weren't teams provided with a Windows 7 image to upgrade the original Classmates? I think this was in 2011 or 2012.

[Alan Anderson]

Originally Posted by dcarr

Weren't teams provided with a Windows 7 image to upgrade the original Classmates?

I wouldn't use a Classmate to do programming unless there were absolutely no other option. The screen is too small for LabVIEW. I find that the keyboard is too small for anything else.

[bachster]

Originally Posted by Alan Anderson

It would be nice if teams were given the opportunity to upgrade their existing programming computer OS to Windows 7. I wonder if Microsoft would consider making licenses available to FRC teams.

Techsoup.org administers software donations to 501c3 organizations. There's a little bit of work to get registered, but eligible organizations can get all sorts of software (including Windows licenses) for a fraction of the cost - a Windows upgrade is $12. The Microsoft volume licensing is a bit painful to navigate, but we found it to be worth it for the money saved.