Palm's Vista-compatible Desktop 6.2 arrives woefully late

C'mon -- hop in this nifty time machine here and float with us back to December of 2006. That month, friends, is when Palm initially stated that it was cooking up a Vista-savvy iteration of its Desktop synchronization software, and yet, here we are some 13 months later wondering what took so long. Nevertheless, a finalized version of Desktop 6.2 for Vista has finally been loosed (half a year after the beta was revealed, mind you), and even though it does play nice with 32-bit editions of Basic, Home Premium, Business and Ultimate, 64-bit Vista / XP users are still left out in the cold. For Palm (and Vista) users out there willing to forgive the tardiness, go on and hit up the read link to get the 65.2MB file headed over.

[Via PDAStreet]

[Jason @ Jan 19th 2008 1:01PM]

Palm's still in business? News to me...

[Craig @ Jan 19th 2008 1:24PM]

There are people actually using Vista? News to me...

[Boostjunkie @ Jan 19th 2008 1:46PM]

Actually just about everyone that bought a new PC in the last year is using Vista. It gets a bad rap, but it's fantastic for my triple tuner media center system with OTA HD and Xbox 360 extender that I built myself for CHEAP. Let's see a Mac that does that.

[Jason @ Jan 19th 2008 1:51PM]

this has nothing to do with macs?

[Steffen Jobbs @ Jan 20th 2008 10:24AM]

Apparently Palm is trying to resurrect itself from the ashes with some ex-Apple guy at the helm. They could turn themselves around in a year or two if they copy some major handset manufacturer. Both them and Motorola suck. They're now a disgrace as originators of the PDA and the mobile handset. That's what happens when you leisurely sit back on your ass and think the rest of the world won't pass you by.

[Reader @ Jan 19th 2008 7:00PM]

I think Apple/Mac tags should be added to every Windows/Vista article and vice-a-versa since every fricking article these get brought up. Also every phone should have the iPhone tag.

[Robert @ Jan 19th 2008 1:28PM]

God I hate these lazy companies...hello Vista isn't anything new. And they still YET to have a 64bit version? Consumers need to hold these companies accountable for this crap and go to the competition.

Another ex. of bs laziness...lexmark. They refuse to write drivers for thier pre-vista printers (X125) but offer a 35% discount on a new one. No. I want you to support the one you sold me in the first place.

We'll never get to 64 bit computing if we dont start holding these companies accountable to 64bit software.

[waiownsyou @ Jan 19th 2008 1:31PM]

The problem isn't because Lexmark isn't supporting Vista, the problem is that you have a Lexmark printer. 'nuff said.

[ssuk @ Jan 19th 2008 2:22PM]

Oh right, I forgot, angry nerds on the internet and their obligatory hate list... Microsoft, Lexmark and Dell.

Anyway, I have a Lexmark Z75 which has served me well in the past and still serves me good on my dual boot XP/Vista machine... However, I find it highly annoying that Lexmark don't make a generic driver for their printers for Vista. I know why, because they want to push their newer printers and make money out of me, but fuck that shit right there, this printer works well enough and I'll be damned if I'm going to throw it out just because Lexmark are greedy bastards.

[tekdemon @ Jan 20th 2008 3:08AM]

Dude...you're surprised that a company that uses the most outdated PDA OS in existence...an OS that's pretty much been in stasis since the mid 90's...was slow to release a final version of their Vista desktop?

Seriously?

Hell, I was almost hoping they wouldn't bother releasing a Vista compatible version, just so my school would stop making us buy Palm based devices (we have to buy them since there's some legacy medical software for Palm OS that isn't on Windows Mobile yet).

Sorry Palm, I used to love you guys (owned a Palm IIIx and one of the first Palm smartphones ever from Kyocera), but the Treo is the utter most ridiculous piece of crap. It can't even handle an incoming call coming in when you're in the middle of dialing someone else-when that happens the phone goes spastic and hangs up on everyone (in addition to not being able to show who the incoming call was from-so you can't even call people back).

[Mayank Kuswaha @ Jan 19th 2008 1:42PM]

people actually using vista on their systems ??....

[Kizorblade @ Jan 19th 2008 1:51PM]

Yep. I'm afraid so.

[greg @ Jan 19th 2008 2:00PM]

eh, I just got a new laptop with vista on it and its pretty great. Takes a bit getting used to but then all os take a while to get used to. Looks pretty and runs stable. So why don't we stop this little pc/mac spat, k? nobody really cares to hear about it anymore.

[ssuk @ Jan 19th 2008 2:23PM]

Wait, people are still making these jokes?

[raven @ Jan 19th 2008 3:34PM]

Hells yeh people use Vista, even Mac people are using Vista, or else why would they be making ads telling people Vista runs faster on Macs than PCs?

Vista is so awesome, people bashing it is just totally incapable of handling it's greatness...(sarcasm)

OnTopic: LifeDrive isn't on the supported devices list :( I saw the LifeDrive on Engadget when it was still a pre-production device, then jumped to buy one when released... aww those wonderful years (months)...

[Abuzar @ Jan 19th 2008 3:39PM]

Vista runs faster on faster machines. The little Apple logo doesn't magically speed it up.

[caubeck @ Jan 19th 2008 1:51PM]

Are desktops still being made? News to me.

[Fruition @ Jan 19th 2008 2:01PM]

Oh... When I read the title I thought it meant Palm was manufacturing a desktop PC... And for a split second I was very afraid I had been transported to Htrea somehow.

[Fruition @ Jan 19th 2008 2:02PM]

Err, Htrae that is.

[Irfan @ Jan 19th 2008 2:01PM]

I downloaded this on the 16th for my centro ... feels and looks jsut as bad as it used to be.. and on top of that they removed the color coding for categories/events. there is no reason to use palm desktop if you have outlook. At least outlook 2007 is supported without add in conduits.

[Ryan Trevisol @ Jan 19th 2008 10:08PM]

I think Palm should change it's slogan to "Too little, too late."

[bugmenot @ Jan 20th 2008 4:58AM]

Had to re-install the Outlook 2007 conduits manually... The conduits, at least in my case, came with 6.2 don't work with 2007...

[Virtuous @ Jan 19th 2008 2:15PM]

Palm must have been folding their hands on their laps while Vista was in beta.

[ssuk @ Jan 19th 2008 2:29PM]

Well, not even then... 13 months after initial street release... What were they doing? Twiddling their thumbs? They had a perfectly fine XP build which I'm pretty sure the Vista version is just that but modified to upgrade the codebase or runtime libraries to run properly under Vista. (Which would explain why the 32 bit version doesn't run under 64 bit OSes.) This would have taken any other company 1-3 months.

[MarvinK @ Jan 19th 2008 2:22PM]

Anyone else notice some parallels between the timeliness of their desktop software releases and their mobile releases? Surprising how hard Palm has fallen...

[Wolfticket @ Jan 19th 2008 2:49PM]

I get the feeling there aint much palm love on engadget...

er... that came out wrong...

[trumpton @ Jan 19th 2008 3:14PM]

I use Iambic Agendus Desktop along with the Palm OS version and would say it's the best PIM software I've found on any platform by miles.

It's well worth the money and one of the (fast-running out_ reasons for staying with Palm (there are versions of Agendus for other platforms available, but the Palm one is the most polished).

[apw76006 @ Jan 19th 2008 3:52PM]

Two great taste that taste great together! Oh wait, I was thinking of Brad and Angelina...my bad homies.

[TooMuch @ Jan 19th 2008 3:52PM]

Since this update came out several days ago I would think that Engadget might want to just note the release at this point and not draw attention to those who are "late."

[Kasona @ Jan 19th 2008 4:29PM]

too late... I bought a T-Mobile Dash (WM6) four months ago. Outlook integration is great, and it was cheaper than any of the Treo's (Centro wasn't out at the time) Oh, and wifi's great too :)

[Baz @ Jan 19th 2008 4:34PM]

A minor miracle but I don't hold out much hope for it working without 'issues'. As horrible and lame as the BETA is, it does - kinda - backup (some) of my TX and I'd late to lose that limited connectivity with a botched 'Gold' Edition.

Palm no longer owns/develops its own OS or Desktop anymore (first to PalmSource and now ACCESS) - preferring instead to be hardware supplier to wireless companies - but this has meant that for new and longterm users, there has been no impetus from them to force ACCESS to get their act together. Vista has been with us (in consumer form) for a year, the BETA didn't show up till June and now, ACCESS offers a Gold? That's at least 4 Treo/Centro models without Vista compatibility straight out of the box. Regardless of your view of that OS.

Inexcusable.

[randyoh @ Jan 19th 2008 4:40PM]

No need to wonder - they have no developers working on the current Palm OS. perhaps 2 guys from india at most.

[Wilson Bilkovich @ Jan 19th 2008 4:41PM]

Haha.. no 64bit support? What are they thinking?

[TC @ Jan 19th 2008 4:53PM]

Access released this, not Palm. Desktop and Hotsync are the orphaned (or perhaps hostage) property of Access since they bought PalmSource in '05. Not that PalmSource was any good at getting anything out the door once they split off from Palm back in '02.

[Jeff @ Jan 19th 2008 5:00PM]

It doesn't even seem to work with my M505. It completed a hot sync, but the desktop software doesn't show anything in my address book or calendar.

Oh, well, at least install works now.

I can't slight palm. My 505 is still the best simplest pocket planner you can get anywhere (I'm runing it with agendus). Battery lasts for weeks. They're widely available on ebay for $25. I have a Windows Mobile 5 phone that I only use to make calls because the palm is just better.

Does anyone actually own the 64bit version of Vista?

On the subject of not supporting vista: Apple's itunes, and as a result ipods, werent stable til the middle of last summer and there were a lot of PCs shipping with vista in January. I had to downgrade to XP because of software and hardware not being compatible.

I don't blame palm, I blame microsoft. After paying $160 to downgrade my new machine to XP, I am never buying from them again.

Sincerely,
The guy typing on the last windows machine he'll ever buy

[michael @ Jan 19th 2008 6:35PM]

You do know that software drivers support aren't necessarily Vista's fault, right?

It's up to the companies that make the software for Windows to give software upgrade to make it Vista-compliant.

And if that's all, that's a pretty skimmy issue. When I got a Mac, practically none of my programs would work with it. What makes you think moving to another platform will solve your compatibility issues?

[Steve Koppelman @ Jan 19th 2008 6:03PM]

You think their Vista support is overdue? This same release also marks the first time they've had Hotsync that works on XP Media Center Edition. That only took what, three years?

[spincycle @ Jan 19th 2008 6:18PM]

Someone still uses a Palm? (

[CraigJ @ Jan 19th 2008 7:07PM]

WTF is up with Palm? They can't get basic updates, out the door, they charge $6 for supporting WPA/2 on the t/x. Oh, and the Folio. Seriously, can you say "Badly Managed"? They should fire the entire product management team at a minimum.

RE: Vista, I've had mixed results. At work I have a Dell Optiplex with Vista 64, and other than some annoyances I've had no problems at all in almost a year. On the other hand, I bought my wife a new dell for Christmas and I've spent 10 or 12 hours so far fixing stuff, reinstalling, deleting networks and adding them back in, all for no apparent reason. UAC is annoying as hell and is a big piece of shit, but turning it off hasn't solved all the problems. Based on that experience I ordered my machine with XP, and so far no problems at all. If the problems on the Vista machine persist I'm gonna wipe it and install XP...

[Mark @ Jan 19th 2008 9:21PM]

Ok Vista bashing aside, you can use Bluetooth to connect and sync your Palm/Treo.

Unfortunately 64bit drivers are hard to find for Bluetooth dongles, so can anyone recommend a brand name Bluetooth dongle that has 64bit drivers?

[nDee @ Jan 19th 2008 10:19PM]

Palms are great.
But Palm Inc sucks.
Why did they split their OS from the very beginning?
That is like one day apple sell their OSX to an unknown Indian company and buy licenses from them.
(Palm once split into Palm soft (for their OS)and PalmOne(devices) and then Access, a Japanese Co bought Palm soft. Now Access do nothing to upgrade the Palm OS.(now Access OS)
Palm do look like the company Dilbert works for.

[json @ Jan 20th 2008 9:17PM]

palm products are great tools. their corporate structure is what's fucked. like a previous poster said "how could you just lay down and let the world pass you by" (not in those exact words)and expect people to take you seriously with incremental attempts at come backs.

[AA @ Jan 19th 2008 11:36PM]

I'm still waiting for a UB Palm Desktop for Mac-probably will take months like the Vista version.

[Ryan @ Jan 20th 2008 12:34PM]

and us unfortunate Leopard users have been left out for quite some time now as well. Palm, I love your phone's keyboard and threaded text messages oh and that ringer switch... I hate everything else about you. If there were something better out there, I would TOTALLY switch to it.

[Sleep Dawg @ Jan 21st 2008 7:11AM]

It's not like significant numbers of desktops in North America have turned to Vista. More signifcantly is that enterprises are not rolling over to it. Palm - what's left of it - is competing against RIM in case you forgot. They are far more interested in signing up business users than the tards who hit up Best Buy on the weekends. 13 months is about right. Expect to see Palm Desktop for Ubuntu sometime in, oh, never.

[Al @ Jan 22nd 2008 12:48PM]

I had a BS iphone for 6 hours and found that it couldn't do 1/3 of what I could do with my "old" (mature) palm OS based Treo. The iPhone is for who get excited by pretty colors and shiny things. Palm OS is still better even if it's a little complicated for the dull-witted.

Comparing Leopard to Vista is like comparing apples... well you know. Vista is a real corprate OS that does about 1 billion more things than Leopard. Leopard is like an old VW air-cooled bettle. Elegant, simple with few moving parts. Windows has no choice but to thow in all the options because that's what busines users demand.

[Ton @ Jan 31st 2008 4:27AM]

The Palm and Palm OS debacle should serve as a reminder to anyone still believing that outsourcing works. They should retrospectively fire the guy who thought this scheme up and killed Palm in the process.

[D.Pearce @ Feb 25th 2008 10:28AM]

Re. Vista. Some of us have to use Vista because MS have persuaded laptop manufaturers not to produce drivers for XP so retro loading XP can't be done (clever!!!)
My gripe is that Palm have abandoned everyone that has the stupid idea of still using one of their old kit (I have a Tungsten E)and Vista. My Tungsten still works(or did) a treat but I now have lost a lot of the functionality I had with XP. Couldn't be that Palm wants me to ditch my Tungsten could it? I probably will but I will not be buying another Palm.