But an alternative graphic indicating Vista and/or Win 7 compatibility would be nice.

Considering the time it took me to go through the logo verification process (a few hours), I think it is a benefit. Win 7 was far easier than Vista, which I agree was a total PITA and clearly disorganized. Ironically, we attempted to get our app certified under Vista back in 2007 (which requires third party testing), and it failed because SQL Express 2005 wasn’t certified under Vista at the time! Pretty lame.

Getting our Partner status was also trying, but worth it. That probably took a few days, with some frustration trying to figure out how to earn points (which is an ongoing process).

If you are a startup — then BizSpark seems to be the way to go, since it only $100 and seems pretty hassle-free. As for logo certification (or any other certification), seems to me that some businesses will benefit more than others. If you are a niche app, it probably doesn’t matter, but if have lots of competition, it’s an easy way to get more recognition.

The other thing that really bothers me is right now, my program is considered a “legacy” program by Vista/7 and Vista/7 will let it break the rules so that it will work. But if I add that manifest, then all of a sudden, the Microsoft police are at work and every rule, no matter how small, has to be obeyed or the program won’t be allowed to run.

I have challenged MS Evangalist Patrick Foley to do exactly that:
http://startuppodcast.wordpress.com/2009/05/17/show-25-andy-brice-and-perfecttableplan/
And Michael Lehman before him. I don’t know if it ever went anywhere – I was sufficiently frustrated by the whole experience I am unlikely to try it again any time soon.

It’s weird because MS seems to be putting a lot of effort into helping developers in other ways (e.g. Empower and BizSpark).

http://blog.ryanwheeler.co.uk/2009/10/partnering-with-microsoft/

Part of that process was to get an app certified for Windows Server 2008. To get all the ‘benefits’ you’ve got to submit EXACTLY the same test twice. But between Juy and Dec you’ve got to do one test on 2008 and the other on 2008 R2 (aka Windows 7 server). Why?

All in all I get the feeling that the Partner and Certification process is so convoluted, obtuse and downright broken that no one from Microsoft has ever sat down and gone through the process end to end as a ‘partner’ would have to.

We never bothered with any MS logo programs, but I believe it’s useful if you want to become a Certified Partner, which in turn can save you a ton of money for developer and production licenses when you have a larger team (IIRC, you need 50 partner points for this).