Macromedia (Adobe) Homesite 5 Runs on Windows 7
Posted By: Redmax
This is a little OT for a Hardware Review site but the topic of running Homesite 5.x on Windows 7 is a subject near and dear to my heart (and pocketbook). Ever since I started developing websites my tool of choice was a little program called Homesite, Homesite isn't anything more than a glorified text editor but is designed specifically for web programming and also gets the job done in ways that many editors cannot. The tool won't replace Visual Studio, and it cannot do WYSIWYG editing, and in some ways has been replaced by any modern version of Adobe Dreamweaver. However there is just something extremely elegant about using a tool that only has a single purpose in life.
It's like the EVGA SR-2, The board is designed to break records, nothing more, nothing less.
Well when I heard the rumors that Homesite 5.x wouldn't install or run on Windows 7 I was devastated, not only would this limit my OS options but it also ment that if I wanted to upgrade to WIn 7 on my main workstation I would need to find a new editor. Truth be told I have known of these issues for quite some time, and it wasn't until tonight that I decided to test it out for myself.
So I fired up the test bench with a fresh install of Windows 7 Ultimate x64 Edition and navigated over the network to where I had the Homesite executable stored. A quick double click launched the installer and a few seconds later it was installed. I then applied the 5.2 patch and after a few seconds it was applied as well.
With the installation complete the only thing left was to fire it up. Clicking on the shortcut launched the splash screen followed by a general error about registry access. DOH!. Seems maybe the Internet masses were correct.
Can't be, nothing on the Internet can be trusted.
I navigated back to the Homesite shortcut, right-clicked to pull up the shortcut properties. From there you can set a compatibility mode, and for the purposes of this test I chose WInXP SP3. Clicking on the icon again launched the splash screen, followed by the program. WHOOO!!
How I ever doubted this would work is beyond me, I guess I put too much faith into the n00bs of the internet. Sadly I also cannot make fun of them since the people complaining were loyal Homesite users, however I can tarnish their technical rep for not trying the most simplest of program tweaks.
While there is some joy the whole thing is overshadowed by some extremely sad news... Shortly after Adobe acquired Macromedia rumors were spread that the purchase would spell certain d00m for Homesite, No longer would the program bundled with Dreamweaver and within a year the product link and developer forums were dead. You could still buy a license for Homesite but it was largely unsupported. no new patches, no new features, and no new versions at all. Homesite basically became abandonware.
I believe the final nail in the coffin was struck around the time Windows 7 was released, Adobe was pulling the plug and would no longer sell licenses for Homesite and even removed it from their company product offerings. Overall its not a bad thing, most developers now are into RAD (Rapid Application Development) tools like Visual Studio and Dreamweaver or have migrated over to building Flex/Silverlight applications which means code based development is a thing of the past. It is only dino cowboy coders like myself that hold on to the old ways, and also happen to be the people the lazy framework developers turn to when their shit stops working.
Thanks for listening.
