OpenEMR and Windows

OpenEMR Development
1

drbowen wrote on Tuesday, December 06, 2005:

Personally, I believe we need to work on improved cross platform performance of OpenEMR.  The typical kind of question that I see in a lot of forums (not just ours) from a Windows user is:

“I’m having a problem running my $GPLprogram on my $MSWindows.”

The most frequent response I see is:

"Linux is a lot better so be a man and start running Linux and all your problems will be solved."

MS Windows in its different versions is still by far the predominant operating system on the desktops of the United States and to a large extent, the world.`

Any open source project will be dramatically more successful if the Windows issue is not swept under the rug.  It should be both openly embraced and effort put resolving the cross platform issues.

This has been addressed successfully by Mozilla, Firefox, Netscape, OpenOffice, MySQL, Python and a host of other open source projects.

Currently, OpenEMR seems to install well using:   

Windows XP Professional
Windows 2003 Server Enterprse edition.

It does not install and perform well on

Windows 2000 Professional
Windows XP Home

What strikes me is that the later 2 OSs seem to be missing some pieces that change the way the OS runs the PHP and javascript used in OpenEMR.

I would propose that new releases be tested on the MS Windows subtypes prior to being released so that life will be simpler on innocuous, sankar1234, NetBear and others.

MS Windows is a dominant player that is not going away in the next few decades.  Our prolect will be more successful if we accept this.

Sam Bowen, MD

2

jimbo456 wrote on Tuesday, December 06, 2005:

I couldn’t agree more. I am running a pure Linux environment, however in my years as an MCSE supporting Windows Servers I was only asked to look at a Linux server once. Don’t get me wrong the Penguin sits on my monitor.

We have to look to the benefits to the OpenEMR project. If the project supports and actively develops with Windows and dare I say Mac in mind you will see more dedication of resources to support the project. Look in your phone book and compare the number of Systems Engineering companies dedicated to Linux verses Microsoft. The decision to go with a software package that supports Microsoft is just good business.

I would like to propose a thread dedicated just to Microsoft issues and as per Dr Bowen nothing new is released unless it has been tested on a Windows XP or Windows 2003 Server. I exclude Win XP Home due to known advanced TCP/IP feature limitations. 

Jim Proctor

3

sunsetsystems wrote on Tuesday, December 06, 2005:

I don’t think anyone wants to sweep Windows issues under the rug.  However as a practical matter, dealing with it requires someone who is willing, able and qualified to work on them and to commit appropriate changes to CVS. 

Do we have any volunteers for that, or someone who is willing to sponsor the effort?

– Rod
www.sunsetsystems.com

4

andres_paglayan wrote on Tuesday, December 06, 2005:

I agree with Sam’s philosophy, but I am not going to test on windows just because I don’t have time.

Sankar already has commiting privileges, Innocuous could send couple of patches for the widnows brotherhood, if they are ‘innocuous’ for Linux, then he should also have commit privileges to CVS and maintain the compability.

It’s not nice working for weeks in making the thing work and then having all tossed up.

5

sankar1234 wrote on Wednesday, December 07, 2005:

I don’t mind spending time and effort to make this clean for all servers under Windows platforms, provided there is funding.

-Sankar