My best friend's diary...

Just 104 applications have been certified to run under Windows Vista, according to an update published on Microsoft's Web site.

Version 1.2 of Microsoft's list, dated Thursday, lists 104 apps that have earned the "Certified for Windows Vista" logo. Of those, 23 are Microsoft applications, meaning just 81 third-party apps have earned the Vista logo.

Those numbers are slightly misleading, however; another 682 applications have been certified to "Work With Windows Vista" which means, I assume, that they, well, work. Of these, 80 are Microsoft applications.

The difference between the two lists seems to be the large number of older products that have been tested against Vista; for example, one of Microsoft's self-published games, Dungeon Siege 2, carries the "Works With Vista" logo but not the "Certified" logo— probably because the game was released in 2006, before Vista was launched.

Just a few popular apps carry the Vista certification: Cyberlink's PowerDVD, Nero 7 Premium, Raxco's PerfectDisk disk optimization tool, Trend Micro's PC-cillin, and Ulead's VideoStudio 10.

Slightly more worrying, though, is the relative unimportance of a vast majority of the applications carrying the "Works With" logo. Here's a quick rundown of the apps I think most users would find significant:

That's about it. There are other minor pieces of software that you may use, such as SpectraSoft's AppointmentsPRO; but honestly, for every Stamps.com application, there's Absolute Entertainment's Absolute Poker.

According to Microsoft, "there are many applications that are compatible and work well with Windows Vista but that are not listed in this article. This is because such applications have not yet gone through the Windows Vista logo program or are still going though this program."

While certainly true, it also means that validating whether a particular application works on Vista means either quite a bit of experimentation, or poring through a number of support forums. While it's quite clear that over time, the vast majority of recent software will be certified for Vista, the number of current apps that play nice with Vista leaves something to be desired.