Why is Vault 5 a "major" new version?

[dhjdhj]

I've been looking at the list of new features for Vault 5 and as a user of the most recent version of Vault 4 I can't figure out why on earth I would bother "upgrading" to this version, even though it's a free update for me.

Shelving seems like a very minor feature (even if it was hard to implement) and the improved support for VSS seems irrelevant for anyone who has already pulled in VSS to Vault.

[StephenJ]

First off I would like to say that I think Vault is a great product. However, I agree that Version 5.0 doesn't seem like a "major" release. Also, it seems that Sourcegear has no intention of making any Windows 7 fixes to the 4.x series. So, if you find an issue with Windows 7 and Vault you get to upgrade, but since they haven't tested Vault 4.x on Windows 7 they can't actually tell you if an issue is fixed in 5.0 because they can't logically for sure know the issue. They can only say that Version 5.0 was tested in Windows 7. This release and the Win 7 approach is leaving a bad taste in my mouth.

[lbauer]

You both ask a very good question. And since our Product Manager and Sales Guy have been out of the office this week, I'm going to give you my take on this. ; )

In this era of Twitter and How RU text messages, communication tends to be brief. Plus there are only so many bullet points you can put in a release announcement.

That means the release notes/announcements only tell part of the story. The Product Manager tends to write up the stuff he's proud of because the Development team put in so much effort, and the $ales Guy tends to write about stuff he thinks will sell.

Vault is a pretty robust product, and not everyone uses all the features. It's quite possible that many of the new features aren't of interest to you.
But for those who wanted those features, they're important. For instance,Vault users have been requesting Shelve for the past 5 years. This
is a big deal for those users. And even if you didn't ask for Shelve, I think you'll find it's a very useful feature (unless you *never* have to
drop what you're doing and work on something else for a while, go on vacation, etc.)

It's true that the VSS Handoff will be popular among new users. However there are Vault development teams who are still using their old VSS
databases for some projects. VSS Handoff will make it easier to bring their code into Vault and get everyone on the same system.

We made 200+ bug fixes in Vault 5.0 to improve performance and productivity. These weren't show stopper bugs, but now users won't have work to around these.

Some of the small but important fixes:

• Command Line Client checkout no longer reports "success" even when it fails.
  
  Better compatibilty with new CCNet plugin
  
  Sixteen bugs fixed in Eclipse integration
  
  Better handling of Crystal Reports projects
  
  New Vault installation guide, updated docs.
  
  Additional checks to maintain database integrity.
  
  Better performance if Folder Security is on

The new release also allows users to move to new operating systems with confidence. Vault 5.0 fully supports Windows 7, Windows 2008 Server, both
32-and 64-bit. We also support SQL Server 2008 SP1, Visual Studio 2010, IE 8, IIS 7 and 7.5, VS 2010, Firefox 3.5.

New OS's and software *might* work with previous Vault versions, but in Vault 5.0 we test compatibility and fix bugs so that the software we support *does* work with Vault. This is an important function of a "major" release.

That's why I think there's something for every Vault user in the new Vault 5.0.