Bug Pushes Vista Out to November 8th

IntelliAdmin writes "Microsoft originally targeted October 25th for Vista's release to manufacturing, but a last-minute bug that 'took most of the Vista team by surprise' has caused an unexpected delay, said Ethan Allen, a quality assurance lead at a Seattle high-tech company that tests its products for Vista. Allen said the Vista team discovered the bug, which 'would totally crash the system, requiring a complete reinstall'. Vista now has a new RTM date of November 8th" A reader wrote in to point out this story originated with Paul Thurrott.

Comments

No wonder

[daeg]

That's what you get for hiring a furniture store for your quality assurance department.

Re:No wonder

[eosp]

(Insert Ballmer chair reference here.)

Re:No wonder

[Overzeetop]

Yup, that's excatly where I saw this one going. Something along the lines of:

How can a guy named Ethan Allen possibly be comfortable knowing his boss has a history of throwing furniture around?

Oh noes

[BuCKsWorld]

Crap, now I have to wait another 2 weeks to not buy it.

Re:Oh noes

[tomstdenis]

I've pre-returned my copy already!

Tom

At least they caught it before release

[ohearn]

I'm sure all kinds of jokes about MS bug history will come up, but at least they caught it before it was officially released. Better a 2 week delay to fix the problem than them saying they will worry about it later in an update.

That said, this sounds like a fairly major bug to catch this late in the game.

Re:At least they caught it before release

[gt_mattex]

Before everyone gets their flame on remember how many times they got verbally hammered for not testing their software first and shipping later.

Though the bug was caught this late in the game it does appear to be, although minimally, that MS is trying to do the right thing for once. Perhaps losing market share has spurred better business practices.

Likely? No. Possible? Yes.

Re:At least they caught it before release

[MORB]

1. This bug actually apparently fucks up the vista installation.
They had a lot of bugs in the past that were incredibly annoying but didn't force you to reinstall. My point is that this doesn't prove that they would have stopped the presses for something not forcing you to reinstall but still critical.

2. The fact that they actually discovered one huge bug in time to fix it before release doesn't mean that there won't be major bugs discovered after release.
With their track record, their arrogance, and the way they have to force the IT industry to leave the OS business to it, they should be held to the highest standards. We shouldn't cut them any slack just because they happened to discover a critical bug just before release for once.

Re:At least they caught it before release

[Aranel Alasse]

But... It's not exactly easy to find EVERY bug that there could be. A software tester is a software tester, not a typical user. Programmers are programmers, not typical users. They/We don't even always think to do things the way a user would do them.

I'm a programmer, and I know that I definitely (Firefox, I love your spell checker!) don't use the program the way our users would. If I want to get to a certain point in the program, I typically use the fastest route to get there, not always the most probable route that a user would take. After writing some code, I try to be thorough in testing the results, but since I don't use the program the way the user would use it, I don't always think of the scenarios where a bug might have crept up. (That's why software testers are so important, but I think we need to cut them a little slack, sometimes, too.)

Nothing less would have delayed it.

[Lostconfused]

If you didn't actually need to re install vista after the crash, they probably would have went ahead with the date and patched it up later. But honestly, who really expected vista to not get delayed again.

Re:Re-install?

[pclminion]

A crash is one thing, but a re-install to fix it? I have my doubts, but if anyone can pull it off, it's Microsoft!

Not that hard to imagine, really. A filesystem driver bug that blows away critical tables in the filesystem could put you out of commission pretty quick. (I have no idea what the bug is but filesystem corruption is the most likely thing I can think of.)

Big Bug

[tgpo]

They discovered that the default start page in IE was http://www.linux.com/

Re:Re-install?

[LiquidCoooled]

I would guess its got something to do with the security and DRM authorisation side of things.
It might not be as technically damaging as a filesystem bug, but with the DRM tied into everything if it fails the system will be left goosed.
I remember the cryptographic service failing on Windows XP causing problems, but this was fixable because it wasn't at the core of the system.

Suicidal

[Incarnate13]

Vista: The OS so bad it tried to kill itself before release.

Missing from the article

[Lord_Slepnir]

A member of the QA team said "I regret that I have but one crash report to give for my company"

Another member of Ethan Allen's team added "Give me Vista, or give me death". When Microsoft asked on what authority they could make such demands, Allen replied "In the name of the great Jehovah, and the Continental Congress". Off the record, he also retorted "Come out, you son of an XP hack, or I'll smoke you out!"

(in case you don't get it)

Nov 8 of which year ?

[Tiger4]

Its good they caught this. I'd hate to see Microsoft's reputation for delivering quality software on time be shot to ribbons by a bug riddled delivery.

Here we go again..

[eebra82]

Once again, some Slashdot users prove that their hatred towards Microsoft surpasses objectivity. The article does not say how this bug occurs, how often or even why, so for all we know, this could be a very uncommon bug. It's just a good thing if the quality assurance team spots a bug and eliminates it, right? Why on earth should we flame them for that? As if the development of Linux was flawless?

I for one say, let's judge the final product before we smack Microsoft for something that's not yet released to the public.

Re:Here we go again..

[eebra82]

How long has MS had to iron out Vista? Because XP was released on October 25th (hence why they wanted to ship Vista then) in 2001. They've had over 5 years, and dumped a TON of money into Vista. And it still doesn't work right.

Actually, if you've even bothered to test the latest release, you'd notice that it works really well. How much time they've had to work on the operating system is irrelevant. Plus, they admitted it was a mistake to wait this long and also said future releases would occur more frequently. Still, how much time they've had on their hands and how you feel about that has nothing to do with the final product, because the only loser here is Microsoft who don't make as much money as they'd like to if their OS:es were released more frequently.

It doesn't matter that it's uncommon...

Right. You're saying that a bug that occurs once in a million is as serious as one that occurs once in a thousand? That's just nonsense.

they're advertising this OS as the cure to everything that ails us, the most secure, stable, perfect version of Windows ever.

Well, you're right. They do say that it's the most secure and stable version. And it probably is. I don't think they've ever said it's a cure to everything, nor that it is a perfect version of it, however. What's your point here, really?

BTW, this was SUPPOSED to be the final product. But there were flaws in it.

No, the final product is the one that's taped out and printed onto the disks. An open and free test version of Windows is hardly a beta. Why the hell are you so upset about a bug which was discovered PRIOR to the release?

When's the last time you heard of a bug in Linux forcing a reinstall?

I've never heard of one, but I've only installed official releases of Linux. And just because we haven't heard of one doesn't mean there is no such bug. And once again, I must remind you that this bug occurred prior to the release, so it's not really a big deal. After all, we're going to use the final release of Vista, right?

No Surprises

[Doc Ruby]

Oh yeah, that's the OS I want to base my Internet and personal business on. A total meltdown bug that takes most of the huge OS team by surprise on the day it's supposed to be manufactured ("in stone"), after all the testing is supposed to be complete. But it doesn't surprise everyone, so it's been known to some on the team - but slipped past testing anyway. Which causes a delay of only two weeks, despite the testing necessary to be sure this bug 1: is gone; 2: doesn't break anything else when fixed; and 3: doesn't have others like it waiting to "surprise most people".

What kind of $MULTIBILLION corporation, whose steady stream of "upgraded" products are essential to global business and billions of personal lives, runs this way?

Microsoft. When monopoly is all you need.

Re:November 8?!?

[Jason Hood]

Depends, is she 18 on the 8th?

Great news

[RyoShin]

This will give Duke Nukem Forever more time to be finished.

What a fucking whiner!

[PygmySurfer]

Sigh.

Now, Steve Bink at bink.nu is a great guy and a friend, and I know he had no idea that these guys were just ripping me off. But that's the point of this: If you separate a story enough from its true source, it's becomes kind of unclear what the truth is.

Welcome to my life.

Poor Paul Thurrott! Such a hard life you lead. "I wrote about this first, I wrote about this first! digitimes didn't credit me! IDG credited digitimes, not me! I wrote about this first! bink linked to the IDG story, what about me!"

Paul Thurrott may be an important figure in the coverage of Microsoft Product or something, but I hardly think he's the only person with "sources" who get tipped off when these things happen. Maybe, just maybe, digitimes has sources too, and they found out about the setback from some place other than Paul Thurrott's site(s). Paul needs to get over himself, he's not the sole source of Microsoft news.

That, my friends, is what you get if you rely too

[melted]

That, my friends, is what you get if you rely too much on automation and don't do enough manual poking around. For those who lack context, there's a strong push in Windows to do as much testing through automation as possible. As often happens when a $1M exec bonus depends on something, the underlings got a little overzealous and either fired software test engineers or "up-converted" them to "software development engineers in test" who were then told to write automation. The effect of this is that you have bits and pieces of Vista that are tested really well and other bits and pieces that aren't tested _at all_. One needs to remember that when your automated test case finds a bug and that bug gets fixed, it's not likely to find more bugs in the same code path. This doesn't mean there are no bugs in the code. This means there aren't more bugs _in this exact code path_ that test case exercises.

Testing for Vista

[greysky]

a quality assurance lead at a Seattle high-tech company that tests its products for Vista

Is it just me or does this sound like testing for a disease or something? "Bad news. We got your blood tests back. You have Vista."

Re:Heh, mod me insightful.

[Anpheus]

I concur, I'm so glad Apple did the same thing with Mac OSX.

Re:Is QA this bad?

[Dmala]

Just because the bug is severe doesn't mean it's easy to reproduce. It may happen in one very specific set of circumstances. You could test for 100 years, and if you never hit that one, specific case, you'd never see the bug.

The number of possible scenarios in something as complex as an OS is *staggering*, you just can't cover every last case with any reasonable amount of time and manpower. So, you design tests to cover sensitive areas and likely trouble spots, you take as large a sampling of other cases as possible, and you accept a certain amount of risk. Sometimes, someone gets lucky and stumbles across a showstopper two days before you release. Better to have found it in-house than to have a customer report it.

PatchGuard hack

[Cally]

Authentium already broke Patch Guard and hooked the Vista kernel. That pretty much destroys 50% of the unbreakable new security model, as far as I can tell. Microsoft're quoted in that Reg story as saying they'll patch it, but are they holding RTM for that? If not, the launch will be as big a farce as the development process to date...

Re:That, my friends, is what you get if you rely t

[aafiske]

WTF are you on about? Do you have any experience in computer science at all? Because you're speaking utter rot.

Automated tests are better.

Automated tests can be run at night, when no one's around. They can be run constantly, without driving someone insane.
Automated tests are reproducible. Try following someone's 'Uh, I clicked here, then opened this, then I think I cancelled that program, then...' instructions a few times. Then tell me automated tests aren't preferable.
Can't keep up with all the tests to run? Buy a new computer. Your scheme would have a new person hired every time someone's maxed out. (Or, alternately, dumping old tests.)
Automated tests cover regressions. Found a bug? Write a test for it. Then if it pops up again (which they always do), you catch it early.
Automated tests can be run by anyone, if done properly.

Automated tests are predictable. They do, in fact, cover the same code each time. This is an asset, not a liability. You know exactly what you've tested, and what you haven't. You can write _more tests_ to cover the other stuff. You'd rather someone happen to click a little different on the last build, and miss a regression?

Manual testing is required for GUIs to some extent, and to winkle out usability issues.

To suggest MS is dumb because they tried to make their testing rigorous, predictable and regular is utterly absurd.

V for Vista

[John.P.Jones]

Remember, remember the 8th of November...
The OS upgrade season and plot
I know of no reason
Why this Windows version should ever be bought

Re:Is QA this bad?

[I'm Don Giovanni]

Finally, a reasonable post.
The vast majority of the posts on this subject leads me to believe that the vast majority of slashodtters don't have the first clue about the development and testing of a large project.

Oh, and let's not forget that a few months ago an Ubunto update deleted the entire home directory of users. That's as major as this Vista bug, and was readily producible (unlike this Vista bug), yet it slipped through.

Vista Release

[Khammurabi]

Crap, now I have to wait another 2 weeks to not buy it.

I know it's a joke but I continually get the sense that the Vista release will go as follows:

Microsoft: Buy Vista Now!
World: Why should I?
Microsoft: Uh...because it's prettier and has DRM support?
World: No thanks, I'm happy with what I have now.
Microsoft: Please?
World: No.
Microsoft: Ballmer throws a chair in the new screensaver, and we dressed Gates up in a dress for the default background.
World: Really? Sign me up!
Microsoft: Really?
World: No.

(Months pass...)

Microsoft: WTS slightly used global software monopoly.
Google: 5 dollars and Gates in a diaper apologizing to the world.
Microsoft: Sold!

Bug requiring reinstall?

[SuperKendall]

Your link doesn't seem to list any bugs requiring re installation.

Every OS has bugs. But there are bugs, and there are BUGS.

The Bug

[Cervantes]

I was chatting with some folks on the Vista team, and it turns out the bug is actually fairly interesting. Apparently the latest version of Windows Media Player infects the NT kernel with some DRM, and the only way to unlock them is to download your authorized user code from Microsoft.com... which unfortunately you can't do if you have a locked kernel.
Who woulda guessed?