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Are Windows 7 Testers Going Unheard?
nandemoari writes "Windows 7 beta testers are disputing whether or not Microsoft is taking notice of their feedback.
The dispute follows a blog post by Steven Sinofsky, the man in charge of engineering Windows 7. He notes that in one week in January Microsoft received data through Windows 7's automatic feedback system every 15 seconds.
According to Sinofsky, it's impossible to keep everyone happy. That's partly because there are only so many changes Microsoft can make to the system and still finish it, and partly because in many cases testers often have opposing views about a feature."
I think that's his way of saying "We can't make all the users happy so we're going to do our best to make sure none are happy."
I suspect there is a big difference between unheard and ignored!
"Kernel 2.8.1 beta testers are disputing whether or not the linux community is taking notice of their feedback. The dispute follows a blog post by Linus Torvalds, the man in charge of engineering Kernel 2.8.1. He notes that in one week in January the linux community received data through Kernel 2.8.1's automatic feedback system every 15 seconds. According to Linus, it's impossible to keep everyone happy. That's partly because there are only so many changes the linux community can make to the system and still finish it, and partly because in many cases testers often have opposing views about a feature."
Users: No drm!
Pirates: Go ahead, use drm - we don't care, we can bypass anything!
RIAA/MPAA: drm! - it helps us fight pirating
Government: drm! - it helps us pad our wallets
Microsoft: drm! - it helps us pad our wallets
Maybe. But I do think that customer feedback is crucial to Microsoft at this point. And I think they know that. They really can't afford for Windows 7 to get the same public backlash that Vista got.
My blog
Of course it was. It was "Mojave" open to the public. Been saying that all along. But I also have to agree with the pragmatic answer to the question about whether or not Windows7 testers are being ignored. I tend to believe that if the feedback opposes "the plan" whatever that may be, the feedback goes ignored and if the feedback is a compatibility issue, they will likely consider it and weigh it against opposing factors such as what compatibility breaks or complicates.
There is nothing inherently evil or bad about this approach in my opinion.
The thing you're missing is that they're not selling software. They're selling software as a service. They're trying to be more like Google.
Google has a massive farm of computers that they leverage. Microsoft wants one too.
The difference is, Google was stupid... they went out and bought the hardware. Microsoft is smarter. They're just going to seize control of yours. In the business world, they call that "externalizing costs".
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
But their mistake is in allowing too many beta testers. They knew it would be impossible to handle the volume of feedback. They wanted the positive PR, plus the ability to say, "Sorry, we're too busy" to a lot of the requests.
A better beta test would have been more restricted so all feedback could be considered. They're obviously not interested in hearing all the feedback.
Developers: We can use your help.
Listen. I'm going to let y'all in on a secret. Well, maybe not so much a secret as something you might not want to admit in polite company.
There are alternatives to Windows. Several, in fact. The quality of these alternatives ranges from high quality to very, very high quality.
For the "I'm a user and don't want to learn how a computer works", there is OS X. A fine OS if I ever saw one. Also, there is a GNU/Linux distribution called Ubuntu, which works wonderfully out-of-the-box on most modern hardware. For most users there are equivalent software packages for the ones they are used to on Windows.
For the people that want to end the pain and finally bask in the glow of OS heaven, there is always BSD. An OS that doesn't get enough credits, btw. Rock solid (and that is the unix definition of solid, not the windows one).
There is no reason to be stuck in Windows bondage land. You don't need it. Really, you don't.
Let those guys in Redmond rot, they deserve it. Not only for the utter rubbish they release, but also for the total disregard for their customers.
There is way out, I can only point the way. You have to walk the road yourselves. But I guarantee you bliss, joy and well-being. It's up to you.
Since even Bill Gates is unhappy with the product experience on Windows, and they ignore him, what makes you think they're going to listen to Win 7 Testers?
He owns the company.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Microsoft hasn't done a great job of explaining to the millions of people who've tested Windows 7 that the beta stage is more about catching problems than significantly changing the way the system works.
My impression has always been that alpha testing is for determining whether or not to continue with an approach, and beta testing is for exercising the system to weed out sufficient bugs to continue with a final release. The beta testers complaining sound like they just went in with unreasonable expectations.
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
There's a difference between ignoring ideas and not implimenting them though.
If you had to respond to each piece of feedback, all you would end up doing is responding to feedback.
And if you're an enterprise user with 1000's of computers and 1000's of users all needign to share data and collaborate? Well then there's Active Directory. God knows I'm not a Microsoft apologeist but I haven't seen anything that even comes close to the power and ease of use there is in Windows Server and Active Directory.
I may agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to face the consequences of saying it.
So what the hell do they need beta testers for?
For broad spectrum testing. You think it's easy for a team of Test Engineers in a company to test every single possibility on every conceivable platform? For something as far reaching as a consumer operating system, it's a great idea to get thousands of people to do the basic hardware/software compatibility testing and others for you for free.
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
I love how the truth is flamebait.
Unix was sharing data and enabling users to collaborate when Redmond still thought DOS was hot and sexy.
The fact that you are brought up in a Windows environment doesn't mean there aren't other ways to accomplish things. Really.
I don't think any sane person can believe that Linux supports the same range of hardware that Windows does, especially in the graphics department. You can blame that on device manufacturers that only ship with Windows drivers, leaving the FOSS community to write the Linux ones, if you want.
And yet somehow Stickney gets modded as Flamebait for a truthful assertion about his experiences, one I've had myself (and now I'm smart enough to insist on Nvidia graphics for any machine that runs Linux).
As an experiment for those that doubt me, drop into your console and run the following commands
glxinfo | grep "direct rendering"
glxinfo | grep "pbuffer"
and tell me if your driver supports both of them.
And if you're an enterprise user with 1000's of computers and 1000's of users all needign to share data and collaborate? Well then there's Active Directory.
For mass-system linux auto-configurations, there's cfengine; I haven't looked at it in years, so it might be a little dated. There's also openldap, kerberos, NFSv4(with weak crypto and authentication, finally), Samba, SSH... yadda yadda yadda Granted, "ease of use" for the sysadmin isn't equal, but power is equal or greater.
Vista really doesn't suck. I say this as an OS X, Linux, and M-Windows user.
But if Microsoft wants to increase marketshare among the people using unlicensed installations of the OS, it's the Vista-style *licensing* of Win7 that must change.
The licensing model of Vista (and Win7) is like dongle, only worse: it's a dongle with an expiry date. It penalizes the customer. If I buy an authentication key, *I* should be the one to say on which computer I install it. I shouldn't have to call Redmond for permission if I change computers.
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
3 to 2 ... DRM wins. :(
krenshala
You're right, Google was really stupid. They stupidly avoided locking horns with MS when they were getting started, and they stupidly laughed all the way to the bank with their insanely profitable business model. And if cheap Linux/BSD powered netbook/palm PC's start gaining market share, people still won't leave Google. And if MS pisses off customers enough to make them ditch MS, people still won't leave Google. Stupid Google with their stupid brilliant business plan. MS has done plenty of clever (and in some cases unethical) things to get where they are, but don't confuse that with Google being stupid. The fact that Ballmer threatened to kill Google, and that MS has fallen on their face in Google's arena despite attempts to stack the OS in their favor, seems to be sufficient proof.
75% of these were able to use drivers provided in box (that is no download necessary). The remaining devices were almost all served by downloading drivers from Windows Update and by direct links to the manufacturer's web site.
How many machines could not get their NIC to work out of the box? How much did this skew the data because the owners never bothered to sneakernet the drivers? If these hypothetical NICs didn't work, how much else on the systems didn't work and was not recorded in the data?
It's "way behind" in some aspects, but also way ahead in others. Ever had a device that didn't work in Windows? I have a scanner that just won't work with anything past XP. No drivers, never will be. Hardware is still awesome (2400x1200dpi flatbed, USB), but it just doesn't work with any recent Windows. It has worked with every single distro of Linux I've thrown at it, though.
And display drivers are getting better, especially lately. I can build Ubuntu packages with the latest ATI installer if I want the latest and greatest, or just use the restricted driver manager if I want the distro version.
Not to mention my Linux just keeps everything updated. I don't have 15 auto-updaters running all the time, I don't have each program checking for itself. Windows is way behind in update capabilities.
Linux is only behind if you define "ahead" as "what windows does". Guess what... Linux is not Windows. If you compare them, Windows will be better at what Windows does, and Linux will be better at what Linux does. The question is what do you want your computer to do? Locked in, proprietary software that you don't get much support for that if it doesn't work, you're just SOL, or open source software that's not as pretty, but can do a lot more if you spend some time working on it, and is completely free, doesn't get viruses, etc.? It's your choice. But don't think that "Linux" is a free Windows, or you can compare them directly in all aspects.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
If they can manage to use it. I can't tell you how often my coworkers have been telling me they just can't figure out their home computer because of Vista. I've converted more people to Linux that way.
They couldn't figure out Vista, but made the switch to linux without a hitch. Not likely.
Assuming what you said is true then I have to conclude they have a linux advocate (probably you) assisting them over the bumps, pointing them where they need to go, giving them the basics, etc. I'm sure if someone spent the same or less effort to just show them how to use Vista they would have coped just as well.
For all that, I think its great that you've converted them to Linux. But I've converted a few people linux myself and if they are the type of people who can't figure out Vista coming from XP, then they'll need at least as much help figuring out Linux, and probably more. The only way someone could find the switch to linux easier is if someone is willing to give them that help with Linux but not Vista.
No it isn't, it's you being a prick.
I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either. - Scott Adams
A "Whoosh" to you, and two "Whooshes" to the moderator who tagged you insightful.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Well, I'm going to have to back Enderandrew here.
I have converted 3 people to *nix since October. All three came from the 'used Xp just fine, but what is this?' crowd, right after getting a new PC with Vista pre-installed. All three have commented on how easy their computers are to use now, and wished they had heard of this *nix thing years ago.
Only one has needed support since then. He had downloaded an avi file that he successfully played once, but then it would not play again. Replaced the file with a fresh download to his HDD, and all was fine. (he had the file on his failing thumbdrive)
I can't see this as a *nix issue though, most likely would have the same problem with Windows trying to play back a file from a dodgy thumbdrive.
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
How many machines could not get their NIC to work out of the box? How much did this skew the data because the owners never bothered to sneakernet the drivers? If these hypothetical NICs didn't work, how much else on the systems didn't work and was not recorded in the data?
Not many. Networking is a priority inside Windows (unlike sound, for example), and people who installed the beta were surely smart and eager enough to get drivers for those cases where the built-in ones failed, if they failed at all.
That said, networkless installs wouldn't even count towards the data presented in the article. So yeah, theoretically there might have been 20 million installs, not 10, and the extra ones didn't have a network connection, but that's in the realm of improbable.
I have converted 3 people to *nix since October. All three came from the 'used Xp just fine, but what is this?' crowd, right after getting a new PC with Vista pre-installed. All three have commented on how easy their computers are to use now, and wished they had heard of this *nix thing years ago.
What exactly did these people find so hard about Vista? Seriously?
I mean if they could 'easily' handle switching Office programs, switching email programs, switching browsers, switching to any of linuxes file explorers, switching to Gnome or KDE windowing conventions, using amarok instead of itunes or windows media player, learning the new terminology, figuring out Kopete or Pidgin instead of MSN, got their wifi going, set up their own printers, figured out how to get their all in one scanner to ocr something, shared some files over the network with Samba...
but what... you expect me to beleive they were hopelessly befuddled by Vista's "Network and Sharing Center" or that that "Add/Remove Programs" is now "Programs and Features"... or that when they install something they have to click 'Allow'.
Give me a break.
The only rational explanation I can think of is one of expectations. They expected Vista to be identical so the slightest change is reported as 'confusing and hard' and they expected Linux to be incomprehensibly different so the slightest familiarity is 'surprisingly easy and welcome'.
But in 'absolute' terms anyone willing to take the effort to poke around in a Linux distro to figure things out will cope just fine in Vista with the same mindset.
Same here. It's really something when us power users have that kind of first-time experience with linux.
Yeah, sure, drivers. I heard that with XP. I heard that with Vista. Every single cherry install of XP or Vista I've ever done, without exception, has failed to load ethernet, wireless, video, or soundcard drivers. Every. Single. One.
Virtually everything can use the fallback LAN driver in Windows. Only certain weird emulated-in-firmware NICs cause problems with the fallback driver. I'd point out they don't work in Linux AT ALL. Lots of places use PXE to install Windows so this driver HAS to work.
The remaining devices were almost all served by downloading drivers from Windows Update
Has anyone, in the history of humanity, ever gotten that to work?
Are you serious? You've never seen an updated driver package on Windows Update?
At this point, I'm calling bullshit. Let's hear about some of this hardware that didn't work. Be specific. "Some random sound card" doesn't mean shit. I want specific laptop and desktop brands and models. I want specific pieces of hardware.
Meanwhile, with Ubuntu, the biggest driver headache I've ever had was back in the Dapper Drake days where I had to wrap the Windows drivers for a Broadcom wireless card
You're not doing anything with Ubuntu. How about that Brother printer? Does the Linux driver support ALL the features of the Brother printer? I bet not.