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Are Windows 7 Testers Going Unheard?

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the just-make-it-faster-and-easier-please dept.

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."

12 of 394 comments (clear)

  1. hmmm... by myVarNamesAreTooLon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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."

  2. Unheard? by nairnr · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I suspect there is a big difference between unheard and ignored!

    1. Re:Unheard? by DAldredge · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I rather enjoy watching BluRay on Vista...

  3. no shit? by phaetonic · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "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."

    1. Re:no shit? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yeah I'm not really sure what the problem here is. I imagine that there are more beta testers then coders, MS has to evaluate the flood of info coming in, prioritize everything, and get back to it. MS's job isn't to respond to every single Beta Tester with a personalized "ok we fixed your problem now", their job is to get the project done.

      Frankly EVERY SINGLE product I've seen that has a public beta has these EXACT SAME complaints from the public.

      Most of the comments here just sounds like a bunch of whining to me.

  4. Re:publicity stunt by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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
  5. Re:publicity stunt by DrLang21 · · Score: 4, Insightful
    From the article

    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.
  6. Re:Major usability issues by MadnessASAP · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.
  7. Vista is good. But there's a bigger problem. by Dystopian+Rebel · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.
    1. Re:Vista is good. But there's a bigger problem. by XcepticZP · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Easy. You don't. Just because Microsoft comes out with a spanking new OS that your old computer can't handle doesn't mean that they are telling or asking you to upgrade. Geeze, stop rehashing that old non-sense. No one is forcing you to upgrade to Vista, just like no one is forcing you to "buy a new computer".

      Computers become obsolete, that's a fact of life. People need to start dealing with it.

    2. Re:Vista is good. But there's a bigger problem. by rmcd · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I don't think parent was talking about DRM. Parent was talking about "windows genuine advantage" and the hoops you have to jump through to convince windows that you're a legitimate user. I have no opinion about the DRM stuff, but as someone who has always taken pains to make sure my licenses were legit, I find WGA and the licensing issues to be a total PITA. I agree with parent.

      In part for this reason I switched 4 months ago from XP to Ubuntu and I couldn't be happier.

  8. Re:Major usability issues by vux984 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.