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Microsoft Has Received 1 Million Pieces of Feedback For Windows 10
jones_supa writes Microsoft's Windows Insider lead, Gabe Aul, has announced that the company has received one million pieces of feedback through the Windows 10 Technical Preview Feedback app. The app opens right from the Start Menu and it has been critical to the operating system's development allowing testers to send details to Microsoft about what they think of Windows, problems they have been facing, and if there are any improvements they would like to see. The app has been part of both desktop and phone flavors of the OS. Microsoft seems to have made a real effort lately to listen to consumer feedback and has been opening up avenues to discuss new features for some time. Have you sent feedback through the app?
This year we put a "10" on the box.
The new start menu is just the start screen shrunk down... Was so much better in the previous build.
:P
Yeah, I sent them a tonne of feedback, while I tested Windows 10 - all of it bug reports but I tried to give them as much information as possible, with each bug I found.
As you can read through other people's bug reports, I noticed 90% of them are not in anyway helpful to the developers - statements like "It deosunt prnit" (with no further information as to what didn't print and on what hardware) or "why are you so dtoopid!" --- "useful information" to that effect.
It's frustrating reading because this is a chance for users of Windows to get the best possible outcome by making their voices heard - unfortunately the vast majority of people making noise should probably have stayed silent, which only increases the chances that genuine bugs and useful feedback will be lost in all that mess.
Stop writing bad shit.
Step 2
Profit.
See?
I think it was more of a PR stunt for Microsoft to be able to say "there are enough people interested in Windows 10 to contribute 1 million pieces of feedback" and "we're listening to you, the computer-using community" than it is about responding properly to any particular piece of feedback.
I think that's overly cynical and not really fair. I believe it's a genuine desire to get it right. Even if you want to remain cynical, they have every economic reason to give people an OS they want.
I have to give both Microsoft and Slashdot credit. At least they do listen somewhat to users who voice concerns about their products. It's still not as good as Windows 7, but at least Microsoft is getting rid of some of the worst parts of Windows 8 in Windows 10. And Slashdot did the right thing by getting rid of its shitty beta site after so many users pointed out just how shitty it was.
But Mozilla? Do they listen? Nope! Firefox keeps getting worse and worse with each release. The ruined UI stays ruined, and stuff like Electrolysis and asm.js are just half-assed clones of stuff that Chrome has had from the beginning, or has a much better approach for. Then Mozilla pisses around with something as fucking awful as Firefox OS.
And then there's GNOME. Do they listen? Nope! GNOME 3 was by far the worst open source screwup we've ever seen. It's still total shit, years later. If you don't believe me, go look at recent versions of gedit. Yeah, that's how badly they fucked up what was once a usable text editor.
Finally we have Debian. Do they listen? Nope! Debian's quality has taken a nosedive since they started pushing systemd. What was once the most robust and stable Linux distro, even when it came to its testing and unstable versions, is now one of the most unstable and fragile Linux distros.
Microsoft and Slashdot have done the right thing by at least addressing some of the many issues raised by users. But these other projects, like Firefox, GNOME and Debian, need to start doing that instead of just treating their users like dirt.
And that may be true, but there's an inverse problem to the one you're replying to. If they filter the useless feedback, and the escalate the useful stuff then it's necessary that somebody deciding what is useful or not follows a set of guidelines and doesn't really know. Further, there can be organizational corruption of the process. For example, suppose a supervisor of that lower tier of feedback readers likes the aesthetics of something most people hate, so they tell readers not to escalate feedback about it.
This is a non-trivial problem. The only way to eliminate the organizational corruption potential and inject more expertise in the lower tier reading is to use a vote system, like Reddit or Slashdot. Politicians' staff does something like Slashdot, whereby feedback from constituents is categorized and summarized. But that kind of system isn't foolproof either.
It's a marketing ploy, but it's a very good one, and to some extent it certainly has helped to improve the OS. Microsoft would have to actively try to mess things up for that to not be true, and they surely wouldn't be the company they are if they did things that way. I'm hoping Windows 10 is to Windows 8 as Windows XP was to Windows ME. It very well may be, and Windows 8 isn't all that bad. DirectX 12 is almost certain to be amazing, for example.
The idea of Linux on the (mainstream) desktop is going to be finished after this, but it will always be alright on the server. Especially thanks to improvements like systemd and increased hardware support.
Here's some feedback: can we please go back to referring to programs as programs?
n/t
Microsoft has always made an effort to listen to consumer feedback.
They've just never made a real effort to act on it.
It's because they put the feedback app in the start menu and with the start menu finally back in Win 10 users actually knew how to find it to launch :)
Recieving million pieces of feedback sais nothing. Nazis also did recieve million pieces of feedback -- 999,999 times of "heil, hitler!" and one critical voice, which was promptly silenced by the gestapo. So what is feedback for? Only for swimming in your own glory.
Happy Godwin day!
Microsoft Has Ignored Million Pieces of Feedback For Windows 10
I found this very disturbing.
http://saveie6.com/
I tried to send feedback to Microsoft about their products before. I sweated and strained over what I felt they should have, and then finally and with great relief, I found that I'd finally got out what I wanted to send to them.
I wiped, then stood up, turned around, and pressed SEND, but I don't know if they ever got it. Unfortunately, it still smells like Windows in there.
systemd?
Does a huge spew of vomit count as one instance of feedback, or do they count the chunks and derive a more realistic number?
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
I was reminded today, that very often a company will kill the golden goose for a kick ass deep-fried goose and have an awesome quarter...
WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
It is like XP ... buggy and will require a sp just like XP did and has ugly theme.
Win 7 was awesome at this stage and solid enough to go head to head with Vista and XP. Just Mere weeks before feature freeze it does not look good.
http://saveie6.com/
Then again it would be difficult to decompile a job application or an application of paint.
It's frustrating reading because this is a chance for users of Windows to get the best possible outcome by making their voices heard - unfortunately the vast majority of people making noise should probably have stayed silent, which only increases the chances that genuine bugs and useful feedback will be lost in all that mess
Let's just hope they can task an intern level employee with sifting out the stupid and passing only the potentially useful stuff up to where it might be useful!
You're a developer of open source software, aren't you? You know how I can tell? The way you expect users to be able to explain bugs in technical terms and how you disregard any bug reports that don't match your mental template. "It doesn't print" IS a bug report. If I buy a blender and it doesn't turn on, the end user doesn't bring out a logic diagram and begin tracing the leads.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Well, it certainly seems like M$ spent most of the last decade doing the exact opposite. Start menu - gone, working file manager - gone, busted arse copyright system - forced in and kept regardless, idiot ribbon - no choice for old system, phone gui on desktop - no choice basically a big old fuck you to the customers, again and again and again and well it's the M$ way. Critique them and expect abuse not a fix.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Linux is still down at 3. MAYbe a "jump" to 4. No wonder Windows is the most advanced system you can put on your desktop today, and tomorrow.
I cannot imagine much that the OS does anymore other than file activities.
If they truly wish to retain their market share I'd suggest moving the OS more or less online. Rather than loading a program like office, it would be more similar to google docs. This would allow security features and updates/upgrades to be done in sync because we'd all be referencing the same object instead of little out of sync differences due to drivers or configurations spread across a million+ machines. It would be faster as well with the caveat of a needed internet connection. However it's a matter of trust. I don't care if they have the best of the best of the best OS that will make my penis bigger and my hair thicker, I just don't trust them anymore, they feel like corporate scum bags playing PR games
This shift has already begun, I rarely use office, the calculator, their browser, in fact most of this operating system is vestigial with significantly faster 'net counterparts.
It would also dig chunks of the OS out of my personal computer, I don't like installing things from people I don't trust from a very hostile foreign nation and corporation. I guess my opinion is moot because I'm migrating to linux little by little year after year as I find myself able to do more faster with my linux webserver than with installed programs (its such a fantastic OS, if you haven't tried it, give it a go, you'll find yourself suddenly a man with a mans tool instead of a boy with a toy).
posting AC because... well, obvious reasons.
In the later stages of internal previews of Windows 8, they asked us employees to give feedback on various iterations of the Metro UX. We'd dogfood the latest, click thru, give feedback, and in several instances, the running totals were displayed. I wish I'd taken more screenshots, because the consistent feedback internally was about 80% disapprove/unhappy with the tiled Metro UI + compenentry on the desktop or laptop. (Much more positive on the phone, tho.) Seriously, with a 20% positive feedback rate, we were told, "customers love this" and "you're the only people who feel negatively about this" and they rammed the crap UI through into production. The rest is history.
What makes anyone think they'll actually listen to feedback this time? This time with a sheltered brogrammer for a CEO, even less tolerance for dissent, and a massive brain drain prompted by layoffs, it just doesn't seem like "better" is probable at all.
I am never going to develop a website using a tablet or phone or anything other than a desktop with shitloads of memory and a full keyboard.
Anyone using .NET, which was supposed to be a big thing starting around 2003 or so, and is still a big thing, is not going to be doing this on a tablet.
I don't want to use a tablet interface to develop for your stupid tablet interface using a tablet. I'm not going to do it.
I will encourage leadership, and that means people who would be glad to spend money for me, to not update at all.
But my voice apparently goes in the bucket of "user" rather than "people who further extend our monopoly".
I sent in my request that Win10 supports bash or even csh like Linux and OS X. But instead we have powershell, which has absolutely no value to me as a hw/sw engineer. I'm not really looking for a new way to lock in, I'm looking for a way that the OS becomes useful again, rather than a beast i'm forced to use for certain company's games.
Sometimes you get the feeling they don't really want feedback, they want bug reports or free marketing.
If you buy a blender and it doesn't turn on, you'll take it back to the shop where they'll say things like, "You plugged it in? Locked the jug on top of the base correctly? Pressed this button here?"
"It doesn't print" is a bug report, but it's a report that implies a two-way conversation is going to take place. Perhaps Microsoft should have said in the app, "Hey, put as much info as you can in as to what you were doing at the time, because we can't get back to you once you hit submit."
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
Why don't Open Source projects provide a feedback app? Oh yeah that's right, they don't care what users think.
Somebody might tell them that having your shit all overlapping is retarded.
http://i.imgur.com/4iNSppX.png
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
But most the people complaining about those things are idiots, who even if in a minority are extremely vocal. I wish a company like Microsoft would stand up to idiots and say, "Fuck you." I'd devote my life to such a company.
I very much agree on all items. The thing about systemd and Debian is really tragic though. I did believe the Linux community had good resilience against sabotage, but apparently I was mistaken. There is one last change to make this right, namely when it is still not good a year or so after being the default and more and more people wake up to what is going on.
And Firefox? That is just concentrated stupid. I do keep it around because Chrome is not an option and my default browser (Opera 12) is having trouble with some sites, but I would never make it the default.
Gates, is that you?
Well, we have around a year still until the first DX12/Mantle games drop, and we haven't heard of any W10 features we can't live without. OEM won't stop shipping Windows 8 right away, so it looks like there's some time to ramp up interest and get things under control.
But I swear to God, if MS messes this one up and PR firms try to stop me from giving them crap, then I will repeat myself on every damn social media site that exists. I'll even make a (shudder) Facebook account for it.
But that won't be necessary. They got a great window to get it squared away still, and it's totally within their capabilities. Plus, with XP the original security crises that gave rise to service packs took them by surprise and they can plan for what's ahead. They got this.
How do you know "it doesn't print" isn't a complete and useful report? I haven't read the privacy statement for this, but it would be sensible for the OS to capture recent activity in a bug report, no? But perhaps I give MS too much credit - much as I think their heart's finally in the right place, I'm not sure their head is yet.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
When a technical preview receives that many comments it's a truly bad sign for multiple reasons:
1. The vast majority of it is likely to be noisy crap or stupendously duplicated complaints which drive issues out of view.
2. With that much feedback some seriously heavy analytics will be required to actually identify the core issues addressed in the feedback.
3. With heavy analytics useful posts get destroyed, and what may have been a detailed bug report complete with reproducability instructions may be simplified to "Issue with start menu"
I would have preferred it if they had less feedback.
Look at the computer icon and bin icon, the perspective is all wrong. They haven't just flattened it, its like its drawn by a child.
That's not good, if they're determined to copy Googles 'material design', at least make it look professional.
I use a Kubuntu laptop. That said, what we see here is the downside to open source. There is no real penalty for not listening to users and just doing what you want. If you are doing it for free why would you care what others think, as long as you think you're right. Same deal if you have somehow gained a funding source that also doesn't care. BTW, Maybe Google liked Mozilla fucking up Firefox since that would push people to Chrome (yes I know they have a deal with Yahoo now, but most of the stupid shite was done when they got their money from Google). Gnome was a case of this combined with a crew that got too big for their britches. Design have always been uber-gnu and did things as they saw and see fit, and don't have to answer to anyone but themselves and if you don't like it, use Redhat. So there (sticks tongue out). There are a lot of projects that do care. But I think k hubris is easier with open source when you are less likely to lose a paycheque.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
I don't think "It doesn't print" is a very good or useful bug report. Perhaps saying what application he was in when he tried to print would be good, as well as him either not being able to find the print button, or if an error message appeared would be helpful. Or what printer and how it was attached to his PC would be great.
Trying to equate a problem with an OS with a device that has 3 buttons isn't quite the same thing. Replicating an issue with one device, with no add-ons, and only has one model is a far cry from trying to replicate it with an OS that is made up of of dozens of applications, running on thousands of different hardware combinations, and a problem with a 3rd party device that may be connected in a half dozen ways is a little bit more difficult.
While I agree with you about the feedback. The real question, will Microsoft listen?
Finally we have Debian. Do they listen? Nope! Debian's quality has taken a nosedive since they started pushing systemd. What was once the most robust and stable Linux distro, even when it came to its testing and unstable versions, is now one of the most unstable and fragile Linux distros.
What are you talking about? Debian became unstable because they use systemd? Really?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
There is no real penalty for not listening to users and just doing what you want.
Your project gets forked and you lose your users. It's happened many times.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Oh, I always give tons of feedback when using Windows. But I am polite enough not to save it.
Table-ized A.I.
I am never going to develop a website using a tablet or phone or anything other than a desktop with shitloads of memory and a full keyboard.
Anyone using .NET, which was supposed to be a big thing starting around 2003 or so, and is still a big thing, is not going to be doing this on a tablet.
I don't want to use a tablet interface to develop for your stupid tablet interface using a tablet. I'm not going to do it.
I will encourage leadership, and that means people who would be glad to spend money for me, to not update at all.
But my voice apparently goes in the bucket of "user" rather than "people who further extend our monopoly".
I can see you forward your stuff to an editor not a programmer. Nice room to put in comments there bub!
This message was not sent from an iPhone because Peter Sellers really was a deviated prevert without a dime for the call
The penalty for open source is the same as for commercial software - an erosion of their user base. Open source that doesn't get widely used doesn't tend to get a lot of broad developer support either - no one wants to be working on a piece of software that few people are actually using. In the case of Mozilla, their declining userbase directly impacts their ability to earn revenue via search placement deals. Firefox is not developed with volunteer labor.
So, I don't think it's necessarily true that there's no penalty. It's probably more accurate to say it's more of an indirect penalty than with commercial software. Keep in mind that plenty of commercial businesses have failed so badly to deliver a solid, core product that they've gone bankrupt as well. With open source, the "fall" is a bit less dramatic, since the project just quietly stagnates instead of disappearing altogether.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
I'm using Windows 7 and sometimes I see goofy overlaps also on slashdot. CSS positioning sucks, I have concluded.
Bring Tables back. Nobody ever gets CSS positioning right. I've seen just about every big web company F them up. Tables "degrade" better. (And I'm not just saying that because of my handle).
Table-ized A.I.
You lose your users. So what? Does it cost you?
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
"It doesn't print" isn't a complete and useful report because it is just one step up from simply saying "it doesn't work". Presumably it does print for some people, so the developers really need to be able to narrow down the problem.
Does it crash as soon as it starts the print process, or does it go appear to generate each page? Does it send anything to the printer (flashing light on printer), but just no pages are emitted? Is it just that blank pages are emitted? Or random garbage characters? There can be many symptoms of not printing, and they would each suggest a problem in a different bit of code.
I haven't read the privacy statement for this, but it would be sensible for the OS to capture recent activity in a bug report, no?
Yes, it does log activity in the beta versions of Windows. It seems that their collective head is in the right place. However, all the logging in the world can't see what has come out of your printer.
It doesn't really look like Microsoft was listening. The so-called new start menu doesn't bring up a menu, but instead presents...a big window with all the stupid tiles that people didn't like using. It's one of those "oh, you'll like this, we're sure of it. you're just not giving it a chance because it's new".
No, people with desktop computers, with a mouse and keyboard and without gorilla arms DON'T LIKE IT.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
There is nothing stopping you from writing your own program to add those commands in. In other words a different version of powershell more to your liking. Open source it even if you want. Come on Linux fan boy show Microsoft how amazing you are instead of complaining about it on Slashdot. Classic shell made a big difference to windows 8 which is why I install it on every win8 install I do.
"Jesus Christ, what is this shit, I can't stand this mobile OS in my PC, why is it so useless, f*ck this, I'm switching to Linux."
Story ---> The new Windows is to be called "Windows 10", inexplicably skipping 9. What's funnier is the fact this was "predicted" by InfoWorld over a year ago in an April Fools' article.
"The reason is simple:
Call it windows 9 - the 12 announcement stories are lost among the weak wash of windows 9 speculation
Call it windows 10 - cheap gimmick to make people think they have to upgrade to what is essentially windows 7, and 24 more stories all commenting about how they chose a different fucking number
Fuck microsoft."
- https://www.reddit.com/user/fe...
- http://www.infoworld.com/artic...
Unless they have a webcam and are wearing glasses. They can then take the recording from the webcam, zoom in and enhance the reflection in the glasses and see what the printer is doing. I've seen this kind of thing done lots of times on TV by people without all the resources of Microsoft.
i think he means " Trolls quality has taken a nosedive since Debian started pushing systemd"
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
Mass release of technical preview software is is showing contempt for users and developers by wasting both sides' time by duplicating effort. In my experience the best way do it is to initially release to a small sample of users an fix the issues they raise. Then release to a somewhat larger sample and fix the issues they raise, etc. If you are getting more than a handful of duplicated reports then you are ramping up too fast. If you are getting reports in at a rate that exceeds your developers capacity to evaluate them and, if necessary, follow up with the user then you are ramping up too fast.
Thanks, Obama!
"It's still not as good as Windows 7...": now that is comment which worries me...
of one million.
Great work Microsoft. I'm downloading ReactOS as I'm typing this.
I wonder if they count keylogger captures as part of this feedback?
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
Because M. Joe Blow from Anyville really knows conceptualy what he wants from an operating system? Come on...
"It's shit"
Yes, I also agree on these points and would say while Microsoft at least listens to their customers albeit late. Firefox to me became a jack of all trades wannabe without being master of anything. They never got the concept of polishing current projects before branching into new ones. So they have a mobile browser, a mobile OS and their legacy projects like Firefox. They all suffer the polishing needed to succeed so they all being to fail.
I sent in my request that Win10 supports bash or even csh like Linux and OS X. But instead we have powershell, which has absolutely no value to me as a hw/sw engineer.
Then you should tell Microsoft what improvements you would like to see in PowerShell for it to become useful for you.
There is too much value in listening to the users.
I am not saying the users comments are useless, but if you try to follow your users direction too much you end up compromising your design, and there is a point where they will just have to do it a new way.
When people say I want the start button back. I want to know what problem they are trying to solve with it. Is there an alternative that is better.
My issue isn't the lack of the start button but how it full screen takes my eye off of my work space and gives me something else to look at. And it's design prevents catorigazation so I can drill down. The start bar does this. So does OS X finder.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
You loose credits. So there will be less contrabution to your product, distribution companies will not use your product and your name may be a stain, so your contributions may not be welcomed in other projects.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
They still have yet to adress my issue. Get rid of the "new" task manager. Default to "more opitions". "less options" are fucking useless. Just get rid of it.
The trouble with a voting system where >99% of the users won't vote on >99% of the proposed changes is that you have special interest groups and semi-celebrities that dwarf everyone else who can't be arsed. You really need to get the opinion of a representative sample and see if 10% like it and 90% don't care or 10% like it and 90% want to burn it with fire.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I don't get the hate about Mozilla, the "File Edit View..." menu bar is enabled back with a couple of clicks and then what I'm getting is good enough. Still gets faster, lighter and less crashy because all of the work is under the hood, and last month replacing Ad Block Plus with ublock made it faster/lighter too.
It is not that terrible, because a shit lof of "telemetry data" is collected and thus they should know what the printer was, error messages of the print spooler or even some internal state of the service.
Or so I would think.
When Firefox crashes and asks to send the crash report, I never add information, or perhaps once in a thousand time.
pr stunt or not, personally I think it saves them paying people money lol. Either way I love the method, I love looking at a os in development, and I do feelm they are listening and sometimes making changes. Obviously listen if you think its a good idea, listen if a lot of people mention but don't listen when a its a terrible not well supported idea. I am loving it thks Microsoft.
I don't think you know what Debian stable means. Debian stable is the fact that the package version in the repository will not change after a feature freeze. This doesn't mean that the packages in that repository are bug free or less prone to crash. It just means that starting from the feature freeze no new packages or package versions will be added to the repository. This means that third party software (or self built software) can be compiled against Debian X stable. And all Debian X stable around the world will have the same package versions. It is a way to prevent the dependency hell that used to plague Linux distributions in the 90's (and early 2000's).
... pry them from my cold, dead hands ..."
And about systemd, it is the proverbial step back to go forward. Sometimes you are stuck and can't move forward anymore, like with the old dated batch like boot system. Replacing it with a modern system will of course take some time to get accustomed to it the new system, and there will even be a period when not all features are there, not all program that depend on it are adjusted and not all packages are bug free (that is where we are right now I guess, although I've been running systemd for a long time without any problems, it's a lot more efficient to work with once you know it). But it doesn't mean it isn't a needed change that was long overdue. In fact systemd is something that had to be created in the 90's, instead of relying on the then already outdated sysv.
Once systemd is feature complete (including the packages that will rely on it), we will start to see many new features that would be impossible with sysv.
I would advice you to learn to accept systemd. If you are a system administrator, you might hold so tight to the old system, that once the 15 years old systems need replacement, you are holding so tight to the old system that you're thrown along with the systems on the scrapyard, mumbling "
That's what the "bonus" concept gets you. It worked so great at C-Level with CEOs gladly burning down companies to meet their bonus goals, let's spread that insanity all over the company so everyone can participate in blowing up value built over decades to meet some arbitrary bonus goals!
'cause this is how you play the bonus game. You don't work to accomplish anything. You work to meet some arbitrary but measurable bonus goals. Usually you can gauge whether they are doable or not. Now, the goal is of course to only put time behind those that you know you can accomplish. That's usually trivial for goals that span multiple measuring points. Burn through your project's funding if that lets you accomplish your bonus milestone. Once you met it, you simply dump the project. Yes, it's going to be on your bonus list for next quarter/year if you can't dump it altogether, but then try to minimize its impact because you'll have to spend no time, or at least as little time as necessary to not get fired, on it because you won't have any funds left to continue it.
Yes, that leaves the whole project unfinished and the money spent on it is wasted. But I didn't invent the bonus game. I only play it.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Let's see... you're asking people who willingly go out of their way to spend their time beta testing a system for free.
Hmm.
I wouldn't expect too much harsh criticism.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Most advanced? Anyone know what the current Mac OS version is?
Remember: There's always going to be someone with a higher version number than you...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
A person writing "M$" doesn't have a credit too. Because there is no credit for basement lurkers.
All of the feedback is from people who are dumb enough to work as beta testers for a multi-billion dollar company without getting paid for it. I'm continually surprised at how much people are willing to do for Microsoft, either for free or in exchange for "awards" like an MVP designation.
Regarding Slashdot's beta site, I agree on the appalling shittiness of the beta site. However, it was perhaps the people putting http://slashdot.org/?nobeta=1 into their browser that pissed them off just as much as http://soylentnews.org generating traffic.
Regarding Windows 10, I have no comment, as I have tried neither Windows 8 nor Windows 10. We're all xubuntu (2 desktops, 1 laptop) and Synology linux (3 servers) at home, and Windows 7 (2 laptops) at work.
The required changes would make it a completely different application. For example: get rid of that object oriented shit that has no place in a shell environment and only serves to make simple commands 3 full lines in length.
It's too late for feature requests of this magnitude. Your only option is to install cygwin and bash. It works, but it's slow as molasses for some reason.
What I find interesting is that Microsoft's server version of the OS is pretty damn good. With the server, MS knows exactly who their target market is and develops tools that are amazingly good (Visual Studio is much the same). In that OS, the Modern UI elements they blend in with the tools (like Server Monitor or Resource Monitor) actually make sense and give the admin of the machine an good overview of the health of the machine. I don't see their crazy attempts to blend in touchscreen elements with traditional programs to try and force UI paradigms. Furthermore, you can even decide to install the "core" version of the same said OS. That version has no GUI. It's command line only. Granted it's Powershell, but if you've drank the MS kool-aid and learned PS, it's not a terrible way to admin a machine.
In the consumer market, they really don't know for what platform they should develop the OS for. In the past, they have blindly laid down the UI paradigm of Touchscreens and forgot that Windows machines are also used for content creation, not just consumption. In the process, pissing of the majority of their consumer base that don't use touchscreens. It wouldn't be perceived so damn bad if MS made a decent tablet without it costing $2k and without the multiple hardware iterations to get there. I remember watching the reveal of the Surface and thought if they actually come through on hardware, they could actually have something useful that professionals would seek out. But no, they screwed that up too.
I think it's business as normal in MS and this press release is there only to feed the news cycle and for blogs to get all a twitter about. Internally, MS will manage to screw it up yet again by not regarding any of the feedback as worthy to alter their internal course of action.
There is no real penalty for not listening to users and just doing what you want.
This. In my experience of many decades using software program flaws, be them bugs or UI issues are longer lived in open source software than in commercial software. In commercial software either you fix it or your competition will.
In open source software the standard answer is: "the source code is there, fix it yourself!" which is as realistic as telling passengers on a falling plane that they are welcome to try to fix the problem.
This is a signal to noise problem and has to always be accounted for. Every feedback mechanism has to accept crappy inputs and filter them. This is not new or unique. Be happy those people participated at all, the automated feedback from them is still valuable.,
Good-bye
That said, what we see here is the downside to open source.
If that is the downside to open source, how do you explain Windows 8? I'm not saying open source is always best. I'm saying that pig-headed developers exist in closed source as well as open source.
unfortunately the vast majority of people making noise should probably have stayed silent
You just described the entire internet.
.... they get rid of mandatory online accounts linked to my desktop account. Blah, blah, yes, I know, you can bypass that and make a local-only account. However, you can't use the app store then or a number of other features which should not require an online account. Interestingly, none of my Linux machines require an online account for their package systems......
Why should there be? FOSS developers develop what they think is useful to themselves and they voluntarily and freely share it. What possible obligation would they have to listen to non-contributing users? They might like a large user base and voluntarily listen, but it's up to them.
In my experience, hubris is a lot easier if you do have a big paycheck. Much of the design of Windows, for example, is driven by highly paid fancy systems engineers who packed the system full with useless features. Management, marketing, and engineers all like features.
Of course, if you consider Windows less hubristic than Gnome, feel free to use Windows, and pay for the lack of hubris.
Most CEOs' bonuses are primarily in stock, not cash. So they have a strong financial incentive for long-term performance of the company.
So you are saying users should waste their time to send free feedback to Microsoft so that Microsoft can then ship them an OS and charge an arm and a leg for it and continue to have a stranglehold on the desktop, or possibly regain their previous monopoly position? Really?
Seems like I should submit some spurious bug reports myself.
If you want cygwin, you know where to find it.
I noticed 90% of them are not in anyway helpful to the developers - statements like "It deosunt prnit" (with no further information as to what didn't print and on what hardware) or "why are you so dtoopid!" --- "useful information" to that effect.
Well, after Windows 8, it's just payback.
After all, this is the OS gave us:
"Its flat. Flat luks cool."
"Start Button iz lame. Start screen is mor usefl."
"Mrtro is the fut0rz. EVerything is fill screen!!1"
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Its the least they can do, listening to their volunteer unpaid Beta testers, who actually PAY for the "privelege" of Beta testing software.
Did someone test the key logger in Windows 10 for Microsoft or is that some kind of trivial feature they could just slap onto a windows 10 installation?
I'm sure they were expecting the stupid comments, though. They very likely have a filter to get rid of them.
soylentnews.org
Everyone hears advice, who listens to it?
For instance, I don't think people like square corners over round. The border-less buttons are slower for the eye to see. Drop shadows helped us figure out which window was on top. But the marketing people who are designing operating systems don't seem to care.
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
And that was an example of a company being punished. They lost a LOT of money in terms of lost potential at least. And is likely why they are at least making an attempt to listen to their customers this time around (or the appearance thereof anyway). If they hadn't lost market share, they wouldn't have changed their behaviour.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
"It's still not as good as Windows 7...": now that is comment which worries me...
Why? Yes this is a pro linux site and somewhat anti MS too. But if your stuck running some business app or prefer to run Linux in a VM then what's so bad about windows 7?
To me it is the best version since 2000 and is gorgeous and macosx like
http://saveie6.com/
I want to not need cygwin. I want to not have to deal with / vs \, and C: versus /mount. I don't want to have to write small utilities and have to push a cygwin.dll so people can use them (or even know what cygwin is).
Basically I want Windows to be functional out of the box for real work, not just playing games or powerpoint.
What happened to the other pieces of the comments? They've got a big puzzle to solve i guess.
Problem is in Unix everything is a file. In Windows everything is an object.
http://saveie6.com/
Then why do you want bash or csh, which are inherently unix-centric and require the use of forward slashes, and know nothing about windows drive letters?
From your post there I can tell you've never used cygwin. It uses /cgydrive/c for C:, not /mount. Which isn't that hard to deal with. Works well for me, since I'm used to Unix to begin with.
There are a variety of command-line shells available for Windows you can try out. They each seem to somewhat resemble cmd.exe with various enhancements.
"It doesn't print" is a different bug report than "it prints garbage". Sure it'd be nice to know if the printer was turned on, connected, had paper, and so on, but you can't get that from a bug report anyhow, because customers lie in bug reports. All you can trust is your telemetry data anyhow. (I used to support a complex product for a very technologically sophisticated customer base, and even then: if the advice tech support gave didn't work and it got to me, chances were the bug report was full of false data. Over time our telemetry tools got better, which helped a lot.)
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
The original discussion begun when it was noted how the Technical Preview will collect various statistics about how the user uses the system, such as which apps are opened the most. The OS has also some pop-up questions such as "Did you find it easy to use the Start Menu?" which the user can answer and provide additional feedback. Then the speculation expanded and someone noted that Microsoft could put a keylogger there too. They never did. Of course there can be anything, as it is a closed source system. However, if something like that was found, it would be scandalous for the company (imagine all the personal data collected), so it's extremely unlikely.
kernel, not os. apple used freebsd back when it was 4 then muxed it with goodness and bling and all sorts of things everyone takes for granted. never you mind what the kernel is at. never you mind.
when it comes to giving feedback. I get help tickets from our Tier 1 support people, who are supposedly trained, that don't include usernames or what OS/App is causing the problem. Our customers mostly have masters degrees or PhDs, but getting any useful information from them is next to impossible.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
Actually, they have a strong financial incentive to pump the stocks at the exact moment when they are allowed to sell them.
If you're smart, find out when that would be for your CEO, for that's about the time when a round of layoffs is due.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Probably not. MS has not shown me anything that changes my opinion that they consider their users the unfortunate collateral damage of software development.
They each seem to somewhat resemble cmd.exe with various enhancements.
That's because they actually use cmd.exe as the console engine. :)
I don't think Gnome 3 is shit at all, plenty of people, including myself use it happily. Gedit? Its fine.
I don't think Gnome 3 is shit at all, plenty of people, including myself use it happily. Gedit? Its fine.
Then I think you are in the minority. Case example. I set up a set of workstations with Centos 6 and Gnome 2. Several teams of visiting scientists and engineers with Windows and Mac background (none have ever used Linux on the desktop) were immediately productive and even commented on how well the GUI was to use.
I started to "upgrade" to Centos 7 and Gnome 3 and they were lost and confused and starting getting complaints.... Intuitive things like "Why can't I just right click the application and add to the launcher?" or "where the hell is the minimize/maximize button - who in the right mind would remove that?".
Same. I'm paid to write C# for a living, and the newer versions of Windows (after 7) are so horrible that I've bought a Mac, and I use it for most things now. MS is absolutely destroying Windows to try to sell tablets -- while the tablet market is flatlining or in outright collapse. If I wanted a tablet/phone-like OS that runs simplistic apps (which it doesn't even have), then I'd sooner switch to Android.
Windows is dead to me now. Lots of us are really sad over it... I've been using and programming for MS operating systems since 1987 but times have changed. We no longer matter to them. It's all about the store, shitty metro apps and flat-looking garbage. I always thought they were too big to fail but it's too late now... The damage is done.
As much as I dislike what Firefox has become, let's not for a second assume that the vocal minority that actually provides advice to your developers is in any way guaranteed to represent the rest of your user base.
Your community can provide feedback to specific cases. It cannot tell you how to design your product. You want good design, hire people with experience in design. You want the ultimate "design-by-committee", let users have a disproportionate access to your design process and watch them fight and fracture the community as they grab for power.
Relevant clicky "Listen to Your Community, But Don't Let Them Tell You What to Do":
http://blog.codinghorror.com/l...
Have gnu, will travel.
My primary work machine, as a developer, is one of these. I work medium sized contracts and need to travel a lot. I do tons of coding in planes, airports and trains; I need to finish up demos in the taxi. I need a machine that can do coding, office and presentations. It's also nice to be able to watch a movie in the hotel.
I'm not the norm, but there's more and more folks like me out there. Frankly, Windows8 + classic shell handled my work case better than anything else I've encountered (although admittedly lots of the functionality is hidden behind eye candy and hard to discover). I am really, really hoping that Windows 10 finally makes my experience actually work.
That's just it, though: Windows /is/ so functional out of the box, it's just that you're too lazy to put in the effort to learn how to use it best.
You have to listen to your users when your users are your paying customers.
Firefox's users aren't paying customers, FF is funded by Google so the FF devs just do whatever they think is good.
For the Linux distributions that have adopted systemd (and other bone-headed choices) this is because the development is mostly funded by corporations so that is who dictates the direction.
This is a big problem with Free Software in general, there is so much work that needs to be done so naturally it needs funding from somewhere because it just isn't feasible to expect it all to be done by volunteers. So the development model is that corporations pay or develop features they need and that volunteer programmers develop the features they need, but you dont get end users contracting developers to build features they want. So free software ends up being corporation-centric or developer-centric which is why usability is so often a problem.
Fully Free Software is not going to catch on with people until this problem is solved, for now it will just be a little piece in a big proprietary system (Linux on Android phones for example).
Your project gets forked and you lose your users. It's happened many times.
Like when? And what negative effect has that had?
X11 and X.org. For X.org it wasn't bad, but X11 is basically dead.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
The thing you out-of-touch basement dwellers dont realize is that Windows is still the operating system of choice for end users to get stuff done. Linux is the operating system of choice for backend and embedded systems. Mainstream application developers (you know, they ones that develop the applications that everybody in various industries use) support Windows, not Linux. Whether you do CAD, CAM, CAE, architectural, factory or product design, audio and video production, graphic design, etc. the platform of choice is not Linux, it is Windows (and sometimes Mac, particularly in graphic design).
Linux itself is a great OS from a technical perspective but it can't run the applications that most professionals actually need the computers for which makes it a poor OS choice for such people. In terms of security being "hijacked, infected, phished, rooted, etc." Linux is not any more inherently secure in those respects, in fact the problem there is the user (if you installed a random program just because it asked you to that is your fault), if that's what happens to you on Windows then you are the problem and the only thing saving you at present is that nobody is targeting the Linux minority.
It doesn't really look like Microsoft was listening.
Did you provide feedback?
Basically, Microsoft has never given the people (users) an operating system that they want. NEVER!
Yet 90%+ computer users prefer it to Linux. With Linux installers improving, the availability of live CDs/USBs, availability of highspeed internet and expansive hardware support there is really no excuse anymore, Linux can easily be obtained and runs well on just about all modern hardware and is free of charge yet people *still* choose to run Windows instead of Linux. So it's time to stop making excuses for Linux's failures, admit there are problems and fix them!
You can't play the oppressed, underdog sympathy card forever coming up with more bizarre conspiracy theories as to how the corporations are undermining you. Linux on the desktop is not wanted, hell consumers even liked Windows ME and Vista and 8 better than desktop Linux so that should be a wakeup call that you're doing something wrong! You can make more excuses or come up with more conspiracy theories about how downtrodden by Microsoft you are or you can just get your act together and fix the problems.
Make it less like Win8 and more like Win7. Done.
Oh, and while you at it, make it more like 1991 AmigaOS. I want to make icons as big as my fucking desktop.
I think it's in my best interest to participate in the beta, because sure enough I'll have to use it some day. But I felt so badly burned by Windows 8 (I have a copy of "Windows 8 Pro" in my bookcase -- anyone want it?) that I had decided to hang onto Win7 until it done don't work anymore. But there's part of me that realizes that the day will come at some point where I'll have to upgrade to something, thus the somewhat anxious interest in what Win10 would be.
But what the heck. The household got off XP, released in 2001, not that long ago. Going by that metric, I should be good on Win7 until 2020 or so. Microsoft will have had five new releases by then -- maybe they'll get it right.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
What was the fork?
http://lwn.net/Articles/79302/
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
You could either feed a corporation to make the product more alike, or you could help OpenSource/Libre software developers to improve the real community software. This is a way of getting free software testers, not only for hearing what the users think about the product.
Why do you give them your time for free? they are taking a big advantage off of you, not to mention money and control...
But when Firefox doesn't crash it doesn't send that information (obviously). The equivalent of "it won't print" would be "the web page is blank". A rendering error will not trigger the crash reporting system.
However, if a bug report is generated due to a crash in the print spooler then it will be obvious that it didn't print so adding the text "it won't print" provides nothing useful.
A friend of mine at Microsoft says nearly half the comments say it should instead be named Windows 8.2.
"It doesn't print" is a different bug report than "it prints garbage".
That's true. It is also different to "it prints blank pages" and "it emits no pages". "It doesn't print" is vague and unhelpful, because as you said customers lie in bug reports and will therefore say it won't print when it actually prints garbage.
Having been the recipient on many a bug report that was as simple as "it won't print", I know that you almost always have to follow up such general bug reports with questions to narrow down the problem. This is especially the case with printing when the problem may only present with certain documents (something a crash report will not tell you).
That just describes the formation of the X.org foundation and the release of X11, not a fork.
So why have they never done so in the past?
This should be up-modded. Yes, we need a way for users to fund open source developers directly. I would certainly pay a few hours of development time for somebody to implement video playback support in evince. (I am waiting for the feature for years, but instead evince got a new GUI).
Does it really take 1 million pieces of feedback to say 'you suck' ;)
But none of those quotes were ever said by anybody, so the problem is that you are just hearing whatever you want to hear rather than what was actually said.
Bash or csh don't have to know about "drive letters", just like they don't need to know about /vol, or /usr. It is just part of the file path and any file path that the OS understand is fine for bash or csh.
As for" forward" [sic] slashes, c:/xyz is a valid path for windows. Even if it weren't, the completion logic in at least bash is fully pluggable so it would just* need a completion module to support backslashes, besides recompilation, ironing out niggles that would creep in and bug fixing.
Even if bash completion weren't pluggable, Microsoft could edit the source code to support backslash file completion. So even after making multiple wrong assumptions in your argument's favor, your argument is still wrong.
*If bash code turns out to be non-portable, the work will be a bit more.
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
The software was Xfree86 vs Xorg. The quickest way to get up to speed on the politics of that fork is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X... XFree86 was the default X server for 15+ years till it made a nasty license change and all the distributions dropped it like a hot potato for Xorg in 2009.
M$ has always had a way to produce feedback, but it appears those packets were sent via UDP. Their internal problems have spilled out into the public domain. Their software is no longer efficient, limits your control over it, lacks any sort of standard, vision or cohesiveness. I think the company is now working out of desperation due to their lack of focus on what really matters they've lost there way and I don't believe they'll find a path back. This could also have to do with my lack of faith in the organization and constantly having to adjust to a new version. At least in other operating systems the things you have grown accustomed to for managing, using and maintaining a deployment do not get drastically changed and work well vs. we changed this and we changed that with little value added.
So if systemd is so bad why not just fork one of the distros pre-systemd? Sure it's a big job to maintain a distro but apparently there's also a big group of people who don't like systemd too, if that's anything close to the majority then it will easily succeed.
How much of this feedbag is from apple.com or another
competitor?
My CP/M system is still giving me fine service air-gapped
from the universe.
More importantly how is this pile broken down. ... bucket C. ... bucket D.
Some hate any change... bucket A.
Some find broken stuff... bucket B (B as in badly broken bozo)
Some want their personal change
Some found dumb stuff
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
--You might want to look into mobaxterm if you haven't already; it has a subset of cygwin's functionality and it's way more fully featured than Putty. FYI - just a satisfied user
.
== WolfriderV6 == I'm willing to admit that *I just might* be wrong... Are you??