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Microsoft Unhappy With Beta Testers, Demands Answers (computerworld.com)
Freshly Exhumed writes: Microsoft has mandated that the feedback functionality built into Windows Insider Preview beta be switched on -- a change from earlier when testers could block questions from the company about what users thought of specific features. Starting with Build 14271 and newer, the frequency in which Windows 10 will ask for your feedback will be locked to 'Automatically (Recommended)' in the Settings app. This would seem to disrupt what has traditionally been seen as a tacit understanding between corporations and their beta testers/sandboxers in that the latter would volunteer their time, effort, CPU cycles, possible hardware failures/breakage, and more as part of a bargain to receive feedback or to test fly the beta OS with internal software environments in private. Microsoft would now seem to be altering that relationship.
Oh good grief! If you don't want Microsoft to gather information from your beta testing of Microsoft products, don't become a beta tester. I mean, is that what beta testers do, use the product and give feed back as requested? The simple solution if you don't like this policy is to not sign up to beta test Microsoft products if you don't really want to be hassled with feedback, "telemetry", and so forth.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Microsoft would now seem to be altering that relationship.
Pray that they don't alter it any further.
"Freedom in the USA is not the ability to do what you want. It is the ability to stop others from doing what THEY want"
Pray I don't alter it further. No where have I heard that before?
You fucking piece of Customer shit!
Less altering the relationship I think than enforcing it. Too many beta testers were, it sounds like, treating the beta test as a sneak preview or early-access program and taking advantage of the offering without providing the feedback that's their part of the agreement. All Microsoft's doing is taking out the switch that lets them avoid being bugged for the feedback they agreed to give. It'll annoy people who were giving feedback but aren't having problems with those particular areas, but they're heavily outnumbered by the people who weren't giving feedback at all. Yet another case of the greedy breaking things for everybody, I suppose.
possible hardware failures/breakage
Maybe I'm being naive here, but has anybody actually experienced hardware failure through Beta testing?
fuck them.
why they don't listen? was part of the insider program and several of the top issues were never addressed.
Leaving in droves.
Microsoft should be upset with their beta testers. TONS of crap software slips through - Visual Studio 2015 for one. It's a stupid way to "test" software, and an even stupider way to do business. The people to volunteer their time for this stupidity are, in a word, stupid.
By the way: Trump is a tool of satan.
But go fuck yourself?
Seems to me like Microsoft 'Beta' testing is just marketing anyway. How else do you divide and disrupt other vendors products. MS release the 'Beta' and then brag about the numbers.
... even inside production versions? So we can swear at them whenever something doesn't work as expected?
The alpha testers have it worse with the ritual sacrifices, drinking of blood and dancing naked with the spaghetti code.
Not saying that everyone should or shouldn't give feedback per the term they agree with. But imagine certain group of people like journalists/reviewers, and MS know about them using beta products to gain insight/benchmark and writing review. Obviously you don't want MS to start gaming the system knowing which beta copy they are using and tweak the setting that would work well for particular system/task, but not working well in real life. So, yes, there are certain exception that I would rather have MS not knowing everything, even if those people accept the terms.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- If picture worth a thousand words, how many megapixels is it? -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
For those still running windows, and not Chrome OS, Mac, Linux or BSD consider this...an intervention on behalf of the slashdot community. im sure you have some immediate concerns -- reasons perhaps -- that you cannot part with your abuser. ill try my best to assuage your fears.
1. But I use windows for gaming! Steam has more than 200 titles that run just fine in Linux. Popular indie games and mainstream shoot-em-ups alike. they even offer steam machines as a platform if youd rather not fuss with Ubuntu.
2. I need it for office documents. No, it needs you. Libreoffice and a host of other tools let you edit and author office documents easily from any modern operating system.
3. well its what my office uses so... your office and about a million others use windows, but likely still windows 7. Things like email, calendaring, and federated login have existed for decades before Microsoft bundled them into their OS. Most of the services you use online arent contingent on your windows domain. Windows exists in the office out of comfort, standard, and price. corporations license their infrastructure for a fraction of what it would cost you to buy it.
4. $os_name is hard. it doesn do $feature.
its hard because learning new things requires effort. that other OS might not do exactly what windows does, but it still accomplishes the same tasks you need it to do in a different way. Maybe it even does it better. But like a productive relationship, it helps you do important things with respect. and this brings us to our #1 point:
Windows does not respect you or your work. It insults your intelligence and flagrantly ignores your privacy. it sacrifices your productivity and needs for its own. the things it shows you and teaches you arent always things you set out to do or want from the OS, but theyre things the OS wants from you. Buy a new videogame, download a new app, pay for a new upgrade. Your operating system is shallow and narcissistic. perhaps 8 years ago it was meaningful, but times have changed.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Microsoft doesn't listen to feedback so providing it is just a waste of time.
I actually was a Windows Insider and loved it but then I started getting dinged with prompts for feedback every time I opened a new program or used a new feature they added. It isn't that bad, but when you're in the middle of trying to do something it is annoying as hell so I don't answer them. Over time this actually changes my habits and made me stop answering any of them all together. I was giving them feedback. They asked for more and I started giving them none.
I really did offer a lot of feedback on Windows 10 during its testing period, using several methods that were made available for that purpose. As far as I'm aware, none of my feedback was reviewed or commented upon and some of the issues I reported were still problems in the shipping releases of Windows 10.
I'll admit that I was testing Windows 10 more for my own professional needs than for the benefit of Microsoft or the final product, but why should I offer feedback at all if it will fall on deaf ears and be met only with inaction?
-- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
Dude, given your understanding of the issue, I think your employer hired the wrong guy.
They shouldn't be using Beta testers for something as horrible as Windows. Micrisoft should be using Deltas or Epislons instead.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Beta testing Windows 10? They must mean 10.1 or 11. I thought 10 was a released product. If they want to find out what bothers people about windows 10 all they have to do is Bing " hate about windows 10".
Star Trek, there maybe hope.
To be fair just because a bug is a big issue for you doesn't mean that it rated high on the list of bugs/changes to be processed for release. If I have a bug that causes crashes or that a 1,000 people reported I'm going to work on that before something that 25 people report that doesn't cause crashes.
So when is this going to get pushed out for everyone?
by getting it from Astalavista.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Offtopic as hell....but....
Illegal to use? No. Illegal to distribute? Maybe.
I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
Typical post-Gates Microsoft, blame the testers rather than the recipients of the feedback. I have a feeling they're ignoring all the valid feedback as it doesn't fit their narrative and justify what they're paying their developers.
"With Windows 8 we hear your negative feedback but we don't care for it since we know what's better for you and you're going to like it. Or not use it. It's your choice."
As someone who's been beta testing and feedbacking Microsoft products since they had beta tests, I threw in the towel with Windows 8 because they ignored the feedback concerning actual bugs and typographical errors.
Screw you Microsoft, you should have listened when people cared more than you claim to.
Why pay people to do the same things that you can force your customers to do -- like beta testing!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
According to our inhouse system, your average wait time still exceeds expectations, and you can press 2 if you Demand Answers, from a fully automated answering service since our company's call center was completely de-manned, and is operated by cyborgs on hoverboards.
So small companies without a central management will have every employee doing some work for Microsoft. Someone is chumming the water for Lawyers.
Beta Testers: Hey, Microsoft, Windows 10 is OK, but the telemetry is fucking evil.
Microsoft: It's not evil. Otherwise, how is it?
Beta Testers: It's really fucking invasive and evil.
Microsoft: Outside of the telemetry, focus! focus!
Beta Testers: Umm.. your software is evil as shit...
Microsoft: I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further.
Beta Testers: *Gasp!* * Choke!*
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
Someone remind me, what is this "Windows" product people are going on about?
Some distant past memory, not a good one, seems to arise.
Linux ISO and epiphany in 3-2-1 for those still addicted to the KoolAid...
I've found that when you demand review answers, you get flippant responses. Let the reviewers or beta testers respond when they want. If you need more feedback, provide a carrot. But if you try to push people, they will push back.
The Linux Desktop Environment is significantly inferior to the Windows Desktop Environment. For random consumer electronics, Windows is more likely to work. It has easy scanner, webcam, and printer support. X.org still has problems. Microsoft pays lots of programmers, and GUI designers, in Redmond to make all that consumer electronics crap work, with a moderate amount of bugs. Open Source programmers don't care about that stuff, and it shows in Gnome and KDE. I'd prefer a 13 year old Windows XP OS without an internet connection, than the newest Gnome or KDE.
P.S. - I'd rather be arguing over Windows, than Marco Rubio.
Microsoft has the Beta program for reasons to improve what comes next. If one doesn't want to give feedback to MS stay out of the Preview deal. If ya don't like that concept write your own OS or just stay home.
Meanwhile, give the rest of us a break because some of us want things to be improved.
W.P.
"Microsoft would now seem to be altering that relationship."
Pray that I don't alter it any further.
- MicroDarth
Interesting points, and I fully agree with you when it comes to tech people like us.
But if you think that your comments are scalable, then you probably have not dealt with non technical people, who are just trying to get work done(tm)
For instance:
- girlfriend works in some marketing/accounting/business unit and needs to finish some documentation at home during the weekend because of a late request
- grandma wants to see her grandchildren photos, which are embedded in that powerpoint. Background music is important.
- Non-Tech father needs to rework some documents done in the universal tool of all Lords, namely Excel, which office people bastardize via macros and whatever to serve a schizophrenic life of being spreadsheet, text editor, database, time planner, bug tracker, and version control tool all at once.
- Friend want to install password manager, tax program, adobe lightroom/Picasa, iTunes, pick non-web-based program, etc. and doesn't feel like learning anything about wine unless he/she is going to drink it.
So if you truly believe what you wrote, then you are either too young, or you work in a small technical company, or are a freelancer, or are one of those people expecting the world to change and learn to think and behave like us.
My heart is with you. I even use Linux (Xubuntu) as my daily driver at home, and I used to think like you trying to change the world. But as you have said yourself, times have changed and I have learned the reality. And even I need to dual boot to Windows every once in a while.
Agreed 100%, they pretty much ignored everyone during the windows 8 beta test and with windows 10 they ignore you if you don't follow their agenda, that's probably the biggest reason feedback is not being used, why waste the effort?
"With Windows 8 we hear your negative feedback but we don't care for it since we know what's better for you and you're going to like it. Or not use it. It's your choice."
Sounds a lot like Linus when someone proposes a fix he doesn't like...
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
If you're using a beta product, it is your responsibility to send feedback about it. Disabling all those features shouldn't be allowed or else just go with the RTM.
Microsoft is pushing a lot of testing onto early and non business users. What did they expect actually?
Secondly, Microsoft has moved to a rolling release style of development, while also pushing hard on features people aren't all that excited about. What do they expect?
If they really "demand answers", maybe they can fund the internal testing, etc... needed to get them, so their "beta" program may actually then deliver more meaningful feedback.
Blogging because I can...
I think this beta tester thing is overblown on the part of the testers. If you want to be a beta tester, provide feedback. But... MS has been very ugly in how they are using Windows 10 and other software onto users in a most Orwellian manner. I really think it's a hideous mistake to not honor customer settings on privacy and then "undo" these privacy settings with the next update. I saw Windows 10 for what it was long before it hit mainstream, as Windows 8.1 wasn't much better. This is not the OS to use should you care a whit about your privacy. In keeping with this privacy notion, I stopped using Ubuntu when they added the stupid shopping lens. My OS is just that, an OS. I don't want it serving ads, changing my settings once I've configured them, spying on me, phoning home to whomever. I have moved over to the BSD camp and am very happy. Free- and OpenBSD do what I ask them to do. Better than Linux, even, at least for me. My needs are minimal, but specialized, and *BSD fits that bill better than any current OS.
I also deleted my three Outlook.com email accounts once I learned they spy like mad. I have gone to a paid provider (Fastmail) which respects my privacy.
All the personal data you can possibly suck up from my machine, or my diligent and sincere feedback. Why do you think you can take both?
Yes, Windows is a non-free operating system as it always was. What inconveniences its proprietor puts in a user's way is up to the proprietor as it always was. You're right to point out free software options, and thanks for doing that! But Windows, Chrome OS, MacOS, GNU/Linux, and some BSD variant are not equivalent alternatives to each other on the grounds of giving users freedom from proprietary oppression. You might as well add the Amazon Swindle to that list too, for all the freedom to read that device gives its users. The details of the lack of freedom differ but it's precisely the same in so far as revealing who has the upper hand. There are variants of GNU/Linux which allow the user to run, inspect, share, and modify the entire OS and recommend only free software be installed on top of that OS.
Just because the proprietor chooses to put malware like hassles, spying functionality, and other things users hate into this variant of Windows doesn't mean another variant is any better. Windows 7 shouldn't get a pass because Windows 10 is too much of a pain to use or becomes untrustworthy. Apple, Google, and Amazon's software aren't on the user's side because those companies are not Microsoft. For all we know these systems have malware working secretly in ways that aren't so obvious. Perhaps a malware mechanism is not so easily identified by locking out so-called "preferences" (they're not really preferences if the user can't really choose how the program works). It's easy for a proprietor to spy on, rat out, and disrupt the user while giving the user the illusion they're in control via configuration choices. What Microsoft has done here with Windows 10 is a matter of degree not of substance.
This is the power of a proprietor at work. The only thing that differs is how much that power is revealed to the user of the proprietary software.
So whether a nonfree OS does this kind of thing now or later doesn't really matter because in all cases the proprietor had the upper hand before, has the upper hand now, and will keep the upper hand for as long as that software is nonfree. All that changes are the details and the revelation to those who look into some of these details.
Nonfree software does not respect your privacy or your work. It doesn't matter who the proprietor is, what OS they're trying to get you to accept, or whether the preferences give users the flexibility users want. This is why Richard Stallman calls proprietary software users "useds".
Digital Citizen
Unlike most here on slashdot I do actually want to use and learn your products. I really do as an IT professional I need to be up to date and I have the power to recommend your products and give you more money too.
Here is what everyone including myself think and why you are receiving negative feedback.1st off I want to say job well done with Windows 7. It brought me back from Linux as my main desktop as I know have linux stuff in vm's. What we liked was it was rock solid, stable, well tested, and worked and was well tested with the enterprise environment.
Windows 10 is very very flakely and loaded with privacy concerns since you fired all your QA. I tried last week for the 4th time to install Windows 10 on my desktop as a fresh upgrade. Too many bugs. What is unique as all 3 times I received a different bug. DNS issues, graphical artifacts, names cut short like c:\users\ti, drivers for Samsung pro SATA replaced by MS making system unbootable, etc. Corporations and inviduals have privacy concerns too. Make the pro version not track so you can monetize. Many businesses (all of them) process credit cards. How do you know that info is not being sent?? Not everyone is a big enterprise who buys the enterprise edition just for your information.
Hire some QA back and address privacy and give options for paying customers to have no tracking instead of relying on users and I may recommend 10.1 or 10.2 after redstone and all will be forgiven just like after Vista, 7 fixed things.
It is a shame because I started liking your products recently.
http://saveie6.com/
Really is. When MS users sense dos 1.1 are no longer customers you would think they would wonder why.
OS on there system but do they use it.
I bet duel booting happening now than ever even though they mad it lots harder.
If it were easy all market share would be lost little by little.
"I am altering the deal . . . pray that I don't alter it any further" has nothing to do with praying to the Abrahamic Deity.
It has more to do with telling Microsoft that their "sad devotion to that ancient religion has not conjured up" a stable release of Windows 10.
If you don't participate in the beta test the right way Microsoft will "find your lack of faith . . . disturbing" and start choking you over an open port on your PC . . .
Whipslash, reaching out to say that news is too slow here today.
Seems like I've been seeing the same few stories for the better half of the day. And it's my day off and I was hoping to see more of a news flow yet it's slower than usual. :(
that has such OS features in it!
Maybe Deltas or Epsilons lack the cognitive skills to operate anything as counter-intuitive as Windows 10?
....if people don't bother giving feedback, why should they get the early benefit?
It's very true, but we have to make it clear that Linux is just a kernel. The desktop environments in Linux are more of an equivalent with Windows 8/10 in what is being compared here (at least in the eyes of most users).
I want to let you know that this page had an autoplay sound ad. I couldn't definitively ID the ad, but it was definitely this tab.
I know ads in general are controversial on this site, but autoplay sound ads on a text site are obviously unacceptable. Please make sure to get rid of those.
Thanks.
OK, you assholes are doing this on purpose now, right? Nobody could be this stupid in real life.
Drunk, ugly and illiterate is no way to go through life. Just read a book or two, and you might learn enough to write without shaming yourself.
Hi! Maintenance department here. I've deleted your speakers.
Have a nice day!
A Doom demo would be nice.
When did Microsoft actually start paying attention the feedback of real live users? Last I've seen (Windows 10) they are still soliciting the feedback of people that have never even seen a computer before. That or they are using slight deranged Labrador Retrievers for feed back. Guppies swimming in a tank maybe.
I mean judging from the outcome of the product.
"The ferrets, they're every where I tell you!"
We've altered the terms of the beta program to our liking. Pray we don't alter it any further.
Exactly this. Microsoft wants to force testers to give feedback, but who's going to force Microsoft to heed that feedback? Microsoft's mantra has been to ignore all user feedback and only do what their marketing department tells them to do. If marketing doesn't tell them to fix the thousands of bugs as well as untenable design choices in their operating system, then that stuff doesn't get fixed.
For those still running windows, and not Chrome OS, Mac, Linux or BSD consider this...an intervention on behalf of the slashdot community. im sure you have some immediate concerns -- reasons perhaps -- that you cannot part with your abuser. ill try my best to assuage your fears.
The Linux evangelist arrives at your door unbidden like the Seventh-Day Adventists. But shy a tenth of the humility or respect for their hosts.
1. But I use windows for gaming! Steam has more than 200 titles that run just fine in Linux.
and 6,000 games that run just fine under Windows. Steam Reaches 6,000 Games [August 2015]
2 I need it for office documents.
3. well its what my office uses so...
LibreOffice is the stand-alone office suite of the 'nineties, which not much to offer in terms of extensions, templates, and other resources.
MS Office is one component of an office system that scales to an enterprise of any size --- and it remains the gold standard for clerical work. Third party support and integration with other core business applications is excellent.
4. $os_name is hard. it doesn do $feature. its hard because learning new things requires effort. that other OS might not do exactly what windows does, but it still accomplishes the same tasks you need it to do in a different way.
The truth is that damn near everything of interest in FOSS/Linux is ported to Windows or begins as a native Windows app. That has never been true the other way around. The Windows user is task-oriented not OS oriented and that is something the geek never seems to understand. Windows does it all.
Windows does not respect you or your work. It insults your intelligence and flagrantly ignores your privacy. it sacrifices your productivity and needs for its own. the things it shows you and teaches you arent always things you set out to do or want from the OS, but theyre things the OS wants from you.
What I want from an OS is that it be responsive to the needs of a non-technical, non-specialist user. For that to happen, the OS must communicate with its developers in ways that I cannot. I set certain limits, but I don' get the shakes when I hear the word "telemetry."
In 20 years as a home user. I have made perhaps a half-dozen calls to MS technical support. I haven't had he slightest concern about my "productivity" when running Windows 10.
Microsoft is evil.
The feedback to MSFT about a lot of things is very negative, but they don't like negative feedback; We hate that it phones home when we buy it, we hate teh spying and other stuff they add, and they don't listen. What is the point of asking for feedback if they don't care what the answer is? And why should we even give feedback when people at MSFT wont listen to us when we give it?
Maybe before they found it easy to believe that voices like yours, although vocal, were not representative enough of "typical" users and not worth the cost/benefit ratio to fix.
But with ubiquitous telemetry, and mandatory feedback, those sorts of denials will become impossible.
Pray I don't alter it any further.
"I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further."
If a pion (n-) collides with a proton in the woods & noone is there to hear it, does lamdba decay into the source pa
Based on what I see in win10 and assuming that they attempt to address feedback it's almost as if everyone has put huge effort into providing feedback that is the opposite of what any sane person would want and they've swallowed it hook line and sinker.... either that or they're doing what they want to do and user feedback is meaningless.
Learned of it from a /. article back in Jan-Feb 2015, joining was a job in itself -as- I have a Hotmail account which half or more of the sites I frequent have as my e-mail address which is then forwarded to Gmail to POP.
I can't access Hotmail; I've tried just enough to not lose it, nor would MS take it for the Insider program so I created a new account which damn if it didn't match itself to my hot mail account.
Hours later I downloaded Win10, read the ToS and couldn't agree to it, refusing to install Win10 and never logged back into the insiders program. I was to allow total access to my computer and it's peripherals, the LCD Cam was one specifically addressed.
I figure the Win10 archive was removed from my system and I don't delete anything. I haven't come across it since.
Feedback? Run to the back of the house and ask in a low voice "Cortana can you hear me now?", send report.
Ironic/the hell!, I have Win10 on a small laptop now, it request that you sign into Microsoft, using any email address including Hotmail.
Never going back to Microsoft and the Insiders was a precaution due to an error on my part - I tried to set up a POP3 account with my new MS e-mail address so Goggled the POP3 ports for MS, who knew there are separate ports for Outlook, and another two for everybody else! I do now, always figured two ports for all e-mail.
The ports I used hardwired my insiders new email handle into my Emailer Forte Agent's From: entry and I have yet to find out where - it can only be in the Agent directory, as the system has seen many fresh installs since.
One nightmare I could and should of avoided.
First most computers at most businesses are not used to process credit cards. A lot of companies don't process credit cards. Microsoft has said that no personally identifiable information is collected. I believe that credit card numbers would be considered personally identifiable information. If you don't believe that Microsoft is telling the truth about telemetry data why would you trust the enterprise edition?
Even if it not personally identifiable it still is unacceptable. ALL business takes income. Income gets paid by credit card. That is a fact as I do not see cash only businesses.
It is problematic as let's say a hacker knows and targets your company. Mine is being targeted now with fake invoices etc. If the hacker knows the IP addresses then he can just watch traffic going to them and viola! Keystrokes with passwords, credit cards, secrets, etc. Sure not identifiable but still data worth millions
http://saveie6.com/
It makes it sound like Microsoft is Angry with their insiders over something they did or something they didn't do, and demanding an explanation from each one of their beta testers about their lack of feedback, or else....
In reality, it's nothing of the sort.... they have just decided to remove the ability of Beta testers to Opt-Out of annoying nag screens.
Windows 10 is the best windows offering Microsoft has ever come up with, it's truly a fantastic O.S. Windows 10 beta testers should happy that Microsoft asks them so many questions, because it just shows how much microsoft values their beta testers time. I would go as far as saying that Windows 10 beta testers should pay microsoft twice the rrp because they are getting to see all the great new features of 10 *first*, who else get's such a privilege? Cetainly not "linux' beta testers, if they even have them.
With the release of windows 10 more and more people will be flocking to the Windows platform - it's that good.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
"Typical" users don't spend the time to test features and write meaningful feedback.
Really, in some ways this is just like voting: Everyone expects that everyone will vote, and vote well, whilst the reality is that most people don't have the knowledge nor time to investigate polititions enough to do so.
Only on Slashdot can 3/4ths of a story be complete fiction written by troll and get a bunch of nerds (no insult, since I'm the biggest nerd of them all) passionate about X upset about Y. The only real story is that Microsoft removed the ability for insiders to opt out of testing...which was what they said would happen to begin with....long before Windows 10 ever came out.
Sounds a lot like Linus when someone proposes a fix he doesn't like...
Any example where the fix wasn't crap or a bad workaround that would be likely to cause problems down the road?
with windows 10 they ignore you if you don't follow their agenda
Isn't that the same with every other beta program in the world? When you ask a customer, do you like the flavour of the Apple juice you ignore any answer that isn't yes / no, such as "WHY HAVEN'T YOU RELEASED CHOCOLATE YET!!!!"
Unfortunately based on what people are writing the latter is much of the feedback they would have received.
Also this is not related to IT. This is related to human work interaction. We love what is stable and what we know. We stick we the way things were and hate when things change, even if there may be good reason for changing it.
Sounds a lot like Linus when someone proposes a fix he doesn't like...
Really? There was no profanity at all.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
ALL business takes income. Income gets paid by credit card.
That's simply incorrect. Many B2B companies do not accept credit cards. I never did, for example. I only took BACS/CHAPS/FPS/wire transfer, and cheque as one company insisted on paying in. It all depends if you have a few large customers or a lot of small ones.
And come to think of it, quite a lot others farm it out so some payment service like paypal or aliexpress.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
You just don't fucking listen.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
If I'm testing something, I want the choice of sending back targeted, considered feedback - points that *I* feel need making. Anything else risks swamping real issues in a welter of automatically-triggered but more trivial data. Worse, mostly from people who aren't actually using the product with the intent of providing considered feedback.
(This is not just a knee-jerk reaction. I spent the last 20+ years testing software for a well-known international computer name. And right now I'm *not* beta-testing for Microsoft. But if I were, that's how I'd want things: Don't force me to send back reports; let me make my own,. informed decisions on what's actually worthy of reporting.)
Why not some head of Q&A at a company who collates the problems, sees whether they are routable and what impact they have (and their frequency of appearance) for the use of the software and send that collated report to Microsoft?
Seems like MS don't get the benefit of checking their software against the myriad systems out there to anywhere the same degree, unless they install a massive suite of computers with different hardware, software and test it all out.
When Adobe get this software to see what works with the next windows (remember, supporting all these apps is the major reason people use Windows rather than Linux, as far as they all claim),will the next windows come out and Adobe software not work with it and fail? Or will Adobe be doing Microsoft a favour by taking a beta and testing? But you want them to be hacked and report anything that Windows thinks is worth sending without Adobe's say-so and agreement. What do Adobe get to compensate them for that? Remember, all the current windows works with Adobe software, they tested that. So a new version of Windows isn't selling them anything, and incompatible only means that the market for the software on this niche (new) OS is so small it makes Linux look like a vast ocean. And if there's no software running,why would people buy that next OS?
Don't you?
Did you stop using beta software after you threw in the towel? I don't think they could fault you for that. It's the people who continue to run beta software despite not feeding back that this article is centred around.
True, but like OP I tested Windows 10 and gave feedback. No replies or acknowledgments were ever provided. Amongst the many bug and feedback reports I sent were for issues that were absolutely an issue for lots of people because lots of people starting bitching about them once the product actually shipped; stuff like the inconsistent UI, many of the on-going stability issues, and other issues that made it through to release. I'm sure that I reported many things that were specific to me and maybe a handful of others, for which it's fair enough that they should be lost in the morass of minor issues "for later resolution, maybe", but Microsoft has no excuse on the big ticket items. They asked for feedback, got it, and appear to have done nothing with it - people were writing articles about the issues in MSM for $deity's sake - how much more obvious feedback do they want? In that light is it any wonder people might give up and stop providing feedback, especially when it appears that Microsoft is taking it all anyway via telemetry.
Like the intelligence agencies, it seems they might be drowning in too much data, can't find the bits that they need, and figure the solution to the problem is to try and acquire even more data. Good luck with that!
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
... pray I don't alter it further.
Yes. Illegal to use, distribute, or even possess in the United States. Federal Felony under 17 U.S.C. ÂÂ 512, 1201â"1205, 1301â"1332; 28 U.S.C. Â 4001, and 17 U.S.C. ÂÂ 101, 104, 104A, 108, 112, 114, 117, 701 as amended.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
I was an 'insider' using Win10 on a spare partition. Didn't mind the functionality questions when they worked -- but too often I would get nagged for responses to features that were not actually in the build they had shipped me. This made me think the marketing group was originating the questions and just not bothering to tell the developers. I used to write commercial software and keeping the sales folk in the dark was sometimes the only way to preserve one's sanity. Then I started to get nagged about my mail settings being 'out of date' -- but they worked fine. About this time the general feedback application stopped working.. but one could get to the same functions through the browser. Chrome -- not Edge, though. Always thought it was amusing that when MS was pushing a new browser the last sites to work properly with it were the MS support pages. Anyhow, then my settings were incorrect to receive new builds -- and of course all the recommendations to fix didn't work. And on poking around found that this was a wide-spread problem that had been out for a while. Got the impression that there was a growing pool of brokenness out there and no sign that any of this would get fixed. A pity, I really liked the new UI and the changes in modularity did make things go faster. But otherwise it was like dating a neurotic narcissist -- it was all about them. Finally, I just deleted the partition and fixed up my boot files -- replaced my boot drive with an SSD, which seems as fast to start now as 10 did. I might have kept on if there was even a suggestion that the issues and feedback were being listened to -- but it was all down hill. After a while one just gets tired.
"This would seem to disrupt what has traditionally been seen as a tacit understanding between corporations and their beta testers/sandboxers in that the latter would volunteer their time, effort, CPU cycles, possible hardware failures/breakage, and more as part of a bargain to receive feedback or to test fly the beta OS with internal software environments in private. Microsoft would now seem to be altering that relationship." That does not compute; it sounds like it's the BETA TESTERS who have been altering that relationship, and Microsoft is responding.
"With Windows 8 we hear your negative feedback but we don't care for it since we know what's better for you and you're going to like it. "
Judging by Windows 10, they completely listened to the negative feedback and made changes in response.
17 U.S. Code 512 - Limitations on liability relating to material online
This is that whole section that makes it "not the service providers fault" for the DMCA, and provides the ways they can obey copyright laws.
17 U.S. Code 1201 - Circumvention of copyright protection systems
Okay, this does make libdvdcss2 illegal to make or distribute, but not to use. Get it from an outside the USA source, don't distribute it, and you are legally fine.
17 U.S. Code 1205 : Nothing in this chapter . . . weakens the provisions of . . . any Federal or State law that prevents the violation of the privacy of an individual in connection with the individual’s use of the Internet. (cleaned up synonyms of weakens)
Uh, I don't know what the problem with this one is, unless you meant all of Chapter 12.
17 U.S. Code 1301-1332 - this is just how patents work and get protected. If your point is still about libdvdcss2, then the response to 17 U.S. Code 1201-1205 still applies.
28 U.S. Code 4001 - Assumption of contractual obligations related to transfers of rights in motion pictures
I begin to think you are smoking something here. This is mostly concerning the legal ways for film studios to transfer copyright of films between themselves; and allowing partial transfer of copyright either only allowing broadcast rights or transferring rights but withholding broadcast rights. Nothing here is about the legality or illegality of watching DVDs using libdvdcss2 or the crypto systems in Tails.
17 U.S. Code 101 - copyright is detailed and terms are explained.
17 U.S. Code 104 - Berne convention stuff, and how copyright applies in the USA for works created outside the USA.
17 U.S. Code 104A is that damned restored copyright amendment that allowed works that were in public domain to go back under copyright protection.
17 U.S. Code 108 -how a library can make 3 copies of unpublished works to prevent them from disappearing forever, and what copies they can make of published works.
17 U.S. Code 112 makes it legal for a broadcaster to have a temporary copy of something while they are broadcasting it. Otherwise that delay in a live game wouldn't be there, and they couldn't paint those fake first down lines in handegg or highlight players in football.
17 U.S. Code 114 and 117, more of the same as above.
17 U.S. Code 701 - How the Copyright Office, Register of Copyrights, and Library of Congress work and who gets paid what.
That closest you have to "tails is illegal to use, distribute, or even possess in the United States" is that libdvdcss2 is illegal to distribute in the USA. That's why no one does that. Use and possession of it are perfectly legal. Tails is something that the NSA looks down on, and may be illegal one day, but it isn't at the moment. For all that quoting of legal stuff, you missed your intended point by a long ways.
I just do my gaming on console and use Linux for all of the other stuff. Moving from Windows was easy, first, piece by piece I replaced my software with stuff that ran on Linux. Then I switched OS. That was about 15 years ago and I've been very happy with my experience. I tried OS X for a while because I have an apple laptop, but they kept switching stuff around with each OS update so that didn't last very long.
Twinstiq, game news
> Microsoft would now seem to be altering that relationship.
Pray they do not alter it further.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
It's my hardware, my time, I will use it as I fucking please.
I joined the insider ring, I limit network access from the win10 machine.
Anything going out of my machine goes to the firewall for inspection, capture and analysis.
99% of the time, any outgoing data is disabled.
Win10 is 99.99, that covers about 1-2 hours of my time, mostly used by the installation and customization.
Want any more, better compensate me, with money, not useless software/spyware.
I have an Insider build of Windows 10 on a Lumia that I'm not using as a daily driver, and it feels like it'll update overnight, then ask me in the morning how stable this build is. I don't know, I've probably had less than 15 minutes of "on" time on the phone since the last update! Further, 99% of the crashes I see on the phone are because the primary app I use (PocketCasts for podcasting) was released, updated once, and has a variety of significant bugs.
Windows Phone itself? Has been fine, I actually like it, but was a little too locked-down for my use and is of course lacking in apps.
fencepost
just a little off
"I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it further........."
I don't think as a beta tester for win10 myself that it's the issue. The issue is the shady wording with privacy practices and sharing info to approved 3rd parties. That technically could include any info, files, personal data on your pc. If the info gathered was specfically related to the OS and debugging etc I think it would be an easy choice. But considering they tend to use blanket wording and everything being at their discretion to distribute your personal data, Photos, Videos, Browser history. As they see fit; and it doesn't have to be related to beta testing in anyway, to anyone they want at any given time. I'd opt out too. If the eula was a little more implicit on the useage of collected data, and not based on scouts honor/good will that they will 'do the right thing' I'm sure more would of opted into the feedback metrics
While some of Microsoft's moves are irritating, they are probably the only way for them to stay relevant as a major OS market player long term. Pushing users to update to Win 10 is their best hope to retain developers who would otherwise focus on low fragmentation iOS first. Since Windows hardware is fragmented as well, they can't hope to compete with stability of all-in-one vendors without extensive telemetry and feedback. Also, users are no longer accustomed to paying for OS updates, since OSX/iOS/Android/ChromeOS have free updates (and the last two are also free for OEMs). So the only ways to make money is keeping users on Bing/Edge, getting everyone to update to OS version with Windows Store, pushing cloud services like Office 365 and experiments such as lock screen ads.
They could do everything we want them to and become a minor player like Blackberry in 5 years. I guess I don't blame them for trying to stay relevant, especially when we have other choices from vendors who chose a different business model.
If we're going to go "what the role means", then MS are short of some salary for the testers. Basic economics: you want people to do work for you, you pay them.
microsoft doesn't want an uninspired beta group. obviously if they were inspired feedback would be fourth coming. its not so...
I would probably answer their request if they would give me more the 24 hours from download to tell them what I think. It would also be nice if they let us know what they will be interested in asking about so we can test it and give them a better review. i.e. They have seemed particularly interested it what we think about the battery life in the last few builds but if they let me know that is one of the things they are most interested in I can make sure to use it that way so i can give them an honest answer.
I always try to respond but sometimes they want the answers too quick.
But Lord Gates was supposed to bring BALANCE to the developers...
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
telemetry and other privacy invading shit.. NOT WANTED
full disclosure and transparency on data collection and retention.. WANTED
nuff said
auto forced updates.. NOT WANTED
nuff said
advertisements on the lock screen.. NOT WANTED
advertisements on the start menu.. NOT WANTED
advertisements anywhere else in windows.. NOT WANTED
nuff said
microsoft account for 'free' apps.. NOT WANTED
if the 'app' is free. allow the download and install for fuck's sake. if someone actually wants to in-app purchase they can make a fucking account. on the same line, quit trying to force or trick users into creating or linking a microsoft account to their OS.. it's *THEIR COMPUTER* NOT YOURS
cloud focus.. NOT WANTED
let users choose which online services they want to use.. if they want them. quit forcing your shit on us.
forcing win10 'upgrade' on 8/8.1/7 users.. NOT WANTED
nuff said
bit-torrent update mechanism on by default.. NOT WANTED
quit stealing our precious, and often limited by bytes, bandwidth
preservation of personal settings.. WANTED
quit resetting our default settings to YOUR services, apps and applications.
I was just going to comment on the same type of experience, but on the desktop.
I have beta tested a number of Windows OS versions.
I don't recall what version of Windows (7, or 8), but I remember in the Beta I would click on a feature to try it out, and immediately I would get a dialog asking how did I find the design and the functionality of this feature. I would click off the dialog, then try out the feature and I wasn't allowed to bring the dialog back up to comment. I did have a section I could bring up for commenting on the beta, but everything was always grayed out.
I was also the Windows Vista Beta. That they had a dedicated board for us to report bugs, discuss features and make suggestions. There was one section that thousands of Beta testers signed their name on protesting that Vista was being released when it was obviously not ready yet.
Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon what's the difference? All steal money from devs and control with walled gardens.
I agree. They surely use the feedback but no matter how hard you protest they're obviously not gonna remove the "features" most people hate because they're central to their strategy. ...), etc.
Those include the telemetry, publicity on the OS, constant pushing of their services (Cortana, OneDrive, MS accounts
This is really confusing. I thought Windows 10 was already released...?
Here's an intervention for a Linux addict.
1). I respect your choice of an operating system. So why don't you respect mine?
2). Your need to promote Linux isn't my need. You have a devotion to something that does not love you back. Perhaps you should reconsider your priorities in life;
3). Some things are worth paying for. A citizen's money and choices are their own. Why is this not good enough for you?
4). People choose software for reasons beyond your ken. You don't need to get involved in that. Seriously, why do you stalk strangers, like a pervert hanging around children with candy?
5). All those things you assert about Windows? They could just as easily be applied to you. "[Nimbus] does not respect you or your work. [Nimbus] insults your intelligence and flagrantly ignores your privacy. [Nimbus] sacrifices your productivity and needs for its own... [Nimbus] is shallow and narcissistic."
Oh, I get that you are a missionary and you have a missionary's zeal. What if I'm not interested in you or your message though? Will you go away, or will you force the unbelievers to convert?
Holy shit! I didnt know they had beta testers... Windows is and will always be garbage.
Don't make me rant about WinME...
Also lets bring up Linux.
In Russia, Beta Testers Unhappy With Microsoft, Demands Answers
Casteism