Everybody in Windows eats some dogfood. The role a Windowian plays in delivering software significantly affects how much they eat. On average, a tester eats more dogfood than their dev or PM counterpart. Also, there’s something about being a VP at Microsoft that makes you dogfood relentlessly. Brian Valentine appears to dogfood starting with the first available build. And Brian’s not shy about telling you that your dogfood tastes like, well, dogfood.

But when we say we’re ‘dogfooding’ we usually mean we’re going about the tasks necessary to get our jobs done. This means that there’s plenty of dogfooding on IE, Outlook, Notepad, the Computer Management Snapin, etc. In comparison there’s hardly any dogfooding done on applications less useful to software development folks.

I know it comes as a shock, but there’s very little dogfooding on Solitaire and Minesweeper. Like the little shops between Macy’s and the food court, these apps get passed over by the majority of people rushing about Vista to get their immediate task completed. I’m speaking of boutique applications like Narrator or Purble Place.

Or DVD Maker.

As the test lead for DVD Maker I do what I can to get more Windowites dogfooding this app. I’ve gone as far as trading a DVD Burner for a couple pages of feedback, (offer ended yesterday, sorry). I nurture the feedback I get, but ultimately it’s just never enough.

That’s why when some random dev comes along and starts flooding you with email about how your app can be better it’s a startling breath of fresh air. That happened last week when Shawn from the globalization team engaged in a great thread with us on his experience with DVD Maker. He even volunteered to dogfood some private bits on his home box; just way above the call of duty.

The core of Vista has been pretty well locked for a couple months. I’ve had a stable, solid experience dogfooding it. But it’s because of people like Shawn that Vista is changing from being “a solid platform” to “a sweet platform I want to move to”.