About all those 'bugs', Robert...

re: About all those 'bugs', Robert...

Robert McLaws — Sat, 08 Jul 2006 08:27:31 GMT

Wellcome to the blogosphere Paul! Great post, and you bring up some interesting comments as well. You gave a great explanation of what "Won't Fix" really ends up meaning. You guys should consider changing that status type to "Can't Fix" permanently. I've noted a lot of beta testers out there who think that "Won't Fix" is kinda rude. In their minds, they take the time to report a genuine error, and "Won't Fix" comes across as saying "Tough crap, deal with it!" I know that's not what you guys mean.

One other thing I would mention is that, I know you guys have finite resources, but sometimes you guys close bugs with results that testers are not happy with, and barely include any information as to what happened. On MSDN Product Feedback Center, the devs give detailed information on what was found, and how it will be resolved. Too often, your team says "Not Reproducible" without any questions or comment. I've noticed taht lately, a lot of testers are questioning their value on the Newsgroups because of these things, and its something you guys should be worried about.

Regarding increasing quantity, I did actually mention the fact that you guys added a couple million users at Beta 2. Most people would say the uptick is a bad thing, but I made it a point to say that it was a good thing, so that my meaning would not be misconstrued.

Anyways, you guys are doing a great job, and know that if some of us are critical (my jabs at Connect, for example) it's only because we care enough to say that we want things to be better.

A Blog's Life: A Windows Vista Test Manager Addresses Bug Count

Windows Vista Team Blog — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 03:46:59 GMT

You can be forgiven for having missed the fanfare around the kick-off of Windows Test Manager Paul Donnelly's...

re: About all those 'bugs', Robert...

Tom Stack — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 19:50:54 GMT

This is a cool post I would like to see more from this blog along with the blog at blogs.msdn.com/csnow lets hope that there is much more interaction between Connect teams and connect users.

re: About all those 'bugs', Robert...

hklm — Sat, 15 Jul 2006 04:03:23 GMT

Microsoft Discourages Honest Feedback and Severely and Harshley Punishes the Individuals who Provide It

Customer feedback should make for a 'better Windows' but it can have severe consequences for the customer and deprive the cuistomer of vital information. Microsoft doesn't want to hear criticism in certain areas that are crucial to the stability of Windows Vista and it will try to squish the person who conveys the feedback like a bug.

1) The commenter who asked a question you did not answer was very on point--what could possibly be the reason for not listing and making bug fixes in all their categories that Paul Donnelly mentioned including potential bug fixes and fixes that will not ever happen, or will happen post Vista RTM in SP1 and the serveral future service packs of Vista.
This includes the category Paul mentioned "Some are suggestions or design changes and will remain active and be tracked for inclusion in the next version of Windows. Still others that are currently active will wind up with some other resolution after we continue to review them."

Paul said that 75% of the bugs are not fixed, yet 10% are still active. The reason for this wasn't clear on Paul's blog. Why didn't he quantify these categories?

Paul has written:
"We have less than 10% of the total reports received that are still ‘active’. Some of these are actual bugs and will be fixed before we ship Vista...Over 25% of all reports received to date are resolved and can be tied directly to a code change."
Why the secrecy? " While you should not expect us at MS to publish such information publicly..." Help me with the concept of why we could and should not?

Many help on public Microsoft Vista newsgroups and you could save a lot of time by publishing the bug fixes or your comments in real time. There is nothing about them that would be adverse to Microsoft PR or sales-wise, which is often a substantial component of the driving focus in the release of a new Windows OS, and they would serve an educational function.

This honesty and straight up communication in the wake of a Beta that has been downloaded by more than 2 million people publicly and about 25,000 plus in various programs like TAP, TBT,and CTP testing.

Members of the CPP have less incentive to report bugs and are constantly questioning how to do so, given their very limited access to Scenario Voting and real scenarios, and the fact they have no feedback on their bugs whatsoever. The percentage of bugs reported by the public use of the Beta is going to be precipitously less.

The "focus" should absolutely include publishing the content and number of bugs fixed. The context and content is by far the most important aspect of bugs.

Many help or seek help on public Microsoft Vista newsgroups and you could save a lot of time by publishing the bug fixes or your comments in real time. The people who ask questions on the public groups ask many of them because they don't have the detailed access to the information on bug fixes that TAP, TBT, and CTP testers do in real time. It would be quite easy to list and summarize these bug fixes by Paul's team. There is nothing about them that would be adverse to Microsoft PR or sales-wise which is oftenone of the components of the driving focus in the release of a new Windows OS, and they would serve a valuable educational function.

I would note that bug fixes are listed on Connect publicly for many of the 230 plus Betas offered via Connect.
Also almost two months after the public release of Vista Beta 2, there has not been any substantive information on a number of Vista features published on Microsoft's sites including Technet or MSDN, and the so-called Product Guide does not deal with a number of features crucial to Vista's stability and recovery such as Win RE including Startup Repair, and System Restore.

2) The perception that the gravity of bug issues is lessening of late is not correct. There are still significant systemic shortcomings in Vista features. Vista has also regretably dropped a number of key features that would have been part of Vista's trademark potentially such as Win FS and direct support for .pdf and .xms although there will be downloadable versions of this apparently.

3) Finally, there are categories of feedback and constructive criticism that Microsoft will not respond to and if these issues are raised, Microsoft becomes very defensive, vindictive, and does whatever it can to bury and mask them and this is on Paul Donnelly's watch.

HKLM

Windows Vista Bug Analysis, Part 2: The Aftermath

Robert McLaws: FunWithCoding.NET - Windows Vista Edition — Wed, 19 Jul 2006 01:31:01 GMT

Read Part One: Initial Analysis
So it’s been about two week since I got a wild hair up my butt and decided...

Windows Vista Bug Analysis, Part 2: The Aftermath

Robert McLaws: FunWithCoding.NET - Windows Vista Edition — Wed, 19 Jul 2006 01:31:49 GMT

Read Part One: Initial Analysis
So it’s been about two week since I got a wild hair up my butt and decided...

Vistalogy

Vistalogy — Sat, 06 Jan 2007 03:45:33 GMT

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A Bug s Life About all those bugs Robert | Hair Growth Products

A Bug s Life About all those bugs Robert | Hair Growth Products — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 05:45:10 GMT

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