I’ve been a technical beta tester now since just after XP launched. The Vista beta was brilliant, lots and lots of builds given out, most of which were completely unusable for more than a few minutes. Driver issues galore and passing feedback to Microsoft and actually seeing changes being implemented as a result. Those were exciting times.
The Windows 7 beta unfortunately has had none of that.
I’ve been a critic of the Windows 7 beta programme for some considerable time now and, now that the beta has officially closed, I’d like to share with you why I feel so strongly about this.
Now the obvious things are that beta testers were only given two copies of Windows 7, the beta 1 and the release candidate. Microsoft have also come under fire for not having a beta process that was very long and also for, and I’m going to try and avoid sounding pompous on this one, releasing everything technical testers had to the general public at broadly the same times.
This meant that the only two things a technical tester could do that someone who wasn’t on the beta programme could do was a) report bugs and b) suggest feature improvements.
The problem here is that there was no b, not at all, and Microsoft has already come under fire from many testers as a result. The whole process was one major bug hunt. As a technical tester of some years I personally feel used by Microsoft. They have taken advantage of my skill and experience for, essentially, no benefit whatsoever. To me there has been no benefit to being on the beta programme. No input into the development of the product, no copy at the end as a thank you (I don’t want to come across sounding greedy on that one) and no recognition that we are all technical testers at all.
To quantify this, and I have examples coming of how badly Microsoft have run this, let’s look at the Vista beta. There were something in the region of 100,000 testers for Windows Vista (as I am aware). It was a huge beta and the largest that Microsoft had ever undertaken. Yet despite the huge number of people involved everyone was treated like an individual and with respect. Feedback was not only welcomed but acted upon and features were changed almost on a daily basis because of what the technical testers had said. We were valued.
The Windows 7 beta was limited to just 5,000 technical testers, a small fraction of the Vista beta. Why will hopefully become clear as you read on.
This time I personally have submitted a great deal of feedback to Microsoft, broadly split 50/50 between bugs and feature improvements. These have included…
- Hide file names option does not appear for pictures in Libraries
- Why does the taskbar get taller when turning on a toolbar?
- Why does the Word taskbar jumplist display picture files it can’t open?
- Can we have an option to hide Control Panel items we don’t need?
- Why did you remove PC Safeguard?
- The Control Panel is too cluttered (feedback from my Mum that one)
- You can get a completely empty Start Menu after pinning items to the taskbar, why not expand All Programs automatically if this happens?
- UAC dialogs need a “Remember my settings for this program” tick box
- Allow system icons and recycle bin to be pinned to the Taskbar
- It’s not easy to open a second instance of a program for novice users on the new Taskbar
- Why are dialog box backgrounds still Windows 98 battleship grey?
- Taskbar needs a “never combine, hide labels” option
- Users need clarification on what “featured updates” are
- Wi-Fi system tray icon can make your wi-fi look inactive and turned off
And so on. The responses to some, nay many, of these were incredible. For example the “You can get a completely empty Start Menu after pinning items to the taskbar, why not expand All Programs automatically if this happens?” came back from Microsoft as “Not reproducible” and the bulk of the fixes and features improvements that I and other testers submitted were marked either as “Won’t fix” or “By design“.
How exactly the UAC dialogs need a “Remember my settings for this program” tick box and Why are dialog box backgrounds still Windows 98 battleship grey? could come back with the comment won’t fix beggars belief!
When I pressed Microsoft on what won’t fix was supposed to mean they wrote back…
Hello,
A designation of Won’t fix could mean several things, including the possibilities of it being planned for future releases, or that it is covered by a separate feature that is in development. It could also mean that that older hardware is at fault the has no WDDM support, or a similar lack. Won’t Fix never means ‘Just don’t want to’. There is always a set of reason behind it that will be too in depth to be covered by anything short of a white paper or similar report.
However, all Bugs, issues and suggestions are recorded and stored, with an eye for future improvements.
Thank you for testing Microsoft Products
Which is the same feedback testers got for the by design answer. One interesting answer I thought was to my question of why couldn’t the recycle bin be pinned to the taskbar. This is one of the most common questions asked by people about the new taskbar. Microsoft’s response was…
Our current design is to pin programs to the taskbar and start menu, and see the items most used for that program within its Jump List. Individual folders, such as Computer, can be pinned to Windows Explorer’s Jump List for easy access (just drag and drop them onto the taskbar).
The suggestion of pinning recycle bin as its own program on the taskbar is interesting, but it’s out of scope for Windows 7.
But this was very early on in the beta and I couldn’t believe that something could be “out of scope” for Windows 7 at such an early stage.
All of this comes down to a single thing. As many people have discussed in the past Windows 7 was ‘feature locked’ before technical testers even got their hands on it. So everything after that point was Microsoft telling testers “Thanks for all your time and effort, but we’ve already made up our minds about this and no matter how good your suggestion is we’re not listening”. This is just treating testers with contempt, and that isn’t very polite when Microsoft is essentially asking these people for a big favour.
So that’s my rant. It’s been a long time coming and you may agree with me or disagree with me, I don’t care. Microsoft need to make the people they need to help them out feel valued and, frankly, they’ve not done anything of the kind this time around. I will leave you however with one little gem from the technical beta that I believe sums up the attitude from Microsoft.
Thank you for your bug submission. This is by Design.
