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Bug Pushes Vista Out to November 8th
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri Oct 27, 2006 12:59 PM
from the keep-the-ant-hill-under-glass dept.
from the keep-the-ant-hill-under-glass dept.
IntelliAdmin writes "Microsoft originally targeted October 25th for Vista's release to manufacturing, but a last-minute bug that 'took most of the Vista team by surprise' has caused an unexpected delay, said Ethan Allen, a quality assurance lead at a Seattle high-tech company that tests its products for Vista. Allen said the Vista team discovered the bug, which 'would totally crash the system, requiring a complete reinstall'. Vista now has a new RTM date of November 8th" A reader wrote in to point out this story originated with Paul Thurrott.
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No wonder (Score:5, Funny)
Re:No wonder (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:No wonder (Score:5, Funny)
How can a guy named Ethan Allen possibly be comfortable knowing his boss has a history of throwing furniture around?
Parent
Oh noes (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Oh noes (Score:5, Funny)
Tom
Parent
Vista Release (Score:5, Funny)
Microsoft: Buy Vista Now!
World: Why should I?
Microsoft: Uh...because it's prettier and has DRM support?
World: No thanks, I'm happy with what I have now.
Microsoft: Please?
World: No.
Microsoft: Ballmer throws a chair in the new screensaver, and we dressed Gates up in a dress for the default background.
World: Really? Sign me up!
Microsoft: Really?
World: No.
(Months pass...)
Microsoft: WTS slightly used global software monopoly.
Google: 5 dollars and Gates in a diaper apologizing to the world.
Microsoft: Sold!
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Some of us found it funny. I found it hilarious.
That you do not find it funny or work for Microsoft and feel insulted does not mean it's a troll.
Reserve your troll and flamebait mods for racist bullshit posts. Spend mod points modding up a really insightful or at least well-written-even-if-wrong post elsewhere. Like the guideline says, focus on modding up, not down, nitwit.
At least they caught it before release (Score:4, Insightful)
That said, this sounds like a fairly major bug to catch this late in the game.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Exactly makes you wonder how many other major bugs are slipping through...
Sounds like they have some pretty major flaws in the test plans for major bugs to be revealed this late in the game.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm a programmer, and I know that I definitely (Firefox, I love your spell checker!) don't use the program the way our users would. If I want to get to a certain point in the program, I typically use the fastest route to get there, not always the most proba
Re:At least they caught it before release (Score:5, Insightful)
Before everyone gets their flame on remember how many times they got verbally hammered for not testing their software first and shipping later.
Though the bug was caught this late in the game it does appear to be, although minimally, that MS is trying to do the right thing for once. Perhaps losing market share has spurred better business practices.
Likely? No. Possible? Yes.
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Re:At least they caught it before release (Score:5, Insightful)
They had a lot of bugs in the past that were incredibly annoying but didn't force you to reinstall. My point is that this doesn't prove that they would have stopped the presses for something not forcing you to reinstall but still critical.
2. The fact that they actually discovered one huge bug in time to fix it before release doesn't mean that there won't be major bugs discovered after release.
With their track record, their arrogance, and the way they have to force the IT industry to leave the OS business to it, they should be held to the highest standards. We shouldn't cut them any slack just because they happened to discover a critical bug just before release for once.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
But Microsoft isn't giving itself enough time to thoroughly test this because they're rushing out Vista by the end of the year. They just found a major system-corrupting bug after they've already pushed out an RC1 and RC2 and weeks away from RTM. That's a little alarming. The criticism in this case stems from the fact that they're not giving Vista enough time to s
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Nothing less would have delayed it. (Score:4, Interesting)
Too bad.. (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Is QA this bad? (Score:2)
I knew MS has poor QA... but a bug that requires a complete reinstall????
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Why are you surprised at this?? Do you know how many other things seem to require a complete re-install?
Every time I hear someone who supposedly knows a lot about Windows tell me to reboot the machine all of the time, or say "dunno, maybe you should re-install", I just want to choke someone. But the first Microsoft patch (reboot) is frequently
Re:Is QA this bad? (Score:5, Insightful)
The number of possible scenarios in something as complex as an OS is *staggering*, you just can't cover every last case with any reasonable amount of time and manpower. So, you design tests to cover sensitive areas and likely trouble spots, you take as large a sampling of other cases as possible, and you accept a certain amount of risk. Sometimes, someone gets lucky and stumbles across a showstopper two days before you release. Better to have found it in-house than to have a customer report it.
Parent
Re:Is QA this bad? (Score:4, Insightful)
The vast majority of the posts on this subject leads me to believe that the vast majority of slashodtters don't have the first clue about the development and testing of a large project.
Oh, and let's not forget that a few months ago an Ubunto update deleted the entire home directory of users. That's as major as this Vista bug, and was readily producible (unlike this Vista bug), yet it slipped through.
Parent
Big Bug (Score:5, Funny)
Suicidal (Score:5, Funny)
Ethan Allen (Score:2)
Reportedly, Bill Gates is resting easy with the knowledge that Ethan Allen [wikipedia.org] and his Green Mountain Boys [wikipedia.org] are on the job.
Missing from the article (Score:4, Funny)
Another member of Ethan Allen's team added "Give me Vista, or give me death". When Microsoft asked on what authority they could make such demands, Allen replied "In the name of the great Jehovah, and the Continental Congress". Off the record, he also retorted "Come out, you son of an XP hack, or I'll smoke you out!"
(in case you don't get it) [wikiquote.org]
vms ... (Score:2)
They needed to Enhance the Feature (Score:2, Funny)
So the ship date was pushed back to allow them to Enhance the Feature.
Nov 8 of which year ? (Score:5, Funny)
Here we go again.. (Score:5, Insightful)
I for one say, let's judge the final product before we smack Microsoft for something that's not yet released to the public.
Re:Here we go again.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, if you've even bothered to test the latest release, you'd notice that it works really well. How much time they've had to work on the operating system is irrelevant. Plus, they admitted it was a mistake to wait this long and also said future releases would occur more frequently. Still, how much time they've had on their hands and how you feel about that has nothing to do with the final product, because the only loser here is Microsoft who don't make as much money as they'd like to if their OS:es were released more frequently.
It doesn't matter that it's uncommon...
Right. You're saying that a bug that occurs once in a million is as serious as one that occurs once in a thousand? That's just nonsense.
they're advertising this OS as the cure to everything that ails us, the most secure, stable, perfect version of Windows ever.
Well, you're right. They do say that it's the most secure and stable version. And it probably is. I don't think they've ever said it's a cure to everything, nor that it is a perfect version of it, however. What's your point here, really?
BTW, this was SUPPOSED to be the final product. But there were flaws in it.
No, the final product is the one that's taped out and printed onto the disks. An open and free test version of Windows is hardly a beta. Why the hell are you so upset about a bug which was discovered PRIOR to the release?
When's the last time you heard of a bug in Linux forcing a reinstall?
I've never heard of one, but I've only installed official releases of Linux. And just because we haven't heard of one doesn't mean there is no such bug. And once again, I must remind you that this bug occurred prior to the release, so it's not really a big deal. After all, we're going to use the final release of Vista, right?
Parent
No Surprises (Score:4, Insightful)
What kind of $MULTIBILLION corporation, whose steady stream of "upgraded" products are essential to global business and billions of personal lives, runs this way?
Microsoft. When monopoly is all you need.
The Solution! (Score:3, Funny)
I say just leave it in and call it a feature.
Great news (Score:4, Funny)
What a fucking whiner! (Score:4, Insightful)
Now, Steve Bink at bink.nu is a great guy and a friend, and I know he had no idea that these guys were just ripping me off. But that's the point of this: If you separate a story enough from its true source, it's becomes kind of unclear what the truth is.
Welcome to my life.
Poor Paul Thurrott! Such a hard life you lead. "I wrote about this first, I wrote about this first! digitimes didn't credit me! IDG credited digitimes, not me! I wrote about this first! bink linked to the IDG story, what about me!"
Paul Thurrott may be an important figure in the coverage of Microsoft Product or something, but I hardly think he's the only person with "sources" who get tipped off when these things happen. Maybe, just maybe, digitimes has sources too, and they found out about the setback from some place other than Paul Thurrott's site(s). Paul needs to get over himself, he's not the sole source of Microsoft news.
That, my friends, is what you get if you rely too (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:That, my friends, is what you get if you rely t (Score:4, Insightful)
Automated tests are better.
Automated tests can be run at night, when no one's around. They can be run constantly, without driving someone insane.
Automated tests are reproducible. Try following someone's 'Uh, I clicked here, then opened this, then I think I cancelled that program, then...' instructions a few times. Then tell me automated tests aren't preferable.
Can't keep up with all the tests to run? Buy a new computer. Your scheme would have a new person hired every time someone's maxed out. (Or, alternately, dumping old tests.)
Automated tests cover regressions. Found a bug? Write a test for it. Then if it pops up again (which they always do), you catch it early.
Automated tests can be run by anyone, if done properly.
Automated tests are predictable. They do, in fact, cover the same code each time. This is an asset, not a liability. You know exactly what you've tested, and what you haven't. You can write _more tests_ to cover the other stuff. You'd rather someone happen to click a little different on the last build, and miss a regression?
Manual testing is required for GUIs to some extent, and to winkle out usability issues.
To suggest MS is dumb because they tried to make their testing rigorous, predictable and regular is utterly absurd.
Parent
Testing for Vista (Score:5, Funny)
Is it just me or does this sound like testing for a disease or something? "Bad news. We got your blood tests back. You have Vista."
PatchGuard hack (Score:4, Informative)
Vista Experience - HA HA (Score:3, Interesting)
My experience -- It sucks.
1. The thing doesn't have support for my SATA controller. Gigabyte board, Ali SATA controller. I had to use the XP drivers. Tell me that Gigabyte/Ali are no name brands that no one's heard of. Not a deal breaker, as there's a work around.
2. Install is extremely slow. My personal idea is that every step along the way, the install is trying to find an IDE hard drive for some reason, but since I don't have one, I'm having to wait for timeouts. I'm not sure if this is the case, though.
3. Once you get in... My Geforce 3 can't handle Aero, so MS helpfully turned it off. The default theme is ugly as snot, with huge window borders (4-5 pixels), baby blue in color. Trying to change this baby blue color yielded no results; it stayed baby blue.
4. Getting used to the explorer shell again (I use Geoshell on my windows boxes) is a pain. What they've done to Explorer makes it less user friendly, instead of more user friendly. Granted, I don't use Explorer very often either (I use Directory Opus on my windows boxes), but even XP's Explorer is better/more usable.
5. The thing that made me finally throw my hands up in frustration. Somewhere in the 6 hours I had it running, I managed to completely lock myself out of Control Panel. Every time I'd try to go in there to get to something, it would crash. Whether I did it off the Start button, whether I did it from Explorer, it didn't matter... Explorer would crash. Another co-worker had this happen on a VM install of Vista, but he got around it by using MMC and manually adding in the plugins of whatever he wanted.
For RC2, this is a sad state. I remember, back in the day, happily running NT4 Beta 2 for months and months. Oh well.
CS 101 (Score:3, Informative)
Glad I just switched to mac, even though it took a CompUSA store closing in Roswell, GA to get me to fork the cash out. Even a 30% discount was painful. Since then I've had two crashes caused by alpha software, but nothing from release quality stuff.
V for Vista (Score:5, Funny)
The OS upgrade season and plot
I know of no reason
Why this Windows version should ever be bought
The Bug (Score:5, Funny)
Who woulda guessed?
Re:Re-install? (Score:4, Insightful)
A crash is one thing, but a re-install to fix it? I have my doubts, but if anyone can pull it off, it's Microsoft!
Not that hard to imagine, really. A filesystem driver bug that blows away critical tables in the filesystem could put you out of commission pretty quick. (I have no idea what the bug is but filesystem corruption is the most likely thing I can think of.)
Parent
Re:Re-install? (Score:4, Interesting)
It might not be as technically damaging as a filesystem bug, but with the DRM tied into everything if it fails the system will be left goosed.
I remember the cryptographic service failing on Windows XP causing problems, but this was fixable because it wasn't at the core of the system.
Parent
Re:November 8?!? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
You're right. They should take a page from the crack developing team at 3dRealms and only release it "when it's done."
That way they will only ship only quality products.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Bug requiring reinstall? (Score:4, Insightful)
Every OS has bugs. But there are bugs, and there are BUGS.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So, what did they do on October 13? Add a huge new feature? Or just fix a bug that was bad enough that they felt they had to fix it before they shipped, and make a mistake in the fixing process? My bet would be on the latter.
I mean, I hate Microsoft as mu