D
Dissapointed
I have it seems tried in vain to submit a new spyware
report and fault report to MS, this failed with network
errors (for no obvious reasons).
Fully understanding that this is a beta product (and not
expecting ANY KIND of support) I sent a lengthy, detailed
and what I consider to be a helpful e-mail to Microsoft,
although I really had to fumble around the web to find an
e-mail address that looked like it might actually get to
someone.
I then get a robotic reply, from some automaton.
The e-mail said something like: "You have requested
support on a beta product, please note that Microsoft do
not..." etc.
This is what will be your downfall, when people really
begin to feel that you simply dont care, you dont provide
the means to interact with people, who can read and
intelligently understand the issue.
I was NOT seeking support, I actually did two things in
my e-mail:
1. Reported a weakness/bug in the network/comms features
that prevent me submitting a new spyware report.
2. Included a detailed XML scan file created by
AntiSypare and no doubt of great potential use to MS.
I did not expect a fix, support etc, and to assume this
is a major mistake, I am a very experienced software
designer/developer myself and fully understand the whole
beta - no support issue.
If this was my company or product, I would be FOCUSED
upon making it superb, the best, the leader in its class
and this would HINGE upon dealing with user feedbakc, no
matter how irksome it might be with many dumb users
flooding me.
Microsoft are becoming a faceless, big-brother entity,
the approach to dealing with customers and beta testers
is self defeating in the sense that the very methods you
use are actually limiting your ability to reach the goals.
I suspect that the real decision makers and the people
that make things happen are too "insulated" from the real
world by layers or formlity etc, that are filtering out
very useful and valuable feedback.
I have now downloaded AdAware and found it to be far
better, streets ahead in several ways.
In a similar manner the bug reporting feature provided by
MS (for example the one used to report bugs etc in VS
2005) is incredibly poor, possibly the worst I have ever
used with the exception of command line CVS tools.
It asks pointless questions, fails to ask vital ones and
forces the user to type text into 2 inch square edit
boxes, staggeringly amateurish.
How on earth to MS expect to produce superb quality tools
when your processes actually make it so difficult to
intercat with you, that many people somply are not
bothering you, thus depriving you of potentially very
valuable data.
Regards
Hugh
report and fault report to MS, this failed with network
errors (for no obvious reasons).
Fully understanding that this is a beta product (and not
expecting ANY KIND of support) I sent a lengthy, detailed
and what I consider to be a helpful e-mail to Microsoft,
although I really had to fumble around the web to find an
e-mail address that looked like it might actually get to
someone.
I then get a robotic reply, from some automaton.
The e-mail said something like: "You have requested
support on a beta product, please note that Microsoft do
not..." etc.
This is what will be your downfall, when people really
begin to feel that you simply dont care, you dont provide
the means to interact with people, who can read and
intelligently understand the issue.
I was NOT seeking support, I actually did two things in
my e-mail:
1. Reported a weakness/bug in the network/comms features
that prevent me submitting a new spyware report.
2. Included a detailed XML scan file created by
AntiSypare and no doubt of great potential use to MS.
I did not expect a fix, support etc, and to assume this
is a major mistake, I am a very experienced software
designer/developer myself and fully understand the whole
beta - no support issue.
If this was my company or product, I would be FOCUSED
upon making it superb, the best, the leader in its class
and this would HINGE upon dealing with user feedbakc, no
matter how irksome it might be with many dumb users
flooding me.
Microsoft are becoming a faceless, big-brother entity,
the approach to dealing with customers and beta testers
is self defeating in the sense that the very methods you
use are actually limiting your ability to reach the goals.
I suspect that the real decision makers and the people
that make things happen are too "insulated" from the real
world by layers or formlity etc, that are filtering out
very useful and valuable feedback.
I have now downloaded AdAware and found it to be far
better, streets ahead in several ways.
In a similar manner the bug reporting feature provided by
MS (for example the one used to report bugs etc in VS
2005) is incredibly poor, possibly the worst I have ever
used with the exception of command line CVS tools.
It asks pointless questions, fails to ask vital ones and
forces the user to type text into 2 inch square edit
boxes, staggeringly amateurish.
How on earth to MS expect to produce superb quality tools
when your processes actually make it so difficult to
intercat with you, that many people somply are not
bothering you, thus depriving you of potentially very
valuable data.
Regards
Hugh