Testing on primary devices

[michail71]

With all the chastising people for testing the TPs on their primary device I think this a great thing for people to do. Microsoft does it internally as well.

If people only did this on secondary systems we'd never get the same level of testing and feedback. One thing I know from personal experience as a developer is your end users will never fully test until forced to actually use the system.

It would be nice if MS issued a final product code to testers that provided feedback.

 

[stephen_az]

I am sorry but your logic is fatally flawed and, yes, I have been doing beta testing for a long time. Microsoft does not test on primary devices - as you noted yourself, they test on internal ones. There is a huge difference. All Microsoft internal testing is also done with the safety net of Microsoft (the company) immediately below. Testing TPs that are not even genuine beta level products on primary devices is a mind bogglingly bad idea without exception. Anyone who does so does it at the their own risk. Quite frankly, they also deserve any grief they may get for failing to listen to all the disclaimers and warnings. Testing on a primary device makes about as much sense as volunteering for a test vaccine that hasn't even been through non-human trials for safety (let alone anything else). As for providing final product code to testers, they are already providing the OSs free as upgrades. Unless one is planning to load it on an old Vista or XP machine it will already be available. With respect to literally providing the Windows code, that hasn't happened ever and they will not start now....

 

[michail71]

All I'm saying is I'm thankful people are willing to put time in testing the software as a primary system and provide feedback. There are just things that come up in real world use that QA testers miss.

 

[Don Geronimo]

In my opinion Microsoft has made it very clear what the technical previews are, and what the consequences are for using the previews on daily drivers. They even suggest not testing out on primary devices.

However, I agree that there's no way to get any organic results and feedback than testing something as a daily driver. The interactions that work or don't work in the everyday during everyday use is valuable feedback to improvement before the final product it's released.

I know the risks of using the previews on my main machines, but I haven't run into anything that has caused anything to brick (yet, G_d willing), and I'm still able to function effectively despite each build's changing nature. Plus I'm able to provide feedback and suggestions that are real to my use case.