Should MS give Windows 7 public beta testers more feedback?

26.02.2009
Microsoft developers say they have received more than 500,000 feedback reports so far on Windows 7, and have fixed nearly 2,000 bugs. And while thinks Microsoft should be more open about which bugs are getting fixed, not all of her readers agree.

"Microsoft is getting a lot of feedback about Windows 7," Foley reported in a . "What kind of feedback are testers getting from the team in return? Very little."

Foley was responding to by Windows 7 chief Steven Sinofsky, in which he detailed the volume of feedback from beta testers. Foley argued that "testers spending hours, days and weeks providing [Microsoft] with feedback deserve more information" about whether the bugs they find are getting fixed.

But not all of her readers agree. A commenter calling himself ShadeTree argued that "Public beta testers are given a chance to try Windows 7 for no charge. They are entitled to nothing in return...It is quite unmanageable to provide feedback to a million people and Microsoft never commited [sic] to doing so." Another commenter, gdfg, asked "What's the point giving feedback to beta testers? Downloading the beta does not grant them anything more than the right to test the software and report bugs."

On the other hand, msbetatester thinks Microsoft isn't really interested in fixing bugs. "I spent over 100 hours testing Vista, and submitted about 25 bugs," he said. , only three of those bugs have been fixed so far.