Microsoft Swears It’s Thoroughly Testing Windows 10 Updates Internally

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Exterminator

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Microsoft Swears It’s Thoroughly Testing Windows 10 Updates Internally

If you’ve been in the Microsoft ecosystem long enough, you probably know that the firm had and still has, but at a substantially reduced scale, a problem with updates, as many of these releases end up causing more harm than good on a number of PCs.

Living proof if the Windows 10 Anniversary Update (and obviously, Windows 10 cumulative updates) which is still causing issues for some users, including bugs that hide partitions and data stored on it.

Updates tested both internally and externally
There were complaints that Microsoft no longer has its own internal testers because of the reorganization started after the takeover of Nokia’s Devices and Services unit and which had thousands of people being laid off. But according to a statement released to ZDNet, Microsoft denies all of these and says it still has internal testers whose role is to determine issues with updates before they are released.

“Ensuring our customers have a positive experience with our products and services is incredibly important to us and we take the quality and reliability of our software seriously. When we deliver updates to more than 350 million devices, those builds have gone through extensive internal and external testing,” the statement reads.

“The vast majority of our customers have a high-quality, positive experience with our updates and our goal is an issue-free experience for everyone. For those who don't, we want to hear from them so we can fix any issues as quickly as possible. We encourage our customers to contact Customer Support.”

While this is certainly a good thing for feature updates, Microsoft is trying to improve Windows 10 cumulative update testing too and is looking at Windows insiders in this regard.

In the last couple of months, Microsoft shipped some cumulative updates to Windows insiders before the public launch, but this still hasn’t stopped these updates from causing issues on a number of PCs. The same is happening this month with KB3189866, but hopefully, things would improve even more substantially in the coming updates.
 

SecretKeeper

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Dec 25, 2015
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I guess the in-house testers are not doing a splendid job at finding errors... All this malarkey with crashing Start Menu/Shell Host with the inital and TH2 versions of Windows 10, and then all the freezing issues with the AU.

Come on, they could at least use the in-house version on their own secondary PC, and use it as their first for one or two days a week, so they can have a glimpse of any issues.

Better yet, MS should properly look at the feedback hub's "recent" tab, instead of seeing all that's "trending", since majority of the bugs are not upvoted, so they're not seen by default. :confused:
 

_CyberGhosT_

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Aug 2, 2015
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They are dumping this in the Laps of Insiders that most would qualify as "hobbyist's"
Don't get me wrong at least they are willing to jump in and help.
It's sad the shortcuts ole Bill is willing to take now days, this is what happens when there is an
environment lacking suitable competition.
 
H

hjlbx

It takes a different mindset to "get some soft to work" (= internal testing) as opposed to finding "what is wrong with the soft" (= bug hunting; finding what is broken or dysfunctional).

The two are not mutually exclusive, but the skill sets required are different.
 

Paul123

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For those who don't, we want to hear from them so we can fix any issues as quickly as possible. We encourage our customers to contact Customer Support.”

From my experience of Microsoft support all their answers come down to a single generic one; we'll just reinstall windows without saving any of your personal or app settings.... there fixed it. Nope, well then your computer must be incompatibly with Windows... we can't help further, bye.
 
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Paul123

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I'm just waiting on major f*up when all forcefully updated systems just won't boot one day.
You mean like when Windows 7 users went to bed and woke up the next morning to discover their incompatibly machines had tried to install Windows 10 without asking, and failed and didn't work anymore:confused::confused:. I'm sure Microsoft won't do anything like that.
 
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Microsoft Swears It’s Thoroughly Testing Windows 10 Updates Internally

If you’ve been in the Microsoft ecosystem long enough, you probably know that the firm had and still has, but at a substantially reduced scale, a problem with updates, as many of these releases end up causing more harm than good on a number of PCs.

Living proof if the Windows 10 Anniversary Update (and obviously, Windows 10 cumulative updates) which is still causing issues for some users, including bugs that hide partitions and data stored on it.

Updates tested both internally and externally
There were complaints that Microsoft no longer has its own internal testers because of the reorganization started after the takeover of Nokia’s Devices and Services unit and which had thousands of people being laid off. But according to a statement released to ZDNet, Microsoft denies all of these and says it still has internal testers whose role is to determine issues with updates before they are released.

“Ensuring our customers have a positive experience with our products and services is incredibly important to us and we take the quality and reliability of our software seriously. When we deliver updates to more than 350 million devices, those builds have gone through extensive internal and external testing,” the statement reads.

“The vast majority of our customers have a high-quality, positive experience with our updates and our goal is an issue-free experience for everyone. For those who don't, we want to hear from them so we can fix any issues as quickly as possible. We encourage our customers to contact Customer Support.”

While this is certainly a good thing for feature updates, Microsoft is trying to improve Windows 10 cumulative update testing too and is looking at Windows insiders in this regard.

In the last couple of months, Microsoft shipped some cumulative updates to Windows insiders before the public launch, but this still hasn’t stopped these updates from causing issues on a number of PCs. The same is happening this month with KB3189866, but hopefully, things would improve even more substantially in the coming updates.

"Testing" and the ability to find bugs are two different things - or I should say the willingness to go the distance and seek out bugs to the fullest extent possible.

The typical publisher idea of "Testing" is to verify that "it works" - and once that is established to their low-level satisfaction - they stop "testing" and look no further. Then the product is released to the user community where beta testers perform the brunt of bug finding and reporting.

Such rudimentary, "It works" testing will always result in undiscovered\unfixed bugs in "stable" releases.

Bug finding requires very thorough testing and a different concept\mentality of "testing." The vast majority of publishers will not embrace the concept and will cite lack of resources, expense, delays, inability to test on all platforms\systems, etc. In some respects they are correct, but still "It works" testing remains a problem.
 
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jamescv7

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If Microsoft tested those Windows 10 updates internally and externally then a deserve explaination why all sudden caused damages even in clean state computers?
 
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