Wow, Microsoft must have an agressive beta program lineup for 2006

[Megatomic]

I am impressed - two beta program invites since last Friday. Vista and MU. This is gonna be a busy year. I'll guess I'll be triple booting for a while. 😛

How many others are getting pinged like this?

 

[Looney]

Not me 🙁

I would really like Vista too.

 

[mamisano]

Received an MU invite today, they also have a new site which looks much cleaner 🙂

 

[spyordie007]

They are really planning on doing serious beta testing of Vista next year. They are bringing a lot of people in to the Tech beta for Beta 2 (as we already knew). I thought there was a public sign-up for this but I'm having a hard time finding a link right now...

In addition they are bringing in a group of novice users and letting them beta test it (and giving the novice users free tech support). I think the idea there is so that they can get an idea what their support issues from users will be like when it is finished. If you're looking to be a novice beta tester PM me and I'll refer them to you.

-Erik

 

[thesix]

According to this review,

Availability

Windows Vista build 5270 is being made available as the December 2005 CTP to Microsoft Technology Adoption Program (TAP) partners, technical beta testers, Microsoft MVPs, and MSDN and TechNet subscribers. The build will not be made generally available to the public. However, a future CTP, or perhaps Beta 2, will be made available to the public for free download, or ordering via DVD.

 

[JetBlack69]

What's MU?

 

[Megatomic]

MU=Microsoft Update, the program that took over for Windows Update. Microsoft can update any/all their products through MU in the future. As of today it only updates Windows and Office for me.

 

[Nothinman]

I've always wondered why they don't just do open betas. It's not like the betas don't get leaked anyway so they don't have a whole lot to lose.

 

[spyordie007]

They're pretty open about the betas once they get to a reasonable level of usability (Beta 1 was not something I would consider usable).

The problem is that if they release a beta that isnt "usable" a lot of people complain about how bad it is (they seem to forget that fixing those issues is the whole point of having a beta).

I've been impressed with the quality of the latest CTP build (5270); if it is any indication as to what's to come for the rest of the beta process than I'd say it's a good sign for Microsoft...

 

[Nothinman]

The problem is that if they release a beta that isnt "usable" a lot of people complain about how bad it is (they seem to forget that fixing those issues is the whole point of having a beta).

People would complain no matter what.

 

[spyordie007]

😀