Chris123NT's Blog

Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Paul.

Before I kick off this editorial let me just state that I am no big-time tester and I haven’t even participated in a Windows beta (yet), but I do have some knowledge about such beta programs, I have people who may be considered “big-time” testers that I regularly talk to, and at the moment I’m participating in both the Microsoft Office 2010 Technical Beta and the Office 2010 Technical Preview, which is really the catalyst for me writing this article.

To me, it seems as though the quality of Microsoft beta programs is really starting to decrease with every program they run. In some cases, testers feel as though they’re picking the worst feature suggestions and not implementing the ones that the majority want, and in other cases beta programs seriously lack build drops that would allow the testers to see the progress of their bug reports and iron out any new bugs that may surface from new feature additions and any under the hood code changes.

I don’t know who here remembers, but I participated in the Windows Live Messenger 9 beta last year or so, and an overwhelming amount of suggestions were marked as “Won’t Fix”. It seemed as though the WLM team jumped with joy when a suggestion to make winks even more annoying then they already are came about, but features that would really make WLM better such as tabbed browsing were left in the dark and not implemented.

More recently, with the Windows 7 beta and now the Office 2010 Technical Beta (not the preview, but the beta), people aren’t all too happy about the lack of build drops. Back in the Vista days, testers got CTP builds to play around with whereas this time around Windows 7 testers only got the Beta and RC builds—the same builds that were given out to the public. And now, with the Office 2010 betas, the team seems uptight and closed-minded to the very thought of handing out additional build drops. The build given out is 4006, while the build that leaked recently is build 4302, meaning that there’s a gap of 296 builds!

Now I understand where Microsoft is coming from, as getting builds ready for release to testers is a time-consuming task that will prolong the development time, which is the case with the Windows 7 as we clarified a few months ago, but it’s seriously worth it, especially when more and more changes are made to the software causing more bugs to be present. Perhaps if testers got more builds to examine and squash bugs in, more features could be implemented smoothly as well.

If connect testers in programs for Microsoft’s two most important pieces of software, Office and Windows don’t get any builds the public doesn’t get, then what’s the point in having such an exclusive program to begin with? You guys might as well shut down Connect and just get public feedback if this approach to the betas spread to more and more programs. Microsoft Connect has a great member base with many skilled people in the field, so please utilize them to their full potential and benefit from what they have to offer.

Now don’t get me wrong, I know that Microsoft is inundated with feedback and suggestions from all fronts whenever a product is being developed, and I’m not asking them to view every single submission and personally reply to the person thanking them, but I’m just saying that the Connect betas are deteriorating and they can really be MUCH better—I mean isn’t the point Connect exists is to gather feedback and suggestions mainly from a good number of IT Pros, enthusiasts, and others that are skilled in the field and passionate about Windows and Microsoft software?

Does anyone have anything to add to this, or do you disagree? I’d definitely like to hear from other Connect testers regarding my opinions stated in this article, and I’d seriously like to hear how this new approach to the Connect betas is good. Better yet, I’d like to see comments from program managers, etc. on this.

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As many of you know, I published an article a few years back telling everyone how to make WMP x64 the default in Windows Vista x64.  I had hoped at that time that Microsoft would have the sense to make the x64 player the default one in Windows 7.

Well not only did they fail to see why the 64 bit player should be the default, they also locked the user’s ability to switch the default player.  They locked the registry keys that the old Vista command altered.  Their excuse for this is that it “adds security” so that malicious code cannot modify the WMP play/enqueue commands.  Fine, I can buy that, but then alter the tool so that it can change those keys.  Well apparently this wasn’t on the timetable, and I decided to find a way around this, because after all, who wants to have to install TWO sets of codecs to watch stuff in Media Player (x86 player used by default) and also watch stuff in Media Center (which is x64).

So for those of you who recognize that the 64 bit media player SHOULD be the default in Windows 7, I have made a script with the help of Kristan Kenney that automates the entire process for you.  It unlocks the necessary registry keys, and then uses the old vista command to make the switch.  We have also included a script that allows you to switch back to the 32 bit player if you choose to do so.

So Microsoft, specifically the WMP team, you guys didn’t want to fix it, so we did it for you.  Now users can have some consistency in their 64 bit user experience.

NOTE: After changing the default Media Player to x64, remove the media player shortcut from the taskbar, start media player via the start menu and then re-pin it.  If you don’t do this you will see 2 WMP icons on your taskbar.

If anyone has any other questions or comments, either post in the comments section or contact me privately and I will answer them.

Download: Windows Media Player x64 Switch Script

So remember the issue I talked about two posts down about the Explorer and MSI crashes?  I was playing around tonight and made the issue happen again to test something, and this little guy popped up:

So as you can see, Microsoft have acknowledged the issue and posted the fix.  Looks familiar doesn’t it?

Also one thing I would like to note for everyone.  CEIP is one of Microsoft’s biggest avenues for feedback in betas especially.  You may want to turn it back on.  Although turning it back on may cause the issue to come back periodically, at least the action center will pop up telling you HOW to fix it now.

Before we begin, let me just mention that this is Paul, and not Chris writing. I hope you all enjoy my first guest post!

Looking back on the year 2007, when Windows Vista was released, we all can remember the harsh criticism that it faced. It was slow, buggy, a memory hog, incompatible, and “it wasn’t worth the upgrade as there wasn’t anything new from XP”, quoting many critics. Despite the fact that most of these problems have been rectified now in the post-SP1 era, no amount of marketing or proven facts can convince most people that Vista is any good. Vista’s reputation is badly bruised, and it will take a LOT to heal it. Microsoft needs a fresh start. An operating system under a new name with new features, improved speed/reliability, and most importantly an OS that has drivers ready for it upon launch.

I can say firsthand that Windows Vista was definitely not as bad as people said it was. It ran very smoothly even when I had a Pentium 4, and I never experienced any problems with it except for when I had incompatible drivers installed after an upgrade from XP. A fresh, clean install fixed that. With that said, Vista also has many flaws. The UI is very inconsistent, it lacks many of the features we expected with Longhorn, the Ultimate Extras are a joke, and UAC was pretty intrusive.

Now let me turn the spotlight to Windows 7 Build 6801. Like many, I got my hands on it as it spread all over the internet, and I must say that after a week of use, I’m very impressed with it. I did all of the things that I normally do with my PC, such as gaming, designing, coding, and browsing the internet, and at times I forgot that I was using a pre-beta build. When I installed Windows 7, all of the essential drivers were installed (all that was left out was my HP monitor). I didn’t have to go through the hassle of installing the networking driver and running Windows Update to get updates and drivers, so that saved me 10 minutes of my life.

Seeing that most Vista problems were caused by incompatible drivers, I think this feature will definitely help 7 maintain a good reputation. Once I started using Windows 7, I immediately started to love it. I have a C2Q Q6600 rig, 2GB of OCZ Platinum Rev. 2 RAM and a 9600GT on top of that, yet I STILL noticed a speed increase over Vista. I looked at the task manager and I saw that without anything else open, I only had 43 tasks running in the background.

I haven’t had 1 crash yet. I have encountered some minor bugs, such as choppy window animations on my nVidia card, but that’s about it. Something I also noticed that Microsoft got the memo on was the highly inconsistent UI. Just about every program had a different GUI. Now, they seem to have 2 major GUIs; the Windows Explorer GUI and the Ribbon GUI, which both seem to be taking over most of Microsoft’s applications.

Recently, Rafael managed to make a patch that unlocks the hidden goodies in 7. Among the goodies lies the Superbar, and that one feature really made me fall in love with Windows 7. Before all of you hardcore Mac and Linux fanboys go flaming Microsoft saying that this is a feature copied from other operating systems, let me just remind you that the superbar is basically quick launch, window grouping, and window previews all combined in one. The whole quick launch idea is something that Microsoft has had since the stone age, so its not like they’re copying anyone. Anyways, the superbar just made window management much better for me.

I normally have a lot of windows open at one time, so my taskbar would look like a pigsty. Now, I just pin all of the programs which I most often use on the superbar and it groups them all and makes it fast and easy for me to launch them. My point is that Aero Shake, Aero Peek, Jumplists, and Libraries among other things all bring us closer to the Longhorn vision. Touch also will introduce a whole new way of interacting with your PC.

I’m just blown away with the performance, reliability and features that I have seen in build 6801, and I eagerly await Windows 7 RTM. I can go on and on about how several things in 7 are improved, such as UAC and networking, but I’m sure you got my point. Microsoft is molding and developing Windows 7 to become a much improved version of Vista. Of course, they cannot market it as Vista SE, because Windows 7 is Microsoft’s fresh start.

Windows 7 should have a smooth RTM compared to Vista as it won’t face the same driver issues as Vista had, and it automatically retrieves and installs the essential drivers when installing the operating system. Another criticism that Vista has faced is on the lower-speced PC topic. While Vista indeed ran fine on my Pentium 4 (I must admit that XP did run faster), many other people say otherwise based on their experience. Based off of what we heard at PDC, Sinofsky mentioned that Windows 7 will make a push onto the new and emerging Netbook scene, which means that people who have netbooks or lower-speced machines might have better luck with 7 than they did with Vista.

With all of these aforementioned factors in mind, its very possible for 7 to massively heal Microsoft’s wounds that were left by Vista’s bad launch. From what I see, they seem to be able to make the launch date as they most likely won’t have to go through with what happened during the development of Vista. With Windows 7, Windows Live, and the introduction of Windows Azure, I think that Microsoft’s future looks very bright. Now if only they can improve IE8’s standards…

This is really really beyond stupid.

So apparently someone on the Live team decided that they will use their cute little app and double it as the UAC police.  Live Mesh will NOT install on a Vista machine that has UAC disabled.  I find this completely absurd, If I want to run with UAC off, then let me, don’t start making apps that tell me I have to have it enabled.  I don’t want to be told how to manage my systems or my network.

So with that said it looks like I won’t be using Live Mesh.  Probably not missing much either to be honest as most live products suck .

For those of you who will want to use it but enjoy the freedom of a non-UAC baggering Vista, Rafael should be coming to the rescue soon .