windows 7 beta testing

[nathang1392]

i was just reading about the windows 7 beta and i was just wondering what the point of testing it is for? i mean arent you just doing Microsoft a favor by finding bugs? dont they have people they pay for that? i just dont think it is fair that they release it for people to help them get all the kinks out but when its released you get nothing in return. just wondering what the point of it all is?

[nw2001]

Free OS for as long as its in beta/rc is pretty cool.

Noting though that if you signed up for the right stuff(Feedback program I believe its called) they often give you rewards for beta testing it, Vista I believe they gave copies of Vista Ultimate

[nathang1392]

oh, well that seems a little more fair.

[PurposeOfReason]

So you're saying we shouldn't do favors for companies to make everything better? If Microsoft gets better, then linux has to work to get better and vise versa.

Not nice to let you get the bugs out? Ha. Why do you think Ubuntu puts out it's alpha/beta versions.

[nathang1392]

it is a different ball game with ubuntu though; they offer their software for free.

[hanzomon4]

it is a different ball game with ubuntu though; they offer their software for free.

What?!?! It's not about cost, it's about putting a good and well vetted product in the hands of customers. And besides the Ubuntu creators do not even create the whole OS, if anything they're glorified gatherers.

[Giant Speck]

If I'm going to pay for something, I would much rather pay for it knowing that people just like me were able to try it out and report bugs to be fixed before the final release came out.

[billgoldberg]

If I'm going to pay for something, I would much rather pay for it knowing that people just like me were able to try it out and report bugs to be fixed before the final release came out.

Exactly.

[Skripka]

it is a different ball game with ubuntu though; they offer their software for free.

The only way to test software for compatability is to test it on AS MANY hardware configs as possible--given the possible number of hardware configurations is insanely high today, you cannot hope to test even most of them inside the confies of Redmond Wa....you can hope to test many of them with public Beta/RC testing.

[jespdj]

i was just reading about the windows 7 beta and i was just wondering what the point of testing it is for? i mean arent you just doing Microsoft a favor by finding bugs? dont they have people they pay for that? i just dont think it is fair that they release it for people to help them get all the kinks out but when its released you get nothing in return. just wondering what the point of it all is?
Ofcourse you're doing Microsoft a favour by finding bugs for them for free. And besides that, Microsoft gets free publicity for Windows 7 and it will make more people interested in getting Windows 7. They want to get as many people accustomed to Windows 7 as early as possible, so that when it comes out, it's easier to accept for people.

When Windows 7 is finally released, people probably don't even have to reinstall, just install updates and pay Microsoft for the license.

There's nothing mysterious in what Microsoft's goals are - they want to get Windows 7 accepted as quickly as possible and sell as many copies as possible of it.