8 ms·

For all the improvements to Windows that have come from Microsoft thanks Nadella & co., it is still rather shocking to realize Windows has no public bug tracker

For all the improvements to Windows that have come from Microsoft thanks Nadella & co., it is still rather shocking to realize Windows has no public bug tracker, and no real way to report these issues besides screaming loudly and hoping someone in Redmond hears you. It's even worse customer service than Google, which is quite an achievement.

EliRivers 8y ago
Interesting to hear you say that; a couple of days ago someone reposted the link to ITBWTCL ( http://cristal.inria.fr/~weis/info/commandline.html http://cristal.inria.fr/~weis/info/commandline.html ) in which Stephenson, twenty years ago, discusses at length the differences in attitude and culture that mean Windows has no public bug tracker and no way to submit bugs.
- binarycrusader 8y ago
  The Feedback Hub app in Windows 10 is how someone can publicly submit and comment on public issues and suggestions relating to Windows (and various other Microsoft-related/provided components).
  - ColinWielga 8y ago
    This issue is on feedback hub for anyone who wants to upvote it: https://aka.ms/Yxum93 https://aka.ms/Yxum93
    - alexkavon 8y ago
      Just to highlight supporting bugs from a non-Windows platform... https://s31.postimg.cc/e37910orf/IMG_2425.png https://s31.postimg.cc/e37910orf/IMG_2425.png
      - opencl 8y ago
        Not only do you have to be on Windows 10 (Anniversary Update or newer), you have to be signed into a Microsoft account in the Feedback Hub to even view anything.
        alexkavon 8y ago
        Even worse... https://s31.postimg.cc/7jmudkjob/feedback.png https://s31.postimg.cc/7jmudkjob/feedback.png
    - egeozcan 8y ago
      It told me that my account doesn't have access to this feedback.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
onion2k 8y ago
Some teams at Microsoft have public bug tracking. Edge lets users submit issues from Twitter... https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2016/08/11/edgebug-twitter/#KSYpvDDzyFMwXVvB.97 https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2016/08/11/edgebug-twitt...
- nasredin 8y ago
  If you bug is longer than 140 (or 280 characters) it is a feature!
antoncohen 8y ago
I don't think that is true. I haven't used Windows in years, but in the past I have talked to Microsoft support on the phone, as an individual without a support contract. To check that it is still possible, I went through the IT professional and developer support flow [1] and ended up with a button that said "Contact Microsoft. Have a technical support representative contact you. Start request". So it is at least possible to contact them, though maybe it isn't on the phone anymore. If you are a paying enterprise customer of Microsoft you can get very good support. I briefly worked for a company that ran their compute infrastructure on Windows (~2000 physical servers), in the month I worked there they had multiple tickets open with Microsoft. If I remember correctly, one was for excess memory usage and Microsoft dug through a memory dump to find the problem. I hear Google has improved for paying enterprise customers, under Diane Greene's leadership, but they certainly burned some bridges in the past with poor support. Public bug trackers are super helpful for professionals, but the lack of one isn't necessarily an indication of poor customer service. [1] https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/assistedsupportproducts https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/assistedsupportproducts
- larkeith 8y ago
  The last time I tried to use Microsoft's support, the only way I was able to contact them was via a webchat, which at first dumped me into a long and infuriating "dialogue" with their support AI - it was the chatroom equivalent of an IVR, and just as useless. At least, after I managed to get past the faux-IVR, the support staff was competent enough.
ThoAppelsin 8y ago
Rather unconventional, but Windows 10 on desktop and mobile do have a Feedback Hub [1] where Windows 10 users are able to provide all sorts of feedback, either as a suggestion or a problem. All the feedbacks are public and users can freely vote them up to draw more attention on them. The more vote they have, the more likely they receive a response from the developers and also get the priority in the queue of issues to be resolved. I use it every so often when I notice something peculiar. None of my feedbacks actually became so popular. Even then I know one of them has been fixed. The fix probably didn't come because I have pointed it out, but I was happy about it regardless. I couldn't find a web-link to the Hub, so I think it is not entirely public, but surely available to the Windows 10 users. [1] https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4021566/windows-10-send-feedback-to-microsoft-with-feedback-hub-app https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4021566/windows-10-...
- oldmanhorton 8y ago
  As a Microsoft employee, I can say that that feedback is taken pretty seriously in most teams, especially if the description is good or if the problem recorder/screenshot tool is used. It's not all based on up votes.
  - metalliqaz 8y ago
    Well then I'll report something about how my PC refuses to stay asleep after I tell it to sleep.
    - MLR 8y ago
      This happens to mine if I have an update pending, worth checking if it's an intermittent issue.
      - metalliqaz 8y ago
        I've dug into it several times. First it was network adapter, which for some reason had a default setting to wake on any received packet (lol, wut?). Then it was waking because there was some setting deep in the system about waking up for scheduled operations. (not scheduled tasks, but timers within individual processes... why???) Now it started again but this time the power management tools report no reason for the wake.
vbezhenar 8y ago
It's the same for many companies. I'm experiencing (what I believe) Nvidia bug. There's some strange page, I submitted that bug and I know nothing of it, absolutely zero further communication, I'm not even sure that this page works.
mgkimsal 8y ago
On the other end of that spectrum, it seems MS have had large teams of QA people doing proactive outreach for security problems. My family members have been contacted 6 times in the past 2 years, each time to let them know that MS had detected a security problem and they needed to help us install a patch immediately.
- digi_owl 8y ago
  Not sure if joking, as that sounds like a scam call...
  - dboreham 8y ago
    Probably forgot the <sarcasm> tag.
- michaelmrose 8y ago
  How would you distinguish between MS personnel and scammers calling your house to have you install malware?
  - egeozcan 8y ago
    That was sarcasm, if I'm not mistaken. Nobody from Microsoft would call you for patching security problems.
digi_owl 8y ago
Reminds me that for some time now the SD reader on a certain model of Intel Atom package has a bad driver. A driver supplied by Microsoft via automatic updates, that can't be rolled back. This seems to affect a number of models from a number of OEMs that use the same "template".
setquk 8y ago
Microsoft's customer service is non-existent even for paying customers and quality is declining. The development tools are getting less reliable each release. On large projects we're seeing tens of Visual Studio crashes a day. On top of that the ecosystem is a wasteland of abandoned projects and rapid semi-schizophrenic direction changes. It's difficult building a product on a moving target. In once case we got Scott Hanselman's attention via HN on an issue but the outcome was clearly that a major part of SCVMM's support for Linux was a hack job and mostly abandoned and their own assigned team member didn't understand the problem domain properly. Chuck it on github for open source lip service then ignore it. Add telemetry on by default. Make it a paid service. Anything to hurt the customer's trust. And I'm going to keep complaining loudly about this until it changes.
ken 8y ago
Why is this shocking? I can't think of any proprietary software, offhand, that has a public bug tracker.
nasredin 8y ago
Wait, Google has customer service? The googleproductforum.com (whatever it's called) which is usually the #1 result in Google is absolutely worthless. I am not joking. It is infuriatingly worthless.
- bubblethink 8y ago
  Yes, that forum is utterly useless. The trick with google is to use only open source google products. If you find a bug in chromium, AOSP, or any of their other open projects, you can report them on their respective trackers.
bubblethink 8y ago
Is it a brand/PR thing that having a bug tracker means admitting that there are bugs ? Microsoft tends to use github issues as a tracker for some projects even though they don't put code on github (WSL for example). So why not do it for windows ?

EliRivers 8y ago

Interesting to hear you say that; a couple of days ago someone reposted the link to ITBWTCL ( http://cristal.inria.fr/~weis/info/commandline.html http://cristal.inria.fr/~weis/info/commandline.html ) in which Stephenson, twenty years ago, discusses at length the differences in attitude and culture that mean Windows has no public bug tracker and no way to submit bugs.

binarycrusader 8y ago
The Feedback Hub app in Windows 10 is how someone can publicly submit and comment on public issues and suggestions relating to Windows (and various other Microsoft-related/provided components).
- ColinWielga 8y ago
  This issue is on feedback hub for anyone who wants to upvote it: https://aka.ms/Yxum93 https://aka.ms/Yxum93
  - alexkavon 8y ago
    Just to highlight supporting bugs from a non-Windows platform... https://s31.postimg.cc/e37910orf/IMG_2425.png https://s31.postimg.cc/e37910orf/IMG_2425.png
    - opencl 8y ago
      Not only do you have to be on Windows 10 (Anniversary Update or newer), you have to be signed into a Microsoft account in the Feedback Hub to even view anything.
      - alexkavon 8y ago
        Even worse... https://s31.postimg.cc/7jmudkjob/feedback.png https://s31.postimg.cc/7jmudkjob/feedback.png
  - egeozcan 8y ago
    It told me that my account doesn't have access to this feedback.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

onion2k 8y ago

Some teams at Microsoft have public bug tracking. Edge lets users submit issues from Twitter... https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2016/08/11/edgebug-twitter/#KSYpvDDzyFMwXVvB.97 https://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2016/08/11/edgebug-twitt...

nasredin 8y ago
If you bug is longer than 140 (or 280 characters) it is a feature!

antoncohen 8y ago

I don't think that is true. I haven't used Windows in years, but in the past I have talked to Microsoft support on the phone, as an individual without a support contract. To check that it is still possible, I went through the IT professional and developer support flow [1] and ended up with a button that said "Contact Microsoft. Have a technical support representative contact you. Start request". So it is at least possible to contact them, though maybe it isn't on the phone anymore. If you are a paying enterprise customer of Microsoft you can get very good support. I briefly worked for a company that ran their compute infrastructure on Windows (~2000 physical servers), in the month I worked there they had multiple tickets open with Microsoft. If I remember correctly, one was for excess memory usage and Microsoft dug through a memory dump to find the problem. I hear Google has improved for paying enterprise customers, under Diane Greene's leadership, but they certainly burned some bridges in the past with poor support. Public bug trackers are super helpful for professionals, but the lack of one isn't necessarily an indication of poor customer service. [1] https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/assistedsupportproducts https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/assistedsupportproducts

larkeith 8y ago
The last time I tried to use Microsoft's support, the only way I was able to contact them was via a webchat, which at first dumped me into a long and infuriating "dialogue" with their support AI - it was the chatroom equivalent of an IVR, and just as useless. At least, after I managed to get past the faux-IVR, the support staff was competent enough.

ThoAppelsin 8y ago

Rather unconventional, but Windows 10 on desktop and mobile do have a Feedback Hub [1] where Windows 10 users are able to provide all sorts of feedback, either as a suggestion or a problem. All the feedbacks are public and users can freely vote them up to draw more attention on them. The more vote they have, the more likely they receive a response from the developers and also get the priority in the queue of issues to be resolved. I use it every so often when I notice something peculiar. None of my feedbacks actually became so popular. Even then I know one of them has been fixed. The fix probably didn't come because I have pointed it out, but I was happy about it regardless. I couldn't find a web-link to the Hub, so I think it is not entirely public, but surely available to the Windows 10 users. [1] https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4021566/windows-10-send-feedback-to-microsoft-with-feedback-hub-app https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4021566/windows-10-...

oldmanhorton 8y ago
As a Microsoft employee, I can say that that feedback is taken pretty seriously in most teams, especially if the description is good or if the problem recorder/screenshot tool is used. It's not all based on up votes.
- metalliqaz 8y ago
  Well then I'll report something about how my PC refuses to stay asleep after I tell it to sleep.
  - MLR 8y ago
    This happens to mine if I have an update pending, worth checking if it's an intermittent issue.
    - metalliqaz 8y ago
      I've dug into it several times. First it was network adapter, which for some reason had a default setting to wake on any received packet (lol, wut?). Then it was waking because there was some setting deep in the system about waking up for scheduled operations. (not scheduled tasks, but timers within individual processes... why???) Now it started again but this time the power management tools report no reason for the wake.

vbezhenar 8y ago

It's the same for many companies. I'm experiencing (what I believe) Nvidia bug. There's some strange page, I submitted that bug and I know nothing of it, absolutely zero further communication, I'm not even sure that this page works.

mgkimsal 8y ago

On the other end of that spectrum, it seems MS have had large teams of QA people doing proactive outreach for security problems. My family members have been contacted 6 times in the past 2 years, each time to let them know that MS had detected a security problem and they needed to help us install a patch immediately.

digi_owl 8y ago
Not sure if joking, as that sounds like a scam call...
- dboreham 8y ago
  Probably forgot the <sarcasm> tag.
michaelmrose 8y ago
How would you distinguish between MS personnel and scammers calling your house to have you install malware?
- egeozcan 8y ago
  That was sarcasm, if I'm not mistaken. Nobody from Microsoft would call you for patching security problems.

digi_owl 8y ago

Reminds me that for some time now the SD reader on a certain model of Intel Atom package has a bad driver. A driver supplied by Microsoft via automatic updates, that can't be rolled back. This seems to affect a number of models from a number of OEMs that use the same "template".

setquk 8y ago

Microsoft's customer service is non-existent even for paying customers and quality is declining. The development tools are getting less reliable each release. On large projects we're seeing tens of Visual Studio crashes a day. On top of that the ecosystem is a wasteland of abandoned projects and rapid semi-schizophrenic direction changes. It's difficult building a product on a moving target. In once case we got Scott Hanselman's attention via HN on an issue but the outcome was clearly that a major part of SCVMM's support for Linux was a hack job and mostly abandoned and their own assigned team member didn't understand the problem domain properly. Chuck it on github for open source lip service then ignore it. Add telemetry on by default. Make it a paid service. Anything to hurt the customer's trust. And I'm going to keep complaining loudly about this until it changes.

ken 8y ago

Why is this shocking? I can't think of any proprietary software, offhand, that has a public bug tracker.

nasredin 8y ago

Wait, Google has customer service? The googleproductforum.com (whatever it's called) which is usually the #1 result in Google is absolutely worthless. I am not joking. It is infuriatingly worthless.

bubblethink 8y ago
Yes, that forum is utterly useless. The trick with google is to use only open source google products. If you find a bug in chromium, AOSP, or any of their other open projects, you can report them on their respective trackers.

bubblethink 8y ago

Is it a brand/PR thing that having a bug tracker means admitting that there are bugs ? Microsoft tends to use github issues as a tracker for some projects even though they don't put code on github (WSL for example). So why not do it for windows ?